Lavengro: The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest. Borrow George
I might be made a saggart of, and sent to Paris and Salamanca.’
‘And you would rather be a farmer than a priest?’
‘You may say that! – for, were I a farmer, like the rest, I should have something to do, like the rest – something that I cared for – and I should come home tired at night, and fall asleep, as the rest do, before the fire; but when I comes home at night I am not tired, for I have been doing nothing all day that I care for; and then I sits down and stares about me, and at the fire, till I become frighted; and then I shouts to my brother Denis, or to the gossoons, “Get up, I say, and let’s be doing something; tell us the tale of Finn-ma-Coul, and how he lay down in the Shannon’s bed, and let the river flow down his jaws!” Arrah, Shorsha! I wish you would come and stay with us, and tell us some o’ your sweet stories of your own self and the snake ye carried about wid ye. Faith, Shorsha dear! that snake bates anything about Finn-ma-Coul or Brian Boroo, the thieves two, bad luck to them!’
‘And do they get up and tell you stories?’
‘Sometimes they does, but oftenmost they curses me, and bids me be quiet! But I can’t be quiet, either before the fire or abed; so I runs out of the house, and stares at the rocks, at the trees, and sometimes at the clouds, as they run a race across the bright moon; and, the more I stares, the more frighted I grows, till I screeches and holloas. And last night I went into the barn, and hid my face in the straw; and there, as I lay and shivered in the straw, I heard a voice above my head singing out “To whit, to whoo!” and then up I starts, and runs into the house, and falls over my brother Denis, as he lies at the fire. “What’s that for?” says he. “Get up, you thief!” says I, “and be helping me. I have been out into the barn, and an owl has crow’d at me!”’
‘And what has this to do with playing cards?’
‘Little enough, Shorsha dear! – If there were card-playing, I should not be frighted.’
‘And why do you not play at cards?’
‘Did I not tell you that the thief, my uncle Phelim, stole away the pack? If we had the pack, my brother Denis and the gossoons would be ready enough to get up from their sleep before the fire, and play cards with me for ha’pence, or eggs, or nothing at all; but the pack is gone – bad luck to the thief who took it!’
‘And why don’t you buy another?’
‘Is it of buying you are speaking? And where am I to get the money?’
‘Ah! that’s another thing!’
‘Faith it is, honey! – And now the Christmas holidays is coming, when I shall be at home by day as well as night, and then what am I to do? Since I have been a saggarting, I have been good for nothing at all – neither for work nor Greek – only to play cards! Faith, it’s going mad I will be!’
‘I say, Murtagh!’
‘Yes, Shorsha dear!’
‘I have a pack of cards.’
‘You don’t say so, Shorsha ma vourneen? – you don’t say that you have cards fifty-two?’
‘I do, though; and they are quite new – never been once used.’
‘And you’ll be lending them to me, I warrant?’
‘Don’t think it! – But I’ll sell them to you, joy, if you like.’
‘Hanam mon Dioul! am I not after telling you that I have no money at all!’
‘But you have as good as money, to me, at least; and I’ll take it in exchange.’
‘What’s that, Shorsha dear?’
‘Irish!’
‘Irish?’
‘Yes, you speak Irish; I heard you talking it the other day to the cripple. You shall teach me Irish.’
‘And is it a language-master you’d be making of me?’
‘To be sure! – what better can you do? – it would help you to pass your time at school. You can’t learn Greek, so you must teach Irish!’
Before Christmas, Murtagh was playing at cards with his brother Denis, and I could speak a considerable quantity of broken Irish.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TEMPLEMORE – DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN – NO COMPANION – FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE – WAY OF THE WORLD – RUINED CASTLE – GRIM & DESOLATE – DONJON – MY OWN HOUSE
When Christmas was over, and the new year commenced, we broke up our quarters, and marched away to Templemore. This was a large military station, situated in a wild and thinly inhabited country. Extensive bogs were in the neighbourhood, connected with the huge bog of Allen, the Palus Mæotis of Ireland. Here and there was seen a ruined castle looming through the mists of winter; whilst, at the distance of seven miles, rose a singular mountain, exhibiting in its brow a chasm, or vacuum, just, for all the world, as if a piece had been bitten out; a feat which, according to the tradition of the country, had actually been performed by his Satanic majesty, who, after flying for some leagues with the morsel in his mouth, becoming weary, dropped it in the vicinity of Cashel, where it may now be seen in the shape of a bold bluff hill, crowned with the ruins of a stately edifice, probably built by some ancient Irish king.
We had been here only a few days, when my brother, who, as I have before observed, had become one of his Majesty’s officers, was sent on detachment to a village at about ten miles’ distance. He was not sixteen, and, though three years older than myself, scarcely my equal in stature, for I had become tall and large-limbed for my age; but there was a spirit in him which would not have disgraced a general; and, nothing daunted at the considerable responsibility which he was about to incur, he marched sturdily out of the barrack-yard at the head of his party, consisting of twenty light-infantry men, and a tall grenadier sergeant, selected expressly by my father, for the soldier-like qualities which he possessed, to accompany his son on this his first expedition. So out of the barrack-yard, with something of an air, marched my dear brother, his single drum and fife playing the inspiring old melody,
Marlbrouk is gone to the wars,
He’ll never return no more!
I soon missed my brother, for I was now alone, with no being, at all assimilating in age, with whom I could exchange a word. Of late years, from being almost constantly at school, I had cast aside, in a great degree, my unsocial habits and natural reserve, but in the desolate region in which we now were there was no school; and I felt doubly the loss of my brother, whom, moreover, I tenderly loved for his own sake. Books I had none, at least such ‘as I cared about’; and with respect to the old volume, the wonders of which had first beguiled me into common reading, I had so frequently pored over its pages, that I had almost got its contents by heart. I was therefore in danger of falling into the same predicament as Murtagh, becoming ‘frighted’ from having nothing to do! Nay, I had not even his resources; I cared not for cards, even if I possessed them and could find people disposed to play with them. However, I made the most of circumstances, and roamed about the desolate fields and bogs in the neighbourhood, sometimes entering the cabins of the peasantry, with a ‘God’s blessing upon you, good people!’ where I would take my seat on the ‘stranger’s stone’ at the corner of the hearth, and, looking them full in the face, would listen to the carles and carlines talking Irish.
Ah, that Irish! How frequently do circumstances, at first sight the most trivial and unimportant, exercise a mighty and permanent influence on our habits and pursuits! – how frequently is a stream turned aside from its natural course by some little rock or knoll, causing it to make an abrupt turn! On a wild road in Ireland I had heard Irish spoken for the first time; and I was seized with a desire to learn Irish, the acquisition of which, in my case, became the stepping-stone to other languages. I had previously learnt Latin, or rather Lilly; but neither Latin nor Lilly made me a philologist. I had frequently heard French and other languages, but had felt little desire to become acquainted with them; and what, it may be asked, was there connected with the Irish calculated to recommend it to my attention?
First