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

then he mentioned a name which I had only once heard, and afterwards quite forgotten, the name mentioned by the snorer in the field. “Ah! there is no one like him!” murmured some more of the company; “the poet of nature⁠—of nature without its vulgarity.” I wished very much to ask these people whether they were ever bad sleepers, and whether they had read the poet, so called, from a desire of being set to sleep. Within a few days, however, I learnt that it had of late become very fashionable and genteel to appear half-asleep, and that one could exhibit no better mark of superfine breeding than by occasionally in company setting one’s rhonchal organ in action. I then ceased to wonder at the popularity, which I found nearly universal, of divine ⸻’s poetry; for, certainly in order to make one’s self appear sleepy in company, or occasionally to induce sleep, nothing could be more efficacious than a slight prelection of his poems. So poor Byron, with his fire and emotion⁠—to say nothing of his mouthings and coxcombry⁠—was dethroned, as I had prophesied he would be more than twenty years before, on the day of his funeral, though I had little idea that his humiliation, would have been brought about by one, whose sole strength consists in setting people to sleep. Well, all things are doomed to terminate in sleep. Before that termination, however, I will venture to prophesy that people will become a little more awake, snoring and yawning be a little less in fashion, and poor Byron be once more reinstated on his throne, though his rival will always stand a good chance of being worshipped by those whose ruined nerves are insensible to the narcotic powers of opium and morphine. XXIII

I continued my journey, passing through one or two villages. The day was exceedingly hot, and the roads dusty. In order to cause my horse as little fatigue as possible, and not to chafe his back, I led him by the bridle, my doing which brought upon me a shower of remarks, jests and would-be witticisms from the drivers and front outside passengers of sundry stagecoaches which passed me in one direction or the other. In this way I proceeded till considerably past noon, when I felt myself very fatigued, and my horse appeared no less so; and it is probable that the lazy and listless manner in which we were moving on, tired us both much more effectually than hurrying along at a swift trot would have done, for I have observed that when the energies of the body are not exerted a languor frequently comes over it. At length arriving at a very large building with an archway, near the entrance of a town, I sat down on what appeared to be a stepping-block, and presently experienced a great depression of spirits. I began to ask myself whither I was going, and what I should do with myself and the horse which I held by the bridle? It appeared to me that I was alone in the world with the poor animal, who looked for support to me, who knew not how to support myself. Then the image of Isopel Berners came into my mind, and when I thought how I had lost her forever, and how happy I might have been with her in the New World had she not deserted me, I became yet more miserable.

As I sat in this state of mind, I suddenly felt someone clap me on the shoulder, and heard a voice say: “Ha! comrade of the dingle, what chance has brought you into these parts?” “I turned round, and beheld a man in the dress of a postillion, whom I instantly recognised as he to whom I had rendered assistance on the night of the storm.

“Ah!” said I, “is it you? I am glad to see you, for I was feeling very lonely and melancholy.”

“Lonely and melancholy,” he replied, “how is that? how can anyone be lonely and melancholy with such a noble horse as that you hold by the bridle?”

“The horse,” said I, “is one cause of my melancholy, for I know not in the world what to do with it.”

“Is it your own?”

“Yes,” said I, “I may call it my own, though I borrowed the money to purchase it.”

“Well, why don’t you sell it?”

“It is not always easy to find a purchaser for a horse like this,” said I; “can you recommend me one?”

“I? Why no, not exactly; but you’ll find a purchaser shortly⁠—pooh! if you have no other cause for disquiet than that horse, cheer up, man, don’t be cast down. Have you nothing else on your mind? By the by, what’s become of the young woman you were keeping company with in that queer lodging place of yours?”

“She has left me,” said I.

“You quarrelled, I suppose?”

“No,” said I, “we did not exactly quarrel, but we are parted.”

“Well,” replied he, “but you will soon come together again.”

“No,” said I, “we are parted forever.”

“Forever! Pooh! you little know how people sometimes come together again who think they are parted forever. Here’s something on that point relating to myself. You remember, when I told you my story in that dingle of yours, that I mentioned a young woman, my fellow-servant when I lived with the English family in Mumbo Jumbo’s town, and how she and I, when our foolish governors were thinking of changing their religion, agreed to stand by each other, and be true to old Church of England, and to give our governors warning, provided they tried to make us renegades. Well, she and I parted soon after that, and never thought to meet again, yet we met the other day in the fields, for she lately came to live with a great family not far from here, and we have since agreed to marry, to take a little farm, for we have both a trifle of money, and live