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

was doing my ownself good, and making me forget my own sorrowful state, when ye interrupted me with your thaives of Danes! Och, Shorsha! let me tell you how Finn, by means of sucking his thumb, and the witchcraft he imbibed from it, contrived to pull off the arm of the ould wagabone, Darmod David Odeen, whilst shaking hands with him⁠—for Finn could do no feat of strength without sucking his thumb, Shorsha, as Conan the Bald told the son of Oisin in the song which I used to sing ye in Dungarvon times of old;” and here Murtagh repeated certain Irish words to the following effect:⁠—

O little the foolish words I heed
O Oisin’s son, from thy lips which come;
No strength were in Finn for valorous deed,
Unless to the gristle he suck’d his thumb.

“Enough is as good as a feast, Murtagh, I am no longer in the cue for Finn. I would rather hear your own history. Now tell us, man, all that has happened to ye since Dungarvon times of old?”

“Och, Shorsha, it would be merely bringing all my sorrows back upon me!”

“Well, if I know all your sorrows, perhaps I shall be able to find a help for them. I owe you much, Murtagh; you taught me Irish, and I will do all I can to help you.”

“Why, then, Shorsha, I’ll tell ye my history. Here goes!”

XLV

“Well, Shorsha, about a year and a half after you left us⁠—and a sorrowful hour for us it was when ye left us, losing, as we did, your funny stories of your snake, and the battles of your military⁠—they sent me to Paris and Salamanca, in order to make a saggart of me.”

“Pray excuse me,” said I, “for interrupting you, but what kind of place is Salamanca?”

“Divil a bit did I ever see of it, Shorsha!”

“Then why did you say ye were sent there? Well, what kind of place is Paris? Not that I care much about Paris.”

“Sorrow a bit did I ever see of either of them, Shorsha, for no one sent me to either. When we says at home a person is going to Paris and Salamanca, it manes that he is going abroad to study to be a saggart, whether he goes to them places or not. No, I never saw either⁠—bad luck to them⁠—I was shipped away from Cork up the straits to a place called Leghorn, from which I was sent to ⸻ to a religious house,336 where I was to be instructed in saggarting till they had made me fit to cut a dacent figure in Ireland. We had a long and tedious voyage, Shorsha; not so tedious, however, as it would have been had I been fool enough to lave your pack of cards behind me, as the thaif, my brother Denis, wanted to persuade me to do, in order that he might play with them himself. With the cards I managed to have many a nice game with the sailors, winning from them ha’pennies and sixpences until the captain said that I was ruining his men, and keeping them from their duty; and being a heretic and a Dutchman, swore that unless I gave over he would tie me up to the mast and give me a round dozen. This threat obliged me to be more on my guard, though I occasionally contrived to get a game at night, and to win sixpennies and ha’pennies.

“We reached Leghorn at last, and glad I was to leave the ship and the master, who gave me a kick as I was getting over the side, bad luck to the dirty heretic for kicking a son of the Church, for I have always been a true son of the Church, Shorsha, and never quarrelled with it unless it interfered with me in my playing at cards. I left Leghorn with certain muleteers, with whom I played at cards at the baiting-houses, and who speedily won from me all the ha’pennies and sixpences I had won from the sailors. I got my money’s worth, however, for I learnt from the muleteers all kind of quaint tricks upon the cards, which I knew nothing of before; so I did not grudge them what they chated me of, and when we parted we did so in kindness on both sides. On getting to ⸻ I was received into the religious house for Irishes. It was the Irish house, Shorsha, into which I was taken, for I do not wish ye to suppose that I was in the English religious house which there is in that city, in which a purty set are edicated, and in which purty doings are going on if all tales be true.

“In this Irish house I commenced my studies, learning to sing and to read the Latin prayers of the Church. ’Faith, Shorsha, many’s the sorrowful day I passed in that house learning the prayers and litanies, being half-starved, with no earthly diversion at all, at all, until I took the cards out of my chest and began instructing in card-playing the chum which I had with me in the cell; then I had plenty of diversion along with him during the times when I was not engaged in singing, and chanting, and saying the prayers of the Church; there was, however, some drawback in playing with my chum, for though he was very clever in learning, divil a sixpence had he to play with, in which respect he was like myself, the master who taught him, who had lost all my money to the muleteers who taught me the tricks upon the cards; by degrees, however, it began to be noised about the religious house that Murtagh from Hibrodary,337 had a pack of cards with which he played with his chum in the cell; whereupon other scholars of the religious house came to me, some to be taught and others