Lavengro

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Tamerlane and Haggart! Haggart and Tamerlane! Both these men were
robbers, and of low birth, yet one perished on an ignoble scaffold, and
the other died emperor of the world. Is this justice? The ends of the
two men were widely dissimilar--yet what is the intrinsic difference
between them? Very great indeed; the one acted according to his lights
and his country, not so the other. Tamerlane was a heathen, and acted
according to his lights; he was a robber where all around were robbers,
but he became the avenger of God--God's scourge on unjust kings, on the
cruel Bajazet, who had plucked out his own brothers' eyes; he became to a
certain extent the purifier of the East, its regenerator; his equal never
was before, nor has it since been seen. Here the wild heart was
profitably employed the wild strength, the teeming brain. Onward, Lame
one! Onward, Tamurlank! Haggart. . . .

But peace to thee, poor David! why should a mortal worm be sitting in
judgment over thee? The Mighty and Just One has already judged thee, and
perhaps above thou hast received pardon for thy crimes, which could not
be pardoned here below; and now that thy feverish existence has closed,
and thy once active form become inanimate dust, thy very memory all but
forgotten, I will say a few words about thee, a few words soon also to be
forgotten. Thou wast the most extraordinary robber that ever lived
within the belt of Britain; Scotland rang with thy exploits, and England,
too, north of the Humber; strange deeds also didst thou achieve when,
fleeing from justice, thou didst find thyself in the Sister Isle; busy
wast thou there in town and on curragh, at fair and race-course, and also
in the solitary place. Ireland thought thee her child, for who spoke her
brogue better than thyself?--she felt proud of thee, and said, "Sure,
O'Hanlon is come again." What might not have been thy fate in the far
west in America, whither thou hadst turned thine eye, saying, "I will go
there, and become an honest man!" But thou wast not to go there,
David--the blood which thou hadst shed in Scotland was to be required of
thee; the avenger was at hand, the avenger of blood. Seized, manacled,
brought back to thy native land, condemned to die, thou wast left in thy
narrow cell, and told to make the most of thy time, for it was short; and
there, in thy narrow cell, and thy time so short, thou didst put the
crowning stone to thy strange deeds, by that strange history of thyself,
penned by thine own hand in the robber tongue. Thou mightest have been
better employed, David!--but the ruling passion was strong with thee,
even in the jaws of death. Thou mightest have been better employed!--but
peace be with thee, I repeat, and the Almighty's grace and pardon.

CHAPTER IX.

Napoleon--The Storm--The Cove--Up the Country--The Trembling
Hand--Irish--Tough Battle--Tipperary Hills--Elegant Lodgings--A
Speech--Fair Specimen--Orangemen.

Onward, onward! and after we had sojourned in Scotland nearly two years,
the long continental war had been brought to an end, Napoleon was humbled
for a time, and the Bourbons restored to a land which could well have
dispensed with them; we returned to England, where the corps was
disbanded, and my parents with their family retired to private life. I
shall pass over in silence the events of a year, which offer little of
interest as far as connected with me and mine. Suddenly, however, the
sound of war was heard again, Napoleon had broken forth from Elba, and
everything was in confusion. Vast military preparations were again made,
our own corps was levied anew, and my brother became an officer in it;
but the danger was soon over, Napoleon was once more quelled, and chained
for ever, like Prometheus, to his rock. As the corps, however, though so
recently levied, had already become a very fine one, thanks to my
father's energetic drilling, the Government very properly determined to
turn it to some account, and, as disturbances were apprehended in Ireland
about this period, it occurred to them that they could do no better than
despatch it to that country.

In the autumn of the year 1815 we set sail from a port in Essex; we were
some eight hundred strong, and were embarked in two ships, very large,
but old and crazy; a storm overtook us when off Beachy Head, in which we
had nearly foundered. I was awakened early in the morning by the howling
of the wind, and the uproar on deck. I kept myself close, however, as is
still my constant practice on similar occasions, and waited the result
with that apathy and indifference which violent sea-sickness is sure to
produce. We shipped several seas, and once the vessel missing
stays--which, to do it justice, it generally did at every third or fourth
tack--we escaped almost by a miracle from being dashed upon the foreland.
On the eighth day of our voyage we were in sight of Ireland. The weather
was now calm and serene, the sun shone brightly on the sea and on certain
green hills in the distance, on which I descried what at first sight I
believed to be two ladies gathering flowers, which, however, on our
nearer approach, proved to be two tall white towers, doubtless built for
some purpose or other, though I did not learn for what.

We entered a kind of bay, or cove, by a narrow inlet; it was a beautiful
and romantic place this cove, very spacious, and being nearly
land-locked, was sheltered from every wind. A small island, every inch
of which was covered with fortifications, appeared to swim upon the
waters, whose dark blue denoted their immense depth; tall green hills,
which ascended gradually from the shore, formed the background to the
west; they were carpeted to the top with turf of the most vivid green,
and studded here and there with woods, seemingly of oak; there was a
strange old castle half way up the ascent, a village on a crag--but the
mists of the morning were half veiling the scene when I surveyed it, and
the mists of time are now hanging densely between it and my no longer
youthful eye; I may not describe it;--nor will I try.

Leaving the ship in the cove, we passed up a wide river in boats till we
came to a city, where we disembarked. It was a large city, as large as
Edinburgh to my eyes; there were plenty of fine houses, but little
neatness; the streets were full of impurities; handsome equipages rolled
along, but the greater part of the population were in rags; beggars
abounded; there was no lack of merriment, however; boisterous shouts of
laughter were heard on every side. It appeared a city of contradictions.
After a few days' rest we marched from this place in two divisions. My
father commanded the second, I walked by his side.

Our route lay up the country; the country at first offered no very
remarkable feature; it was pretty, but tame. On the second day, however,
its appearance had altered, it had become more wild; a range of distant
mountains bound the horizon. We passed through several villages, as I
suppose I may term them, of low huts, the walls formed of rough stones
without mortar, the roof of flags laid over wattles and wicker-work; they
seemed to be inhabited solely by women and children; the latter were
naked, the former, in general, blear-eyed beldames, who sat beside the
doors on low stools, spinning. We saw, however, both men and women
working at a distance in the fields.

I was thirsty; and going up to an ancient crone, employed in the manner
which I have described, I asked her for water; she looked me in the face,
appeared to consider a moment, then tottering into her hut, presently
reappeared with a small pipkin of milk, which she offered to me with a
trembling hand. I drank the milk; it was sour, but I found it highly
refreshing. I then took out a penny and offered it to her, whereupon she
shook her head, smiled, and, patting my face with her skinny hand,
murmured some words in a tongue which I had never heard before.

I walked on by my father's side, holding the stirrup-leather of his
horse; presently several low uncouth cars passed by, drawn by starved
cattle: the drivers were tall fellows, with dark features and athletic
frames--they wore long loose blue cloaks with sleeves, which last,
however, dangled unoccupied: these cloaks appeared in tolerably good
condition, not so their under garments. On their heads were broad
slouching hats: the generality of them were bare-footed. As they passed,
the soldiers jested with them in the patois of East Anglia, whereupon the
fellows laughed, and appeared to jest with the soldiers; but what they
said who knows, it being in a rough guttural language, strange and wild.
The soldiers stared at each other, and were silent.

"A strange language that!" said a young officer to my father, "I don't
understand a word of it; what can it be?"

"Irish," said my father, with a loud voice, "and a bad language it is; I
have known it of old, that is, I have often heard it spoken when I was a
guardsman in London. There's one part of London where all the Irish
live--at least all the worst of them--and there they hatch their
villanies to speak this tongue; it is that which keeps them together and
makes them dangerous: I was once sent there to seize a couple of
deserters--Irish--who had taken refuge amongst their companions; we found
them in what was in my time called a ken, that is, a house where only
thieves and desperadoes are to be found. Knowing on what kind of
business I was bound, I had taken with me a sergeant's party; it was well
I did so. We found the deserters in a large room, with at least thirty
ruffians, horrid-looking fellows, seated about a long table, drinking,
swearing, and talking Irish. Ah! we had a tough battle, I remember; the
two fellows did nothing, but sat still, thinking it best to be quiet; but
the rest, with an ubbubboo, like the blowing up of a powder-magazine,
sprang up, brandishing their sticks; for these fellows always carry
sticks with them even to bed, and not unfrequently spring up in their
sleep, striking left and right."

"Did you take the deserters?" said the officer.

"Yes," said my father; "for we formed at the end of the room, and charged
with fixed bayonets, which compelled the others to yield notwithstanding
their numbers; but the worst was when we got out into the street; the
whole district had become alarmed and hundreds came pouring down upon
us--men, women, and children Women, did I say!--they looked fiends, half-
naked, with their hair hanging down over their bosoms; they tore up the
very pavement to hurl at us sticks rang about our ears, stones, and
Irish--I liked the Irish worst of all, it sounded so horrid, especially
as I did not understand it. It's a bad language."

"A queer tongue," said I, "I wonder if I could learn it?"

"Learn it!" said my father; "what should you learn it for?--however, I am
not afraid of that. It is not like Scotch, no person can learn it, save
those who are born to it, and even in Ireland the respectable people do
not speak it, only the wilder sort, like those we have passed."

Within a day or two we had reached a tall range of mountains running
north and south, which I was told were those of Tipperary; along the
skirts of these we proceeded till we came to a town, the principal one of
these regions. It was on the bank of a beautiful river, which separated
it from the mountains. It was rather an ancient place, and might contain
some ten thousand inhabitants--I found that it was our destination; there
were extensive barracks at the farther end, in which the corps took up
its quarters; with respect to ourselves, we took lodgings in a house
which stood in the principal street.

"You never saw more elegant lodgings than these, captain," said the
master of the house, a tall, handsome, and athletic man, who came up
whilst our little family were seated at dinner late in the afternoon of
the day of our arrival; "they beat anything in this town of Clonmel. I
do not let them for the sake of interest, and to none but gentlemen in
the army, in order that myself and my wife, who is from Londonderry, may
have the advantage of pleasant company, a genteel company; ay, and
Protestant company, captain. It did my heart good when I saw your honour
ride in at the head of all those fine fellows, real Protestants, I'll
engage, not a Papist among them, they are too good-looking and honest-
looking for that. So I no sooner saw your honour at the head of your
army, with that handsome young gentleman holding by your stirrup, than I
said to my wife, 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 _eclat_ 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 own;
and that's where I live when at home."

"And your father is a farmer, I suppose?"

"You may say that; and it is a farmer I should have been, like my brother
Denis, had not my uncle Phelim, the thief! tould my father to send me to
school, to learn Greek letters, that 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 gasoons, 'Get up, I say, and let's be doing
something; tell us a 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 ownself 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 in 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 gasoons 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'll 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.