Lavengro

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"Pray," said I, "did you ever take lessons in elocution?"

"Not directly," said the postillion; "but my old master, who was in
Parliament, did, and so did his son, who was intended to be an orator. A
great professor used to come and give them lessons, and I used to stand
and listen, by which means I picked up a considerable quantity of what is
called rhetoric. In what I last said, I was aiming at what I have heard
him frequently endeavouring to teach my governors as a thing
indispensably necessary in all oratory, a graceful
pere--pere--peregrination."

"Peroration, perhaps?"

"Just so," said the postillion; "and now I'm sure I am not mistaken about
you; you have taken lessons yourself, at first hand, in the college
vacations, and a promising pupil you were, I make no doubt. Well, your
friends will be all the happier to get you back. Has your governor much
borough interest?"

"I ask you once more," said I, addressing myself to Belle, "what you
think of the history which this good man has made for us?"

"What should I think of it," said Belle, still keeping her face buried in
her hands, "but that it is mere nonsense?"

"Nonsense!" said the postillion.

"Yes," said the girl, "and you know it."

"May my leg always ache, if I do," said the postillion, patting his leg
with his hand; "will you persuade me that this young man has never been
at college?"

"I have never been at college, but--"

"Ay, ay," said the postillion; "but--"

"I have been to the best schools in Britain, to say nothing of a
celebrated one in Ireland."

"Well, then, it comes to the same thing," said the postillion; "or
perhaps you know more than if you had been at college--and your
governor?"

"My governor, as you call him," said I, "is dead."

"And his borough interest?"

"My father had no borough interest," said I; "had he possessed any, he
would perhaps not have died as he did, honourably poor."

"No, no," said the postillion; "if he had had borough interest, he
wouldn't have been poor, nor honourable, though perhaps a right
honourable. However, with your grand education and genteel manners, you
made all right at last by persuading this noble young gentlewoman to run
away from boarding-school with you."

"I was never at boarding-school," said Belle, "unless you call--"

"Ay, ay," said the postillion, "boarding-school is vulgar, I know: I beg
your pardon, I ought to have called it academy, or by some other much
finer name--you were in something much greater than a boarding-school."

"There you are right," said Belle, lifting up her head and looking the
postillion full in the face by the light of the charcoal fire; "for I was
bred in the workhouse."

"Wooh!" said the postillion.

"It is true that I am of good--"

"Ay, ay," said the postillion, "let us hear--"

"Of good blood," continued Belle; "my name is Berners, Isopel Berners,
though my parents were unfortunate. Indeed, with respect to blood, I
believe I am of better blood than the young man."

"There you are mistaken," said I; "by my father's side I am of Cornish
blood, and by my mother's of brave French Protestant extraction. Now,
with respect to the blood of my father--and to be descended well on the
father's side is the principal thing--it is the best blood in the world,
for the Cornish blood, as the proverb says--"

"I don't care what the proverb says," said Belle; "I say my blood is the
best--my name is Berners, Isopel Berners--it was my mother's name, and is
better, I am sure, than any you bear, whatever that may be; and though
you say that the descent on the father's side is the principal thing--and
I know why you say so," she added with some excitement--"I say that
descent on the mother's side is of most account, because the mother--"

"Just come from Gretna Green, and already quarrelling!" said the
postillion.

"We do not come from Gretna Green," said Belle.

"Ah, I had forgot," said the postillion, "none but great people go to
Gretna Green. Well, then, from church, and already quarrelling about
family, just like two great people."

"We have never been to church," said Belle, "and, to prevent any more
guessing on your part, it will be as well for me to tell you, friend,
that I am nothing to the young man, and he, of course, nothing to me. I
am a poor travelling girl, born in a workhouse: journeying on my
occasions with certain companions, I came to this hollow, where my
company quarrelled with the young man, who had settled down here, as he
had a right to do, if he pleased; and not being able to drive him out,
they went away after quarrelling with me, too, for not choosing to side
with them; so I stayed here along with the young man, there being room
for us both, and the place being as free to me as to him."

"And, in order that you may be no longer puzzled with respect to myself,"
said I, "I will give you a brief outline of my history. I am the son of
honourable parents, who gave me a first-rate education, as far as
literature and languages went, with which education I endeavoured, on the
death of my father, to advance myself to wealth and reputation in the big
city; but failing in the attempt, I conceived a disgust for the busy
world, and determined to retire from it. After wandering about for some
time, and meeting with various adventures, in one of which I contrived to
obtain a pony, cart, and certain tools, used by smiths and tinkers, I
came to this place, where I amused myself with making horse-shoes, or
rather pony-shoes, having acquired the art of wielding the hammer and
tongs from a strange kind of smith--not him of Gretna Green--whom I knew
in my childhood. And here I lived, doing harm to no one, quite lonely
and solitary, till one fine morning the premises were visited by this
young gentlewoman and her companions. She did herself anything but
justice when she said that her companions quarrelled with her because she
would not side with them against me; they quarrelled with her, because
she came most heroically to my assistance as I was on the point of being
murdered; and she forgot to tell you, that after they had abandoned her,
she stood by me in the dark hour, comforting and cheering me, when
unspeakable dread, to which I am occasionally subject, took possession of
my mind. She says she is nothing to me, even as I am nothing to her. I
am of course nothing to her, but she is mistaken in thinking she is
nothing to me. I entertain the highest regard and admiration for her,
being convinced that I might search the whole world in vain for a nature
more heroic and devoted."

"And for my part," said Belle, with a sob, "a more quiet agreeable
partner in a place like this I would not wish to have; it is true he has
strange ways, and frequently puts words into my mouth very difficult to
utter, but--but--" and here she buried her face once more in her hands.

"Well," said the postillion, "I have been mistaken about you; that is,
not altogether, but in part. You are not rich folks, it seems, but you
are not common people, and that I could have sworn. What I call a shame
is, that some people I have known are not in your place and you in
theirs,--you with their estates and borough interest, they in this dingle
with these carts and animals; but there is no help for these things. Were
I the great Mumbo Jumbo above, I would endeavour to manage matters
better; but being a simple postillion, glad to earn three shillings a
day, I can't be expected to do much."

"Who is Mumbo Jumbo?" said I.

"Ah!" said the postillion, "I see there may be a thing or two I know
better than yourself. Mumbo Jumbo is a god of the black coast, to which
people go for ivory and gold."

"Were you ever there?" I demanded.

"No," said the postillion, "but I heard plenty of Mumbo Jumbo when I was
a boy."

"I wish you would tell us something about yourself. I believe that your
own real history would prove quite as entertaining, if not more, than
that which you imagined about us."

"I am rather tired," said the postillion, "and my leg is rather
troublesome. I should be glad to try to sleep upon one of your blankets.
However, as you wish to hear something about me, I shall be happy to
oblige you; but your fire is rather low, and this place is chilly."

Thereupon I arose, and put fresh charcoal on the pan; then taking it
outside the tent, with a kind of fan which I had fashioned, I fanned the
coals into a red glow, and continued doing so until the greater part of
the noxious gas, which the coals are in the habit of exhaling, was
exhausted. I then brought it into the tent and reseated myself,
scattering over the coals a small portion of sugar. "No bad smell," said
the postillion; "but upon the whole I think I like the smell of tobacco
better; and with your permission I will once more light my pipe."

Thereupon he relighted his pipe; and, after taking two or three whiffs,
began in the following manner.

CHAPTER XCVIII.

An Exordium--Fine Ships--High Barbary Captains--Free-Born
Englishmen--Monstrous Figure--Swash-buckler--The Grand Coaches--The
Footmen--A Travelling Expedition--Black Jack--Nelson's Cannon--Pharaoh's
Butler--A Diligence--Two Passengers--Sharking Priest--Virgilio--Lessons
in Italian--Two Opinions--Holy Mary--Priestly Confederates--Methodist
Chapel--Veturini--Some of Our Party--Like a Sepulchre--All for
Themselves.

"I am a poor postillion, as you see; yet, as I have seen a thing or two,
and heard a thing or two of what is going on in the world, perhaps what I
have to tell you connected with myself may not prove altogether
uninteresting. Now, my friends, this manner of opening a story is what
the man who taught rhetoric would call a hex--hex--"

"Exordium," said I.

"Just so," said the postillion; "I treated you to a per--per--peroration
some time ago, so that I have contrived to put the cart before the horse,
as the Irish orators frequently do in the honourable House, in whose
speeches, especially those who have taken lessons in rhetoric, the
per--per--what's the word?--frequently goes before the exordium.

"I was born in the neighbouring county; my father was land-steward to a
squire of about a thousand a year. My father had two sons, of whom I am
the youngest by some years. My elder brother was of a spirited roving
disposition, and for fear that he should turn out what is generally
termed ungain, my father determined to send him to sea: so once upon a
time, when my brother was about fifteen, he took him to the great sea-
port of the county, where he apprenticed him to a captain of one of the
ships which trade to the high Barbary coast. Fine ships they were, I
have heard say, more than thirty in number, and all belonging to a
wonderful great gentleman, who had once been a parish boy, but had
contrived to make an immense fortune by trading to that coast for gold-
dust, ivory, and other strange articles; and for doing so, I mean for
making a fortune, had been made a knight baronet. So my brother went to
the high Barbary shore, on board the fine vessel, and in about a year
returned and came to visit us; he repeated the voyage several times,
always coming to see his parents on his return. Strange stories he used
to tell us of what he had been witness to on the high Barbary coast, both
off shore and on. He said that the fine vessel in which he sailed was
nothing better than a painted hell; that the captain was a veritable
fiend, whose grand delight was in tormenting his men, especially when
they were sick, as they frequently were, there being always fever on the
high Barbary coast; and that though the captain was occasionally sick
himself, his being so made no difference, or rather it did make a
difference, though for the worse, he being when sick always more
inveterate and malignant than at other times. He said that once, when he
himself was sick, his captain had pitched his face all over, which
exploit was much applauded by the other high Barbary captains; all of
whom, from what my brother said, appeared to be of much the same
disposition as my brother's captain, taking wonderful delight in
tormenting the crews, and doing all manner of terrible things. My
brother frequently said that nothing whatever prevented him from running
away from his ship, and never returning, but the hope he entertained of
one day being captain himself, and able to torment people in his turn,
which he solemnly vowed he would do, as a kind of compensation for what
he himself had undergone. And if things were going on in a strange way
off the high Barbary shore amongst those who came there to trade, they
were going on in a way yet stranger with the people who lived upon it.

"Oh the strange ways of the black men who lived on that shore, of which
my brother used to tell us at home; selling their sons, daughters, and
servants for slaves, and the prisoners taken in battle, to the Spanish
captains, to be carried to Havannah, and when there, sold at a profit,
the idea of which, my brother said, went to the hearts of our own
captains, who used to say what a hard thing it was that free-born
Englishmen could not have a hand in the traffic, seeing that it was
forbidden by the laws of their country; talking fondly of the good old
times when their forefathers used to carry slaves to Jamaica and
Barbadoes, realizing immense profit, besides the pleasure of hearing
their shrieks on the voyage; and then the superstitions of the blacks,
which my brother used to talk of; their sharks' teeth, their wisps of
fowls' feathers, their half-baked pots, full of burnt bones, of which
they used to make what they called fetish; and bow down to, and ask
favours of, and then, perhaps, abuse and strike, provided the senseless
rubbish did not give them what they asked for; and then, above all, Mumbo
Jumbo, the grand fetish master, who lived somewhere in the woods, and who
used to come out every now and then with his fetish companions; a
monstrous figure, all wound round with leaves and branches, so as to be
quite indistinguishable, and, seating himself on the high seat in the
villages, receive homage from the people, and also gifts and offerings,
the most valuable of which were pretty damsels, and then betake himself
back again, with his followers, into the woods. Oh the tales that my
brother used to tell us of the high Barbary shore! Poor fellow! what
became of him I can't say; the last time he came back from a voyage, he
told us that his captain, as soon as he had brought his vessel to port,
and settled with his owner, drowned himself off the quay, in a fit of the
horrors, which it seems high Barbary captains, after a certain number of
years, are much subject to. After staying about a month with us, he went
to sea again, with another captain; and, bad as the old one had been, it
appears the new one was worse, for, unable to bear his treatment, my
brother left his ship off the high Barbary shore, and ran away up the
country. Some of his comrades, whom we afterwards saw, said that there
were various reports about him on the shore; one that he had taken on
with Mumbo Jumbo, and was serving him in his house in the woods, in the
capacity of swash-buckler, or life-guardsman; another, that he was gone
in quest of a mighty city in the heart of the negro country; another,
that in swimming a stream he had been devoured by an alligator. Now,
these two last reports were bad enough; the idea of their flesh and blood
being bit asunder by a ravenous fish, was sad enough to my poor parents;
and not very comfortable was the thought of his sweltering over the hot
sands in quest of the negro city; but the idea of their son, their eldest
child, serving Mumbo Jumbo as swash-buckler, was worst of all, and caused
my poor parents to shed many a scalding tear.

"I stayed at home with my parents until I was about eighteen, assisting
my father in various ways. I then went to live at the Squire's, partly
as groom, partly as footman. After living in the country some time, I
attended the family in a trip of six weeks, which they made to London.
Whilst there, happening to have some words with an old ill-tempered
coachman, who had been for a great many years in the family, my master
advised me to leave, offering to recommend me to a family of his
acquaintance who were in need of a footman. I was glad to accept his
offer, and in a few days went to my new place. My new master was one of
the great gentry, a baronet in Parliament, and possessed of an estate of
about twenty thousand a year; his family consisted of his lady, a son, a
fine young man, just coming of age, and two very sweet amiable daughters.
I liked this place much better than my first, there was so much more
pleasant noise and bustle--so much more grand company--and so many more
opportunities of improving myself. Oh, how I liked to see the grand
coaches drive up to the door, with the grand company; and though, amidst
that company, there were some who did not look very grand, there were
others, and not a few, who did. Some of the ladies quite captivated me;
there was the Marchioness of --- in particular. This young lady puts me
much in mind of her; it is true, the Marchioness, as I saw her then, was
about fifteen years older than this young gentlewoman is now, and not so
tall by some inches, but she had the very same hair, and much the same
neck and shoulders--no offence, I hope? And then some of the young
gentlemen, with their cool, haughty, care-for-nothing looks, struck me as
being very fine fellows. There was one in particular, whom I frequently
used to stare at, not altogether unlike some one I have seen
hereabouts--he had a slight cast in his eye, and--but I won't enter into
every particular. And then the footmen! Oh, how those footmen helped to
improve me with their conversation. Many of them could converse much
more glibly than their masters, and appeared to have much better taste.
At any rate, they seldom approved of what their masters did. I remember
being once with one in the gallery of the play-house, when something of
Shakspeare's was being performed; some one in the first tier of boxes was
applauding very loudly. 'That's my fool of a governor,' said he; 'he is
weak enough to like Shakspeare--I don't--he's so confoundedly low, but he
won't last long--going down. Shakspeare culminated--I think that was the
word--culminated some time ago.'

"And then the professor of elocution, of whom my governors used to take
lessons, and of which lessons I had my share, by listening behind the
door; but for that professor of elocution I should not be able to round
my periods--an expression of his--in the manner I do.

"After I had been three years at this place my mistress died. Her death,
however, made no great alteration in my way of living, the family
spending their winters in London, and their summers at their old seat in
S--- as before. At last, the young ladies, who had not yet got husbands,
which was strange enough, seeing, as I told you before, they were very
amiable, proposed to our governor a travelling expedition abroad. The
old baronet consented, though young master was much against it, saying,
they would all be much better at home. As the girls persisted, however,
he at last withdrew his opposition, and even promised to follow them, as
soon as his parliamentary duties would permit, for he was just got into
Parliament; and, like most other young members, thought that nothing
could be done in the House without him. So the old gentleman and the two
young ladies set off, taking me with them, and a couple of ladies' maids
to wait upon them. First of all, we went to Paris, where we continued
three months, the old baronet and the ladies going to see the various
sights of the city and the neighbourhood, and I attending them. They
soon got tired of sight-seeing, and of Paris too; and so did I. However,
they still continued there, in order, I believe, that the young ladies
might lay in a store of French finery. I should have passed my idle time
at Paris, of which I had plenty after the sight-seeing was over, very
unpleasantly, but for Black Jack. Eh! did you never hear of Black Jack?
Ah! if you had ever been an English servant in Paris, you would have
known Black Jack; not an English gentleman's servant who has been at
Paris for this last ten years but knows Black Jack and his ordinary. A
strange fellow he was--of what country no one could exactly say--for as
for judging from speech, that was impossible, Jack speaking all languages
equally ill. Some said he came direct from Satan's kitchen, and that
when he gives up keeping ordinary, he will return there again, though the
generally-received opinion at Paris was, that he was at one time butler
to King Pharaoh; and that, after lying asleep for four thousand years in
a place called the Kattycombs, he was awaked by the sound of Nelson's
cannon, at the Battle of the Nile; and going to the shore, took on with
the admiral, and became, in course of time, ship steward; and that after
Nelson's death, he was captured by the French, on board one of whose
vessels he served in a somewhat similar capacity till the peace, when he
came to Paris, and set up an ordinary for servants, sticking the name of
Katcomb over the door, in allusion to the place where he had his long
sleep. But, whatever his origin was, Jack kept his own council, and
appeared to care nothing for what people said about him, or called him.
Yes, I forgot, there was one name he would not be called, and that was
'Portuguese.' I once saw Black Jack knock down a coachman, six foot
high, who called him black-faced Portuguese. 'Any name but dat, you
shab,' said Black Jack, who was a little round fellow, of about five feet
two; 'I would not stand to be called Portuguese by Nelson himself.' Jack
was rather fond of talking about Nelson, and hearing people talk about
him, so that it is not improbable that he may have sailed with him; and
with respect to his having been King Pharaoh's butler, all I have to say
is, I am not disposed to give the downright lie to the report. Jack was
always ready to do a kind turn to a poor servant out of place, and has
often been known to assist such as were in prison, which charitable
disposition he perhaps acquired from having lost a good place himself,
having seen the inside of a prison, and known the want of a meal's
victuals, all which trials King Pharaoh's butler underwent, so he may
have been that butler; at any rate, I have known positive conclusions
come to, on no better premises, if indeed as good. As for the story of
his coming direct from Satan's kitchen, I place no confidence in it at
all, as Black Jack had nothing of Satan about him, but blackness, on
which account he was called Black Jack. Nor am I disposed to give credit
to a report that his hatred of the Portuguese arose from some ill
treatment which he had once experienced when on shore, at Lisbon, from
certain gentlewomen of the place, but rather conclude that it arose from
an opinion he entertained that the Portuguese never paid their debts, one
of the ambassadors of that nation, whose house he had served, having left
Paris several thousand francs in his debt. This is all that I have to
say about Black Jack, without whose funny jokes, and good ordinary, I
should have passed my time in Paris in a very disconsolate manner.

"After we had been at Paris between two and three months, we left it in
the direction of Italy, which country the family had a great desire to
see. After travelling a great many days in a thing which, though called
a diligence, did not exhibit much diligence, we came to a great big town,
seated around a nasty salt-water basin, connected by a narrow passage
with the sea. Here we were to embark; and so we did as soon as possible,
glad enough to get away; at least I was, and so I make no doubt were the
rest; for such a place for bad smells I never was in. It seems all the
drains and sewers of the place run into that same salt basin, voiding
into it all their impurities, which, not being able to escape into the
sea in any considerable quantity, owing to the narrowness of the
entrance, there accumulate, filling the whole atmosphere with these same
outrageous scents, on which account the town is a famous lodging-house of
the plague. The ship in which we embarked was bound for a place in Italy
called Naples, where we were to stay some time. The voyage was rather a
lazy one, the ship not being moved by steam; for at the time of which I
am speaking, some five years ago, steamships were not so plentiful as
now. There were only two passengers in the grand cabin, where my
governor and his daughters were, an Italian lady and a priest. Of the
lady I have not much to say; she appeared to be a quiet respectable
person enough, and after our arrival at Naples, I neither saw nor heard
anything more of her; but of the priest I shall have a good deal to say
in the sequel, (that, by-the-bye, is a word I learned from the professor
of rhetoric,) and it would have been well for our family had they never
met him.