Lavengro, George Borrow [i love reading books txt] 📗

‘Each one carries in his breast the recollection of some sin which presses heavy upon him. O! if men could but look into each other’s hearts, what blackness would they find there!’ ”196

“That’s true,” said Peter. “What is the name of the book?”

“The Life of Blessed Mary Flanders.”

“Some popish saint, I suppose,” said Peter.

“As much of a saint, I dare say,” said I, “as most popish ones; but you interrupted me. One part of your narrative brought the passage which I have quoted into my mind. You said that after you had committed this same sin of yours you were in the habit, at school, of looking upon your schoolfellows with a kind of gloomy superiority, considering yourself a lone, monstrous being who had committed a sin far above the daring of any of them. Are you sure that many others of your schoolfellows were not looking upon you and the others with much the same eyes with which you were looking upon them?”

“How!” said Peter, “dost thou think that they had divined my secret?”

“Not they,” said I; “they were, I dare say, thinking too much of themselves and of their own concerns to have divined any secrets of yours. All I mean to say is, they had probably secrets of their own, and who knows that the secret sin of more than one of them was not the very sin which caused you so much misery?”

“Dost thou then imagine,” said Peter, “the sin against the Holy Ghost to be so common an occurrence?”

“As you have described it,” said I, “of very common occurrence, especially amongst children, who are, indeed, the only beings likely to commit it.”

“Truly,” said Winifred, “the young man talks wisely.”

Peter was silent for some moments, and appeared to be reflecting; at last, suddenly raising his head, he looked me full in the face, and, grasping my hand with vehemence, he said: “Tell me, young man, only one thing, hast thou, too, committed the sin against the Holy Ghost?”

“I am neither Papist nor Methodist,” said I, “but of the Church, and, being so, confess myself to no one, but keep my own counsel; I will tell thee, however, had I committed, at the same age, twenty such sins as that which you committed, I should feel no uneasiness at these years⁠—but I am sleepy, and must go to rest.”

“God bless thee, young man,” said Winifred.

LXXVIII

Before I sank to rest I heard Winifred and her husband conversing in the place where I had left them; both their voices were low and calm. I soon fell asleep, and slumbered for some time. On my awakening I again heard them conversing, but they were now in their cart; still the voices of both were calm. I heard no passionate bursts of wild despair on the part of the man. Methought I occasionally heard the word Pechod proceeding from the lips of each, but with no particular emphasis. I supposed they were talking of the innate sin of both their hearts.

“I wish that man were happy,” said I to myself, “were it only for his wife’s sake, and yet he deserves to be happy for his own.”

The next day Peter was very cheerful, more cheerful than I had ever seen him. At breakfast his conversation was animated, and he smiled repeatedly. I looked at him with the greatest interest, and the eyes of his wife were almost constantly fixed upon him. A shade of gloom would occasionally come over his countenance, but it almost instantly disappeared; perhaps it proceeded more from habit than anything else. After breakfast he took his Welsh Bible and sat down beneath a tree. His eyes were soon fixed intently on the volume; now and then he would call his wife, show her some passage, and appeared to consult with her. The day passed quickly and comfortably.

“Your husband seems much better,” said I, at evening fall, to Winifred, as we chanced to be alone.

“He does,” said Winifred; “and that on the day of the week when he was wont to appear most melancholy, for tomorrow is the Sabbath. He now no longer looks forward to the Sabbath with dread, but appears to reckon on it. What a happy change! and to think that this change should have been produced by a few words, seemingly careless ones, proceeding from the mouth of one who is almost a stranger to him. Truly, it is wonderful.”

“To whom do you allude,” said I, “and to what words?”

“To yourself, and to the words which came from your lips last night, after you had heard my poor husband’s history. Those strange words, drawn out with so much seeming indifference, have produced in my husband the blessed effect which you have observed. They have altered the current of his ideas. He no longer thinks himself the only being in the world doomed to destruction⁠—the only being capable of committing the never-to-be-forgiven sin. Your supposition that that which harrowed his soul is of frequent occurrence amongst children, has tranquillised him; the mist which hung over his mind has cleared away, and he begins to see the groundlessness of his apprehensions. The Lord has permitted him to be chastened for a season, but his lamp will only burn the brighter for what he has undergone.”

Sunday came, fine and glorious as the last. Again my friends and myself breakfasted together, again the good family of the house on the hill above, headed by the respectable master, descended to the meadow. Peter and his wife were ready to receive them. Again Peter placed himself at the side of the honest farmer, and Winifred by the side of her friend. “Wilt thou not come?” said Peter, looking towards me with a face in which there was much emotion. “Wilt thou not come?” said Winifred, with a face beaming with kindness. But I made no answer, and presently the party moved away, in the same manner in which it had