Lavengro - George Borrow (nice books to read TXT) 📗

silly young fellows, they hoisted the standard of rebellion; few, however, joining them, partly because they had no money, and partly because the priests abused them with might and main, their rebellion ended in a lamentable manner; themselves being seized and tried, and though convicted, not deemed of sufficient importance to be sent to the scaffold, where they might have had the satisfaction of saying⁠—

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

My visitor, after saying that of the money won, Murtagh retained a considerable portion, that a part went to the hierarchy for what were called church purposes, and that the ⸻ took the remainder, which it employed in establishing a newspaper, in which the private characters of the worthiest and most loyal Protestants in Ireland were traduced and vilified, concluded his account by observing, that it was the common belief that Murtagh, having by his services, ecclesiastical and political, acquired the confidence of the priesthood and favour of the Government, would, on the first vacancy, be appointed to the high office of Popish Primate of Ireland.

XLVII

Leaving Horncastle I bent my steps in the direction of the east.345 I walked at a brisk rate, and late in the evening reached a large town, situate at the entrance of an extensive firth, or arm of the sea, which prevented my farther progress eastward. Sleeping that night in the suburbs of the town, I departed early next morning in the direction of the south. A walk of about twenty miles brought me to another large town, situated on a river, where I again turned towards the east. At the end of the town I was accosted by a fiery-faced individual, somewhat under the middle size, dressed as a recruiting sergeant.

“Young man,” said the recruiting sergeant, “you are just the kind of person to serve the Honourable East India Company.”

“I had rather the Honourable Company should serve me,” said I.

“Of course, young man. Well, the Honourable East India Company shall serve you⁠—that’s reasonable. Here, take this shilling; ’tis service-money. The Honourable Company engages to serve you, and you the Honourable Company; both parties shall be thus served; that’s just and reasonable.”

“And what must I do for the Company?”

“Only go to India; that’s all.”

“And what should I do in India?”

“Fight, my brave boy! fight, my youthful hero!”

“What kind of country is India?”

“The finest country in the world! Rivers, bigger than the Ouse. Hills, higher than anything near Spalding! Trees⁠—you never saw such trees! Fruits⁠—you never saw such fruits!”

“And the people⁠—what kind of folk are they?”

“Pah! Kauloes⁠—blacks⁠—a set of rascals not worth regarding.”

“Kauloes!” said I; “blacks!”

“Yes,” said the recruiting sergeant; “and they call us lolloes, which in their beastly gibberish, means reds.”

“Lolloes!” said I; “reds!”

“Yes,” said the recruiting sergeant, “kauloes and lolloes; and all the lolloes have to do is to kick and cut down the kauloes, and take from them their rupees, which mean silver money. Why do you stare so?”

“Why,” said I, “this is the very language of Mr. Petulengro.”

“Mr. Pet⁠—?”

“Yes,” said I, “and Tawno Chikno.”

“Tawno Chik⁠—? I say, young fellow, I don’t like your way of speaking; no, nor your way of looking. You are mad, sir; you are mad; and what’s this? Why your hair is grey! You won’t do for the Honourable Company⁠—they like red. I’m glad I didn’t give you the shilling. Good day to you.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said I as I proceeded rapidly along a broad causeway, in the direction of the east, “if Mr. Petulengro and Tawno Chikno came originally from India. I think I’ll go there.”

Part III Appendix I A Word for Lavengro

[Shortly after the publication of the first three volumes of the present work, the author received various letters from individuals, in which he was requested to state what might be the drift and tendency of Lavengro. The author cannot help thinking it somewhat extraordinary, that, after a preface in which he was particularly careful to tell the public what the book was, and the object with which it was written, any fresh information with respect to it should be required of him. As, however, all the letters which he has received have been written in a friendly spirit, he will now endeavour to be a little more explicit than on a former occasion.]

Lavengro is the history up to a certain period of one of rather a peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold, under which lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is wild and extraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and an unconquerable love of independence. It narrates his earliest dreams and feelings, dwells with minuteness on the ways, words and characters of his father, mother and brother, lingers on the occasional resting-places of his wandering half-military childhood, describes the gradual hardening of his bodily frame by robust exercises, his successive struggles, after his family and himself have settled down in a small local capital, to obtain knowledge of every kind, but more particularly philological lore; his visits to the tent of the Romany chal, and the parlour of the Anglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his character by his flinging himself into contact with people all widely differing from each other, but all extraordinary; his reluctance to settle down to the ordinary pursuits of life; his struggles after moral truth; his glimpses of God and the obscuration of the Divine Being, to his mind’s eye; and his being cast upon the world of London by the death of his father, at the age of nineteen.346 In the world within a world, the world of London, it shows him playing his part for some time as he best can, in the capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes what he saw and underwent