The Romany Rye

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"Well, after having been wid him about two months, I quitted him
without noise, taking away one of his tables, and some peas and
thimbles; and that I did with a safe conscience, for he paid me
nothing, and was not over free with the meat and the drink, though
I must say of him that he was a clever fellow, and perfect master
of his trade, by which he made a power of money, and bating his not
being able to learn Irish, and a certain Jewish lisp which he had,
a great master of his tongue, of which he was very proud; so much
so, that he once told me that when he had saved a certain sum of
money he meant to leave off the thimbling business, and enter
Parliament; into which, he said, he could get at any time, through
the interest of a friend of his, a Tory Peer--my Lord Whitefeather,
with whom, he said, he had occasionally done business. With the
table, and other things which I had taken, I commenced trade on my
own account, having contrived to learn a few of his tricks. My
only capital was the change for half-a-guinea, which he had once
let fall, and which I picked up, which was all I could ever get
from him: for it was impossible to stale any money from him, he
was so awake, being up to all the tricks of thaives, having
followed the diving trade, as he called it, for a considerable
time. My wish was to make enough by my table to enable me to
return with credit to ould Ireland, where I had no doubt of being
able to get myself ordained as priest; and, in troth,
notwithstanding I was a beginner, and without any companion to help
me, I did tolerably well, getting my meat and drink, and increasing
my small capital, till I came to this unlucky place of Horncastle,
where I was utterly ruined by the thaif in the rider's dress. And
now, Shorsha, I am after telling you my history; perhaps you will
now be telling me something about yourself?"

I told Murtagh all about myself that I deemed necessary to relate,
and then asked him what he intended to do; he repeated that he was
utterly ruined, and that he had no prospect before him but
starving, or making away with himself. I inquired "How much would
take him to Ireland, and establish him there with credit." "Five
pounds," he answered, adding, "but who in the world would be fool
enough to tend me five pounds, unless it be yourself, Shorsha, who,
may be, have not got it; for when you told me about yourself, you
made no boast of the state of your affairs." "I am not very rich,"
I replied, "but I think I can accommodate you with what you want.
I consider myself under great obligations to you, Murtagh; it was
you who instructed me in the language of Oilein nan Naomha, which
has been the foundation of all my acquisitions in philology;
without you, I should not have been what I am--Lavengro! which
signifies a philologist. Here is the money, Murtagh," said I,
putting my hand into my pocket, and taking out five pounds, "much
good may it do you." He took the money, stared at it, and then at
me--"And you mane to give me this, Shorsha?" "It is no longer mine
to give," said I; "it is yours." "And you give it me for the
gratitude you bear me?" "Yes, " said I, "and for Dungarvon times
of old." "Well, Shorsha," said he, "you are a broth of a boy, and
I'll take your benefaction--five pounds! och, Jasus!" He then put
the money in his pocket, and springing up, waved his hat three
times, uttering some old Irish cry; then, sitting down, he took my
hand, and said, "Sure, Shorsha, I'll be going thither; and when I
get there, it is turning over another leaf I will be; I have learnt
a thing or two abroad; I will become a priest; that's the trade,
Shorsha! and I will cry out for repale; that's the cry, Shorsha!
and I'll be a fool no longer." "And what will you do with your
table?" said I. "'Faith, I'll be taking it with me, Shorsha; and
when I gets to Ireland, I'll get it mended, and I will keep it in
the house which I shall have; and when I looks upon it, I will be
thinking of all I have undergone." "You had better leave it behind
you," said I; "if you take it with you, you will, perhaps, take up
the thimble trade again before you get to Ireland, and lose the
money I am after giving you." "No fear of that, Shorsha; never
will I play on that table again, Shorsha, till I get it mended,
which shall not be till I am a priest, and have a house in which to
place it."

Murtagh and I then went into the town, where we had some
refreshment together, and then parted on our several ways. I heard
nothing of him for nearly a quarter of a century, when a person who
knew him well, coming from Ireland, and staying at my humble house,
told me a great deal about him. He reached Ireland in safety, soon
reconciled himself with his Church, and was ordained a priest; in
the priestly office he acquitted himself in a way very
satisfactory, upon the whole, to his superiors, having, as he
frequently said, learned wisdom abroad. The Popish Church never
fails to turn to account any particular gift which its servants may
possess; and discovering soon that Murtagh was endowed with
considerable manual dexterity--proof of which he frequently gave at
cards, and at a singular game which he occasionally played at
thimbles--it selected him as a very fit person to play the part of
exorcist; and accordingly he travelled through a great part of
Ireland, casting out devils from people possessed, which he
afterwards exhibited, sometimes in the shape of rabbits, and
occasionally birds and fishes. There is a holy island in a lake in
Ireland, to which the people resort at a particular season of the
year. Here Murtagh frequently attended, and it was here that he
performed a cure which will cause his name long to be remembered in
Ireland, delivering a possessed woman of two demons, which he
brandished aloft in his hands, in the shape of two large eels, and
subsequently hurled into the lake, amidst the shouts of an
enthusiastic multitude. Besides playing the part of an exorcist,
he acted that of a politician with considerable success; he
attached himself to the party of the sire of agitation--"the man of
paunch," and preached and hallooed for repeal with the loudest and
best, as long as repeal was the cry; as soon, however, as the Whigs
attained the helm of Government, and the greater part of the loaves
and fishes--more politely termed the patronage of Ireland--was
placed at the disposition of the priesthood, the tone of Murtagh,
like that of the rest of his brother saggarts, was considerably
softened; he even went so far as to declare that politics were not
altogether consistent with sacerdotal duty; and resuming his
exorcisms, which he had for some time abandoned, he went to the
Isle of Holiness, and delivered a possessed woman of six demons in
the shape of white mice. He, however, again resumed the political
mantle in the year 1848, during the short period of the rebellion
of the so-called Young Irelanders. The priests, though they
apparently sided with this party, did not approve of it, as it was
chiefly formed of ardent young men, fond of what they termed
liberty, and by no means admirers of priestly domination, being
mostly Protestants. Just before the outbreak of this rebellion, it
was determined between the priests and the -, that this party
should be rendered comparatively innocuous by being deprived of the
sinews' of war--in other words, certain sums of money which they
had raised for their enterprise. Murtagh was deemed the best
qualified person in Ireland to be entrusted with the delicate
office of getting their money from them. Having received his
instructions, he invited the leaders to his parsonage amongst the
mountains, under pretence of deliberating with them about what was
to be done. They arrived there just before nightfall, dressed in
red, yellow, and green, the colours so dear to enthusiastic
Irishmen; Murtagh received them with great apparent cordiality, and
entered into a long discourse with them, promising them the
assistance of himself and order, and received from them a profusion
of thanks. After a time Murtagh, observing, in a jocular tone,
that consulting was dull work, proposed a game of cards, and the
leaders, though somewhat surprised, assenting, he went to a closet,
and taking out a pack of cards, laid it upon the table; it was a
strange dirty pack, and exhibited every mark of having seen very
long service. On one of its guests making some remarks on the
"ancientness" of its appearance, Murtagh observed that there was a
very wonderful history attached to that pack; it had been presented
to him, he said, by a young gentleman, a disciple of his, to whom,
in Dungarvon times of yore, he had taught the Irish language, and
of whom he related some very extraordinary things; he added that
he, Murtagh, had taken it to -, where it had once the happiness of
being in the hands of the Holy Father; by a great misfortune, he
did not say what, he had lost possession of it, and had returned
without it, but had some time since recovered it; a nephew of his,
who was being educated at--for a priest, having found it in a nook
of the college, and sent it to him.

Murtagh and the leaders then played various games with this pack,
more especially one called by the initiated "blind hockey," the
result being that at the end of about two hours the leaders found
they had lost one-half of their funds; they now looked serious, and
talked of leaving the house, but Murtagh begging them to stay to
supper, they consented. After supper, at which the guests drank
rather freely, Murtagh said that, as he had not the least wish to
win their money, he intended to give them their revenge; he would
not play at cards with them, he added, but at a funny game of
thimbles, at which they would be sure of winning back their own;
then going out, he brought in a table, tall and narrow, on which
placing certain thimbles and a pea, he proposed that they should
stake whatever they pleased on the almost certainty of finding the
pea under the thimbles. The leaders, after some hesitation,
consented, and were at first eminently successful, winning back the
greater part of what they had lost; after some time, however,
Fortune, or rather Murtagh, turned against them, and then, instead
of leaving off, they doubled and trebled their stakes, and
continued doing so until they had lost nearly the whole of their
funds. Quite furious, they now swore that Murtagh had cheated
them, and insisted on having their property restored to them.
Murtagh, without a word of reply, went to the door, and shouting
into the passage something in Irish, the room was instantly filled
with bogtrotters, each at least six feet high, with a stout
shillelah in his hand. Murtagh then turning to his guests, asked
them what they meant by insulting an anointed priest; telling them
that it was not for the likes of them to avenge the wrongs of
Ireland. "I have been clane mistaken in the whole of ye," said he,
"I supposed ye Irish, but have found, to my sorrow, that ye are
nothing of the kind; purty fellows to pretend to be Irish, when
there is not a word of Irish on the tongue of any of ye, divil a
ha'porth; the illigant young gentleman to whom I taught Irish, in
Dungarvon times of old, though not born in Ireland, has more Irish
in him than any ten of ye. He is the boy to avenge the wrongs of
Ireland, if ever foreigner is to do it." Then saying something to
the bogtrotters, they instantly cleared the room of the young
Irelanders, who retired sadly disconcerted; nevertheless, being
very silly young fellows, they hoisted the standard of rebellion;
few, however, joining them, partly because they had no money, and
partly because the priests abused them with might and main, their
rebellion ended in a lamentable manner; themselves being seized and
tried, and though convicted, not deemed of sufficient importance to
be sent to the scaffold, where they might have had the satisfaction
of saying -

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."

My visitor, after saying that of the money won, Murtagh retained a
considerable portion, that a part went to the hierarchy for what
were called church purposes, and that the--took the remainder,
which it employed in establishing a newspaper, in which the private
characters of the worthiest and most loyal Protestants in Ireland
were traduced and vilified, concluded his account by observing,
that it was the common belief that Murtagh, having by his services,
ecclesiastical and political, acquired the confidence of the
priesthood and favour of the Government, would, on the first
vacancy, be appointed to the high office of Popish Primate of
Ireland.

CHAPTER XLVII

Departure from Horncastle--Recruiting Sergeant--Kauloes and
Lolloes.

Leaving Horncastle I bent my steps in the direction of the east. I
walked at a brisk rate, and late in the evening reached a large
town, situate at the entrance of an extensive firth, or arm of the
sea, which prevented my farther progress eastward. Sleeping that
night in the suburbs of the town, I departed early next morning in
the direction of the south. A walk of about twenty miles brought
me to another large town, situated on a river, where I again turned
towards the east. At the end of the town I was accosted by a
fiery-faced individual, somewhat under the middle size, dressed as
a recruiting sergeant.

"Young man," said the recruiting sergeant, "you are just the kind
of person to serve the Honourable East India Company."

"I had rather the Honourable Company should serve me," said I.

"Of course, young man. Well, the Honourable East India Company
shall serve you--that's reasonable. Here, take this shilling; 'tis
service-money. The Honourable Company engages to serve you, and
you the Honourable Company; both parties shall be thus served;
that's just and reasonable."

"And what must I do for the Company?"

"Only go to India; that's all."

"And what should I do in India?"

"Fight, my brave boy! fight, my youthful hero!"

"What kind of country is India?"

"The finest country in the world! Rivers, bigger than the Ouse.
Hills, higher than anything near Spalding! Trees--you never saw
such trees! Fruits--you never saw such fruits!"

"And the people--what kind of folk are they?"

"Pah! Kauloes--blacks--a set of rascals not worth regarding."

"Kauloes!" said I; "blacks!"

"Yes," said the recruiting sergeant; "and they call us lolloes,
which, in their beastly gibberish, means red."

"Lolloes!" said I; "reds!"

"Yes," said the recruiting sergeant, "kauloes and lolloes; and all
the lolloes have to do is to kick and cut down the kauloes, and
take from them their rupees, which mean silver money. Why do you
stare so?"

"Why," said I, "this is the very language of Mr. Petulengro."

"Mr. Pet-?"

"Yes," said I, "and Tawno Chikno."

"Tawno Chik-? I say, young fellow, I don't like your way of
speaking; no, nor your way of looking. You are mad, sir; you are
mad; and what's this? Why, your hair is grey! You won't do for
the Honourable Company--they like red. I'm glad I didn't give you
the shilling. Good day to you."

"I shouldn't wonder," said I, as I proceeded rapidly along a broad
causeway, in the direction of the east, "if Mr. Petulengro and
Tawno Chikno came originally from India. I think I'll go there."

APPENDIX

CHAPTER I

A Word for Lavengro.

Lavengro is the history up to a certain period of one of rather a
peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold,
under which lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is
wild and extraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and
industry, and an unconquerable love of independence. It narrates
his earliest dreams and feelings, dwells with minuteness on the
ways, words, and characters of his father, mother, and brother,
lingers on the occasional resting-places of his wandering half
military childhood, describes the gradual hardening of his bodily
frame by robust exercises, his successive struggles, after his
family and himself have settled down in a small local capital, to
obtain knowledge of every kind, but more particularly philological
lore; his visits to the tent of the Romany chal, and the parlour of
the Anglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his
character by his flinging himself into contact with people all
widely differing from each other, but all extraordinary; his
reluctance to settle down to the ordinary pursuits of life; his
struggles after moral truth; his glimpses of God and the
obscuration of the Divine Being, to his mind's eye; and his being
cast upon the world of London by the death of his father, at the
age of nineteen. In the world within a world, the world of London,
it shows him playing his part for some time as he best can, in the
capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes what
he saw and underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it
represents him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son of
a brave but poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is
likewise a scholar. It shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and
proves that if he occasionally associates with low characters, he
does so chiefly to gratify the curiosity of a scholar. In his
conversations with the apple-woman of London Bridge, the scholar is
ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with the man of the
table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness of London,
and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably
shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one, is
contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his
love of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive
favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself
from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, an
original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have
written his "Rasselas," and Beckford his "Vathek," and tells how,
leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.

In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure,
becoming tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with
various kinds of people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways
and habits are described; but, though leading this erratic life, we
gather from the book that his habits are neither vulgar nor
vicious, that he still follows to a certain extent his favourite
pursuits, hunting after strange characters, or analysing strange
words and names. At the conclusion of the last chapter, which
terminates the first part of the history, it hints that he is about
to quit his native land on a grand philological expedition.

Those who read this book with attention--and the author begs to
observe that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly--
may derive much information with respect to matters of philology
and literature; it will be found treating of most of the principal
languages from Ireland to China, and of the literature which they
contain; and it is particularly minute with regard to the ways,
manners, and speech of the English section of the most
extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of people to be found in
the whole world--the children of Roma. But it contains matters of
much more importance than anything in connection with philology,
and the literature and manners of nations. Perhaps no work was
ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence of
God have been set forth by more striking examples, or the
machinations of priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or
the dangers which result to a nation when it abandons itself to
effeminacy, and a rage for what is novel and fashionable, than the
present.

With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they not
exemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her son? These
are beings in many points bad, but with warm affections, who, after
an agonizing separation, are restored to each other, but not until
the hearts of both are changed and purified by the influence of
affliction. Are they not exemplified in the case of the rich
gentleman, who touches objects in order to avert the evil chance?
This being has great gifts and many amiable qualifies, but does not
everybody see that his besetting sin is selfishness? He fixes his
mind on certain objects, and takes inordinate interest in them,
because they are his own, and those very objects, through the
providence of God, which is kindness in disguise, become snakes and
scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, he at last
becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very much
admired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection;
the book, consequently, becomes a viper to him, and at last he
flings it aside and begins another; the book, however, is not flung
aside by the world, who are benefited by it, deriving pleasure and
knowledge from it: so the man who merely wrote to gratify self,
has already done good to others, and got himself an honourable
name. But God will not allow that man to put that book under his
head and use it as a pillow: the book has become a viper to him,
he has banished it, and is about another, which he finishes and
gives to the world; it is a better book than the first, and every
one is delighted with it; but it proves to the writer a scorpion,
because he loves it with inordinate affection; but it was good for
the world that he produced this book, which stung him as a
scorpion. Yes; and good for himself, for the labour of writing it
amused him, and perhaps prevented him from dying of apoplexy; but
the book is banished, and another is begun, and herein, again, is
the providence of God manifested; the man has the power of
producing still, and God determines that he shall give to the world
what remains in his brain, which he would not do, had he been
satisfied with the second work; he would have gone to sleep upon
that as he would upon the first, for the man is selfish and lazy.
In his account of what he suffered during the composition of this
work, his besetting sin of selfishness is manifest enough; the work
on which he is engaged occupies his every thought, it is his idol,
his deity, it shall be all his own, he won't borrow a thought from
any one else, and he is so afraid lest, when he publishes it, that
it should be thought that he had borrowed from any one, that he is
continually touching objects, his nervous system, owing to his
extreme selfishness, having become partly deranged. He is left
touching, in order to banish the evil chance from his book, his
deity. No more of his history is given; but does the reader think
that God will permit that man to go to sleep on his third book,
however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly not. God will not
permit that man to rest till he has cured him to a certain extent
of his selfishness, which has, however, hitherto been very useful
to the world.

Then, again, in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of
Providence to be seen? This person commits a sin in his childhood,
utters words of blasphemy, the remembrance of which, in after life,
preying upon his imagination, unfits him for quiet pursuits, to
which he seems to have been naturally inclined; but for the
remembrance of that sin, he would have been Peter Williams the
quiet and respectable Welsh farmer, somewhat fond of reading the
ancient literature of his country in winter evenings, after his
work was done. God, however, was aware that there was something in
Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher calling; he
therefore permits this sin, which, though a childish affair, was
yet a sin, and committed deliberately, to prey upon his mind till
he becomes at last an instrument in the hand of God, a humble Paul,
the great preacher, Peter Williams, who, though he considers
himself a reprobate and a castaway, instead of having recourse to
drinking in mad desperation, as many do who consider themselves
reprobates, goes about Wales and England preaching the word of God,
dilating on his power and majesty, and visiting the sick and
afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to him his peace of mind;
which he does not do, however, until that mind is in a proper
condition to receive peace, till it has been purified by the pain
of the one idea which has so long been permitted to riot in his
brain; which pain, however, an angel, in the shape of a gentle
faithful wife, had occasionally alleviated; for God is merciful
even in the blows which He bestoweth, and will not permit any one
to be tempted beyond the measure which he can support. And here it
will be as well for the reader to ponder upon the means by which
the Welsh preacher is relieved from his mental misery: he is not
relieved by a text from the Bible, by the words of consolation and
wisdom addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, nor by the
preaching of one yet more eloquent than himself; but by a quotation
made by Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cut-purse and
prostitute, which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at
the stall of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who
had herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though
without any profit whatever. Should the reader be dissatisfied
with the manner in which Peter Williams is made to find relief, the
author would wish to answer, that the Almighty frequently
accomplishes his purposes by means which appear very singular to
the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that the manner in
which that relief is obtained, is calculated to read a lesson to
the proud, fanciful, and squeamish, who are ever in a fidget lest
they should be thought to mix with low society, or to bestow a
moment's attention on publications which are not what is called of
a perfectly unobjectionable character. Had not Lavengro formed the
acquaintance of the apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have
had an opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and,
consequently, of storing in a memory, which never forgets anything,
a passage which contained a balm for the agonized mind of poor
Peter Williams. The best medicines are not always found in the
finest shops. Suppose, for example, if, instead of going to London
Bridge to read, he had gone to Albemarle Street, and had received
from the proprietors of the literary establishment in that very
fashionable street, permission to read the publications on the
tables of the saloons there, does the reader think he would have
met any balm in those publications for the case of Peter Williams?
does the reader suppose that he would have found Mary Flanders
there? He would certainly have found that highly unobjectionable
publication, "Rasselas," and the "Spectator," or "Lives of Royal
and Illustrious Personages," but, of a surety, no Mary Flanders; so
when Lavengro met with Peter Williams, he would have been
unprovided with a balm to cure his ulcerated mind, and have parted
from him in a way not quite so satisfactory as the manner in which
he took his leave of him; for it is certain that he might have read
"Rasselas," and all other unexceptionable works to be found in the
library of Albemarle Street, over and over again, before he would
have found any cure in them for the case of Peter Williams.
Therefore the author requests the reader to drop any squeamish
nonsense he may wish to utter about Mary Flanders, and the manner
in which Peter Williams was cured.

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