Lavengro: the Scholar - the Gypsy - the Priest. Borrow George
Mistress Hyne, who is from Londonderry, ‘God bless me,’ said I, ‘what a truly Protestant countenance, what a noble bearing, and what a sweet young gentleman. By the silver hairs of his honour—and sure enough I never saw hairs more regally silver than those of your honour—by his honour’s gray silver hairs, and by my own soul, which is not worthy to be mentioned in the same day with one of them—it would be no more than decent and civil to run out and welcome such a father and son coming in at the head of such a Protestant military.’ And then my wife, who is from Londonderry, Mistress Hyne, looking me in the face like a fairy as she is, ‘You may say that,’ says she. ‘It would be but decent and civil, honey.’ And your honour knows how I ran out of my own door and welcomed your honour riding in company with your son, who was walking; how I welcomed ye both at the head of your royal regiment, and how I shook your honour by the hand, saying, I am glad to see your honour, and your honour’s son, and your honour’s royal military Protestant regiment. And now I have you in the house, and right proud I am to have ye one and all; one, two, three, four, true Protestants every one, no Papists here; and I have made bold to bring up a bottle of claret which is now waiting behind the door; and, when your honour and your family have dined, I will make bold too to bring up Mistress Hyne, from Londonderry, to introduce to your honour’s lady, and then we’ll drink to the health of King George, God bless him; to the ‘glorious and immortal’—to Boyne water—to your honour’s speedy promotion to be Lord Lieutenant, and to the speedy downfall of the Pope and Saint Anthony of Padua.”
Such was the speech of the Irish Protestant addressed to my father in the long lofty dining-room with three windows, looking upon the high street of the good town of Clonmel, as he sat at meat with his family, after saying grace like a true-hearted respectable soldier as he was.
“A bigot and an Orangeman!” Oh, yes! It is easier to apply epithets of opprobrium to people than to make yourself acquainted with their history and position. He was a specimen, and a fair specimen, of a most remarkable body of men, who during two centuries have fought a good fight in Ireland in the cause of civilization and religious truth; they were sent as colonists, few in number, into a barbarous and unhappy country, where ever since, though surrounded with difficulties of every kind, they have maintained their ground; theirs has been no easy life, nor have their lines fallen upon very pleasant places; amidst darkness they have held up a lamp, and it would be well for Ireland were all her children like these her adopted ones. “But they are fierce and sanguinary,” it is said. Ay, ay! they have not unfrequently opposed the keen sword to the savage pike. “But they are bigoted and narrow-minded.” Ay, ay! they do not like idolatry, and will not bow the knee before a stone! “But their language is frequently indecorous.” Go to, my dainty one, did ye ever listen to the voice of Papist cursing?
The Irish Protestants have faults, numerous ones; but the greater number of these may be traced to the peculiar circumstances of their position: but they have virtues, numerous ones; and their virtues are their own, their industry, their energy, and their undaunted resolution are their own. They have been vilified and traduced—but what would Ireland be without them? I repeat, that it would be well for her were all her sons no worse than these much calumniated children of her adoption.
CHAPTER X.
Protestant Young Gentlemen—The Greek Letters—Open Chimney—Murtagh—Paris and Salamanca—Nothing to do—To Whit, to Whoo!—The Pack of Cards—Before Christmas.
We continued at this place for some months, during which time the soldiers performed their duties, whatever they were; and I, having no duties to perform, was sent to school. I had been to English schools, and to the celebrated one of Edinburgh; but my education, at the present day, would not be what it is—perfect, had I never had the honour of being alumnus in an Irish seminary.
“Captain,” said our kind host, “you would, no doubt, wish that the young gentleman should enjoy every advantage which the town may afford towards helping him on in the path of genteel learning. It’s a great pity that he should waste his time in idleness—doing nothing else than what he says he has been doing for the last fortnight—fishing in the river for trouts which he never catches; and wandering up the glen in the mountain, in search of the hips that grow there. Now, we have a school here, where he can learn the most elegant Latin, and get an insight into the Greek letters, which is desirable; and where, moreover, he will have an opportunity of making acquaintance with all the Protestant young gentlemen of the place, the handsome well-dressed young persons whom your honour sees in the church on the Sundays, when your honour goes there in the morning, with the rest of the Protestant military; for it is no Papist school, though there may be a Papist or two there—a few poor farmers’ sons from the country, with whom there is no necessity for your honour’s child to form any acquaintance at all, at all!”
And to the school I went, where I read the Latin tongue and the Greek letters, with a nice old clergyman, who sat behind a black oaken desk, with a huge Elzevir Flaccus before him, in a long gloomy kind of hall, with a broken stone floor, the roof festooned with cobwebs, the walls considerably dilapidated, and covered over with strange figures and hieroglyphics, evidently produced by the application of burnt stick; and there I made acquaintance with the Protestant young gentlemen of the place, who, with whatever éclat they might appear at church on a Sunday, did assuredly not exhibit to much advantage in the school-room on the week days, either with respect to clothes or looks. And there I was in the habit of sitting on a large stone, before the roaring fire in the huge open chimney, and entertaining certain of the Protestant young gentlemen of my own age, seated on similar stones, with extraordinary accounts of my own adventures, and those of the corps, with an occasional anecdote extracted from the story-books of Hickathrift and Wight Wallace, pretending to be conning the lesson all the while.
And there I made acquaintance, notwithstanding the hint of the land lord, with the Papist “gasoons,” as they were called, the farmers’ sons from the country; and of these gasoons, of which there were three two might be reckoned as nothing at all; in the third, however, I soon discovered that there was something extraordinary.
He was about sixteen years old, and above six feet high, dressed in a gray suit; the coat, from its size, appeared to have been made for him some ten years before. He was remarkably narrow-chested and round-shouldered, owing, perhaps, as much to the tightness of his garment as to the hand of nature. His face was long, and his complexion swarthy, relieved, however, by certain freckles, with which the skin was plentifully studded. He had strange wandering eyes, gray, and somewhat unequal in size; they seldom rested on the book, but were generally wandering about the room, from one object to another. Sometimes he would fix them intently on the wall; and then suddenly starting, as if from a reverie, he would commence making certain mysterious movements with his thumbs and fore-fingers, as if he were shuffling something from him.
One morning, as he sat by himself on a bench, engaged in this manner, I went up to him, and said, “Good day, Murtagh; you do not seem to have much to do?”
“Faith, you may say that, Shorsha dear!—it is seldom much to do that I have.”
“And what are you doing with your hands?”
“Faith, then, if I must tell you, I was e’en dealing with the cards.”
“Do you play much at cards?”
“Sorra a game, Shorsha, have I played with the cards since my uncle Phelim, the thief, stole away the ould pack, when he went to settle in the county Waterford!”
“But you have other things to do?”
“Sorra anything else has Murtagh to do that he cares about; and that makes me dread so going home at nights.”
“I should like to know all about you; where do you live, joy?”
“Faith, then, ye shall know all about me, and where I live. It is at a place called the Wilderness that I live, and they call it so, because it is a fearful wild place, without any house near it but my father’s