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

which at that time were far too profound for me, I went on studying the language, and at the same time the characters and manners of these strange people. My rapid progress in the former astonished, while it delighted, Jasper. “We’ll no longer call you Sap-engro, brother,” said he; “but rather Lav-engro, which in the language of the gorgios meaneth Word Master.” “Nay, brother,” said Tawno Chikno, with whom I had become very intimate, “you had better call him Cooro-mengro, I have put on the gloves with him, and find him a pure fist master; I like him for that, for I am a Cooro-mengro myself, and was born at Brummagem.”

“I likes him for his modesty,” said Mrs. Chikno; “I never hears any ill words come from his mouth, but, on the contrary, much sweet language. His talk is golden, and he has taught my eldest to say his prayers in Rommany, which my rover had never the grace to do.” “He is the pal of my rom,” said Mrs. Petulengro, who was a very handsome woman, “and therefore I likes him, and not less for his being a rye; folks calls me high-minded, and perhaps I have reason to be so; before I married Pharaoh I had an offer from a lord⁠—I likes the young rye, and, if he chooses to follow us, he shall have my sister. What say you, mother? should not the young rye have my sister Ursula?”

“I am going to my people,” said Mrs. Herne, placing a bundle upon a donkey, which was her own peculiar property; “I am going to Yorkshire, for I can stand this no longer. You say you like him; in that we differs: I hates the gorgio, and would like, speaking Romanly, to mix a little poison with his waters. And now go to Lundra, my children, I goes to Yorkshire. Take my blessing with ye, and a little bit of a gillie to cheer your hearts with when ye are weary. In all kinds of weather have we lived together; but now we are parted, I goes brokenhearted. I can’t keep you company; ye are no longer Rommany. To gain a bad brother, ye have lost a good mother.”

XVIII

So the gypsies departed: Mrs. Herne to Yorkshire, and the rest to London. As for myself, I continued in the house of my parents, passing my time in much the same manner as I have already described, principally in philological pursuits. But I was now sixteen, and it was highly necessary that I should adopt some profession, unless I intended to fritter away my existence, and to be a useless burden to those who had given me birth. But what profession was I to choose? there being none in the wide world perhaps for which I was suited; nor was there anyone for which I felt any decided inclination, though perhaps there existed within me a lurking penchant for the profession of arms, which was natural enough, as, from my earliest infancy, I had been accustomed to military sights and sounds; but this profession was then closed, as I have already hinted, and, as I believe, it has since continued, to those who, like myself, had no better claims to urge than the services of a father.

My father, who, for certain reasons of his own, had no very high opinion of the advantages resulting from this career, would have gladly seen me enter the Church. His desire was, however, considerably abated by one or two passages of my life, which occurred to his recollection. He particularly dwelt on the unheard-of manner in which I had picked up the Irish language, and drew from thence the conclusion that I was not fitted by nature to cut a respectable figure at an English university. “He will fly off in a tangent,” said he, “and, when called upon to exhibit his skill in Greek, will be found proficient in Irish; I have observed the poor lad attentively, and really do not know what to make of him; but I am afraid he will never make a churchman!” And I have no doubt that my excellent father was right, both in his premises and the conclusion at which he arrived. I had undoubtedly, at one period of my life, forsaken Greek for Irish, and the instructions of a learned Protestant divine for those of a Papist gassoon, the card-fancying Murtagh; and of late, though I kept it a strict secret, I had abandoned in a great measure the study of the beautiful Italian, and the recitation of the sonorous terzets of the Divine Comedy, in which at one time I took the greatest delight, in order to become acquainted with the broken speech, and yet more broken songs, of certain houseless wanderers whom I had met at a horse fair. Such an erratic course was certainly by no means in consonance with the sober and unvarying routine of college study. And my father, who was a man of excellent common sense, displayed it, in not pressing me to adopt a profession which required qualities of mind which he saw I did not possess.

Other professions were talked of, amongst which the law; but now an event occurred which had nearly stopped my career, and merged all minor points of solicitude in anxiety for my life. My strength and appetite suddenly deserted me, and I began to pine and droop. Some said that I had overgrown myself, and that these were the symptoms of a rapid decline; I grew worse and worse, and was soon stretched upon my bed, from which it seemed scarcely probable that I should ever more rise, the physicians themselves giving but slight hopes of my recovery; as for myself, I made up my mind to die, and felt quite resigned. I was sadly ignorant at that time, and, when I thought