Lavengro

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But now, with a nod to the figure who had stopped him, and with another
inquiring glance at myself, the big man once more put his steed into
motion, and, after riding round the ring a few more times, darted through
a lane in the crowd, and followed by his two companions disappeared,
whereupon the figure who had whispered to him, and had subsequently
remained in the middle of the space, came towards me, and, cracking a
whip which he held in his hand so loudly that the report was nearly equal
to that of a pocket pistol, he cried in a strange tone:

"What! the sap-engro? Lor! the sap-engro upon the hill!"

"I remember that word," said I, "and I almost think I remember you. You
can't be--"

"Jasper, your pal! Truth, and no lie, brother."

"It is strange that you should have known me," said I. "I am certain,
but for the word you used, I should never have recognized you."

"Not so strange as you may think, brother; there is something in your
face which would prevent people from forgetting you, even though they
might wish it; and your face is not much altered since the time you wot
of, though you are so much grown. I thought it was you, but to make sure
I dodged about, inspecting you. I believe you felt me, though I never
touched you; a sign, brother, that we are akin, that we are dui palor--two
relations. Your blood beat when mine was near, as mine always does at
the coming of a brother; and we became brothers in that lane."

"And where are you staying?" said I; "in this town?"

"Not in the town; the like of us don't find it exactly wholesome to stay
in towns, we keep abroad. But I have little to do here--come with me,
and I'll show you where we stay."

We descended the hill in the direction of the north, and passing along
the suburb reached the old Norman bridge, which we crossed; the chalk
precipice, with the ruin on its top, was now before us; but turning to
the left we walked swiftly along, and presently came to some rising
ground, which ascending, we found ourselves upon a wild moor or heath.

"You are one of them," said I, "whom people call--"

"Just so," said Jasper; "but never mind what people call us."

"And that tall handsome man on the hill, whom you whispered? I suppose
he's one of ye. What is his name?"

"Tawno Chikno," said Jasper, "which means the small one; we call him such
because he is the biggest man of all our nation. You say he is handsome,
that is not the word, brother; he's the beauty of the world. Women run
wild at the sight of Tawno. An earl's daughter, near London--a fine
young lady with diamonds round her neck--fell in love with Tawno. I have
seen that lass on a heath, as this may be, kneel down to Tawno, clasp his
feet, begging to be his wife--or anything else--if she might go with him.
But Tawno would have nothing to do with her: 'I have a wife of my own,'
said he, 'a lawful rommany wife, whom I love better than the whole world,
jealous though she sometimes be.'"

"And is she very beautiful?" said I.

"Why, you know, brother, beauty is frequently a matter of taste; however,
as you ask my opinion, I should say not quite so beautiful as himself."

We had now arrived at a small valley between two hills, or downs, the
sides of which were covered with furze; in the midst of this valley were
various carts and low tents forming a rude kind of encampment; several
dark children were playing about, who took no manner of notice of us. As
we passed one of the tents, however, a canvas screen was lifted up, and a
woman supported on a crutch hobbled out. She was about the middle age,
and, besides being lame, was bitterly ugly; she was very slovenly
dressed, and on her swarthy features ill nature was most visibly stamped.
She did not deign me a look, but, addressing Jasper in a tongue which I
did not understand, appeared to put some eager questions to him.

"He's coming," said Jasper, and passed on. "Poor fellow," said he to me,
"he has scarcely been gone an hour, and she's jealous already. Well," he
continued, "what do you think of her? you have seen her now, and can
judge for yourself--that 'ere woman is Tawno Chikno's wife!"

CHAPTER XVII.

The Tents--Pleasant Discourse--I am Pharaoh--Shifting for One's
Self--Horse Shoes--This is Wonderful--Bless Your Wisdom--A Pretty
Manoeuvre--Ill Day to the Romans--My Name is Herne--Singular People--An
Original Speech--Word Master--Speaking Romanly.

We went to the farthest of the tents, which stood at a slight distance
from the rest, and which exactly resembled the one which I have described
on a former occasion; we went in and sat down one on each side of a small
fire, which was smouldering on the ground, there was no one else in the
tent but a tall tawny woman of middle age, who was busily knitting.
"Brother," said Jasper, "I wish to hold some pleasant discourse with
you."

"As much as you please," said I, "provided you can find anything pleasant
to talk about."

"Never fear," said Jasper; "and first of all we will talk of yourself.
Where have you been all this long time?"

"Here and there," said I, "and far and near, going about with the
soldiers; but there is no soldiering now, so we have sat down, father and
family, in the town there."

"And do you still hunt snakes?" said Jasper.

"No," said I, "I have given up that long ago; I do better now: read books
and learn languages."

"Well, I am sorry you have given up your snake-hunting; many's the
strange talk I have had with our people about your snake and yourself,
and how you frightened my father and mother in the lane."

"And where are your father and mother?"

"Where I shall never see them, brother; at least, I hope so."

"Not dead?"

"No, not dead; they are bitchadey pawdel."

"What's that?"

"Sent across--banished."

"Ah! I understand; I am sorry for them. And so you are here alone?"

"Not quite alone, brother."

"No, not alone; but with the rest--Tawno Chikno takes care of you."

"Takes care of me, brother!"

"Yes, stands to you in the place of a father--keeps you out of harm's
way."

"What do you take me for, brother?"

"For about three years older than myself."

"Perhaps; but you are of the Gorgios, and I am a Rommany Chal. Tawno
Chikno take care of Jasper Petulengro!"

"Is that your name?"

"Don't you like it?"

"Very much, I never heard a sweeter; it is something like what you call
me."

"The horse-shoe master and the snake-fellow, I am the first."

"Who gave you that name?"

"Ask Pharaoh."

"I would, if he were here, but I do not see him."

"I am Pharaoh."

"Then you are a king."

"Chachipen Pal."

"I do not understand you."

"Where are your languages? You want two things, brother: mother sense,
and gentle Rommany."

"What makes you think that I want sense?"

"That, being so old, you can't yet guide yourself!"

"I can read Dante, Jasper."

"Anan, brother."

"I can charm snakes, Jasper."

"I know you can, brother."

"Yes, and horses too; bring me the most vicious in the land, if I whisper
he'll be tame."

"Then the more shame for you--a snake-fellow--a horse-witch--and a lil-
reader--yet you can't shift for yourself. I laugh at you, brother!"

"Then you can shift for yourself?"

"For myself and for others, brother."

"And what does Chikno?"

"Sells me horses, when I bid him. Those horses on the chong were mine."

"And has he none of his own?"

"Sometimes he has; but he is not so well off as myself. When my father
and mother were bitchadey pawdel, which, to tell you the truth, they
were, for chiving wafodo dloovu, they left me all they had, which was not
a little, and I became the head of our family, which was not a small one.
I was not older than you when that happened; yet our people said they had
never a better krallis to contrive and plan for them, and to keep them in
order. And this is so well known, that many Rommany Chals, not of our
family, come and join themselves to us, living with us for a time, in
order to better themselves, more especially those of the poorer sort, who
have little of their own. Tawno is one of these."

"Is that fine fellow poor?"

"One of the poorest, brother. Handsome as he is, he has not a horse of
his own to ride on. Perhaps we may put it down to his wife, who cannot
move about, being a cripple, as you saw."

"And you are what is called a Gypsy King?"

"Ay, ay; a Rommany Kral."

"Are there other kings?"

"Those who call themselves so; but the true Pharaoh is Petulengro."

"Did Pharaoh make horse-shoes?"

"The first who ever did, brother."

"Pharaoh lived in Egypt."

"So did we once, brother."

"And you left it?"

"My fathers did, brother."

"And why did they come here?"

"They had their reasons, brother."

"And you are not English?"

"We are not gorgios."

"And you have a language of your own?"

"Avali."

"This is wonderful."

"Ha, ha!" cried the woman, who had hitherto sat knitting, at the farther
end of the tent, without saying a word, though not inattentive to our
conversation, as I could perceive, by certain glances, which she
occasionally cast upon us both. "Ha, ha!" she screamed, fixing upon me
two eyes, which shone like burning coals, and which were filled with an
expression both of scorn and malignity; "It is wonderful, is it, that we
should have a language of our own? What, you grudge the poor people the
speech they talk among themselves? That's just like you gorgios, you
would have everybody stupid, single-tongued idiots, like yourselves. We
are taken before the Poknees of the gav, myself and sister, to give an
account of ourselves. So I says to my sister's little boy, speaking
Rommany, I says to the little boy who is with us, run to my son Jasper,
and the rest, and tell them to be off, there are hawks abroad. So the
Poknees questions us, and lets us go, not being able to make anything of
us; but, as we are going, he calls us back. 'Good woman,' says the
Poknees, 'what was that I heard you say just now to the little boy?' 'I
was telling him, your worship, to go and see the time of day, and, to
save trouble, I said it in our own language.' 'Where did you get that
language?' says the Poknees, ''Tis our own language, sir,' I tells him,
'we did not steal it.' 'Shall I tell you what it is, my good woman?'
says the Poknees. 'I would thank you, sir,' says I, 'for 'tis often we
are asked about it.' 'Well, then,' says the Poknees, 'it is no language
at all, merely a made-up gibberish.' 'Oh, bless your wisdom,' says I,
with a curtsey, 'you can tell us what our language is, without
understanding it!' Another time we met a parson. 'Good woman,' he says,
'what's that you are talking? Is it broken language?' 'Of course, your
reverence,' says I, 'we are broken people; give a shilling, your
reverence, to the poor broken woman.' Oh, these gorgios! they grudge us
our very language!"

"She called you her son, Jasper?"

"I am her son, brother."

"I thought you said your parents were--"

"Bitchadey pawdel; you thought right, brother. This is my wife's
mother."

"Then you are married, Jasper?"

"Ay, truly; I am husband and father. You will see wife and chabo anon."

"Where are they now?"

"In the gav, penning dukkerin."

"We were talking of language, Jasper?"

"True, brother."

"Yours must be a rum one?"

"'Tis called Rommany."

"I would gladly know it."

"You need it sorely."

"Would you teach it me?"

"None sooner."

"Suppose we begin now?"

"Suppose we do, brother."

"Not whilst I am here," said the woman, flinging her knitting down, and
starting upon her feet; "not whilst I am here shall this gorgio learn
Rommany. A pretty manoeuvre, truly; and what would be the end of it? I
goes to the farming ker with my sister, to tell a fortune, and earn a few
sixpences for the chabes. I sees a jolly pig in the yard, and I says to
my sister, speaking Rommany, 'Do so and so,' says I; which the farming
man hearing, asks what we are talking about. 'Nothing at all, master,'
says I; 'something about the weather;' when who should start up from
behind a pale, where he has been listening, but this ugly gorgio, crying
out, 'They are after poisoning your pigs, neighbour!' so that we are glad
to run, I and my sister, with perhaps the farm-engro shouting after us.
Says my sister to me, when we have got fairly off, 'How came that ugly
one to know what you said to me?' Whereupon I answers, 'It all comes of
my son Jasper, who brings the gorgio to our fire, and must needs be
teaching him.' 'Who was fool there?' says my sister. 'Who, indeed, but
my son Jasper,' I answers. And here should I be a greater fool to sit
still and suffer it; which I will not do. I do not like the look of him;
he looks over-gorgeous. An ill day to the Romans when he masters
Rommany; and when I says that, I pens a true dukkerin."

"What do you call God, Jasper?"

"You had better be jawing," said the woman, raising her voice to a
terrible scream; "you had better be moving off, my gorgio; hang you for a
keen one, sitting there by the fire, and stealing my language before my
face. Do you know whom you have to deal with? Do you know that I am
dangerous? My name is Herne, and I comes of the hairy ones!"

And a hairy one she looked! She wore her hair clubbed upon her head,
fastened with many strings and ligatures; but now, tearing these off, her
locks, originally jet black, but now partially grizzled with age, fell
down on every side of her, covering her face and back as far down as her
knees. No she-bear from Lapland ever looked more fierce and hairy than
did that woman, as, standing in the open part of the tent, with her head
bent down, and her shoulders drawn up, seemingly about to precipitate
herself upon me, she repeated, again and again,--

"My name is Herne, and I comes of the hairy ones!--"

"I call God Duvel, brother."

"It sounds very like Devil."

"It doth, brother, it doth."

"And what do you call divine, I mean godly?"

"Oh! I call that duvelskoe."

"I am thinking of something, Jasper."

"What are you thinking of, brother?"

"Would it not be a rum thing if divine and devilish were originally one
and the same word?"

"It would, brother, it would--"

* * * * *

From this time I had frequent interviews with Jasper, sometimes in his
tent, sometimes on the heath, about which we would roam for hours,
discoursing on various matters. Sometimes mounted on one of his horses,
of which he had several, I would accompany him to various fairs and
markets in the neighbourhood, to which he went on his own affairs, or
those of his tribe. I soon found that I had become acquainted with a
most singular people, whose habits and pursuits awakened within me the
highest interest. Of all connected with them, however, their language
was doubtless that which exercised the greatest influence over my
imagination. I had at first some suspicion that it would prove a mere
made-up gibberish. But I was soon undeceived. Broken, corrupted, and
half in ruins as it was, it was not long before I found that it was an
original speech, far more so, indeed, than one or two others of high name
and celebrity, which, up to that time, I had been in the habit of
regarding with respect and veneration. Indeed, many obscure points
connected with the vocabulary of these languages, and to which neither
classic nor modern lore afforded any clue, I thought I could now clear up
by means of this strange broken tongue, spoken by people who dwelt among
thickets and furze bushes, in tents as tawny as their faces, and whom the
generality of mankind designated, and with much semblance of justice, as
thieves and vagabonds. But where did this speech come from, and who were
they who spoke it? These were questions which I could not solve, and
which Jasper himself, when pressed, confessed his inability to answer.
"But, whoever we be, brother," said he, "we are an old people, and not
what folks in general imagine, broken gorgios; and, if we are not
Egyptians, we are at any rate Rommany Chals!"

"Rommany Chals! I should not wonder after all," said I, "that these
people had something to do with the founding of Rome. Rome, it is said,
was built by vagabonds, who knows but that some tribe of the kind settled
down thereabouts, and called the town which they built after their name;
but whence did they come originally? ah! there is the difficulty."

But abandoning these questions, 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 broken-hearted--I can't
keep you company; ye are no longer Rommany. To gain a bad brother, ye
have lost a good mother."

CHAPTER XVIII.

What Profession--Not Fitted for a Churchman--Erratic Course--The Bitter
Draught--Principle of Woe--Thou Wouldst be Joyous--What Ails You?--Poor
Child of Clay.

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 any one 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 of 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 of death, it appeared to me little else than a
pleasant sleep, and I wished for sleep, of which I got but little. It
was well that I did not die that time, for I repeat that I was sadly
ignorant of many important things. I did not die, for somebody coming,
gave me a strange, bitter draught; a decoction, I believe, of a bitter
root which grows on commons and desolate places: and the person who gave
it me was an ancient female, a kind of doctress, who had been my nurse in
my infancy, and who, hearing of my state, had come to see me; so I drank
the draught, and became a little better, and I continued taking draughts
made from the bitter root till I manifested symptoms of convalescence.

But how much more quickly does strength desert the human frame than
return to it! I had become convalescent, it is true, but my state of
feebleness was truly pitiable. I believe it is in that state that the
most remarkable feature of human physiology frequently exhibits itself.
Oh, how dare I mention the dark feeling of mysterious dread which comes
over the mind, and which the lamp of reason, though burning bright the
while, is unable to dispel! Art thou, as leeches say, the concomitant of
disease--the result of shattered nerves? Nay, rather the principle of
woe itself, the fountain head of all sorrow coexistent with man, whose
influence he feels when yet unborn, and whose workings he testifies with
his earliest cries, when, "drowned in tears," he first beholds the light;
for, as the sparks fly upward, so is man born to trouble, and woe doth he
bring with him into the world, even thyself, dark one, terrible one,
causeless, unbegotten, without a father. Oh, how unfrequently dost thou
break down the barriers which divide thee from the poor soul of man, and
overcast its sunshine with thy gloomy shadow. In the brightest days of
prosperity--in the midst of health and wealth--how sentient is the poor
human creature of thy neighbourhood! how instinctively aware that the
floodgates of horror may be cast open, and the dark stream engulf him for
ever and ever! Then is it not lawful for man to exclaim, "Better that I
had never been born!" Fool, for thyself thou wast not born, but to
fulfil the inscrutable decrees of thy Creator; and how dost thou know
that this dark principle is not, after all, thy best friend; that it is
not that which tempers the whole mass of thy corruption? It may be, for
what thou knowest, the mother of wisdom, and of great works: it is the
dread of the horror of the night that makes the pilgrim hasten on his
way. When thou feelest it nigh, let thy safety word be "Onward;" if thou
tarry, thou art overwhelmed. Courage! build great works--'tis urging
thee--it is ever nearest the favourites of God--the fool knows little of
it. Thou wouldst be joyous, wouldst thou? then be a fool. What great
work was ever the result of joy, the puny one? Who have been the wise
ones, the mighty ones, the conquering ones of this earth? the joyous? I
believe not. The fool is happy, or comparatively so--certainly the least
sorrowful, but he is still a fool; and whose notes are sweetest, those of
the nightingale, or of the silly lark?