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

“My father was of the old race,” said my mother, “and lived in the days of the highwaymen and their horses, when ‘ale was ale,’ as he used to say, and ‘was good for man and beast.’ We knew that on the night in question he would not be home till very late; so we offered to sit up for him in lieu of the servant, who was glad enough in such weather, and after a hard day’s work, to escape to her bed. My mother was indisposed and had retired to rest early. Well do I remember that night; it was the beginning of December, and the weather for some time past had been piercingly cold. The wind howled through the leafless boughs, and there was every appearance of an early and severe winter, as indeed befel. Long before eleven o’clock all was hushed and quiet within the house, and indeed without (nothing was heard), except the cold wind which howled mournfully in gusts. The house was an old farmhouse, and we sat in the large kitchen with its stone floor, awaiting the first stroke of the eleventh hour. It struck at last, and then all pale and trembling we hung the garment to dry before the fire which we had piled up with wood, and set the door ajar, for that was an essential point. The door was lofty and opened upon the farmyard, through which there was a kind of thoroughfare, very seldom used, it is true, and at each end of it there was a gate by which wayfarers occasionally passed to shorten the way. There we sat without speaking a word, shivering with cold and fear, listening to the clock which went slowly, tick, tick, and occasionally starting as the door creaked on its hinges, or a half-burnt billet fell upon the hearth. My sister was ghastly white, as white as the garment which was drying before the fire. And now half an hour had elapsed and it was time to turn.⁠ ⁠… This we did, I and my sister, without saying a word, and then we again sank on our chairs on either side of the fire. I was tired, and as the clock went tick-a-tick, I began to feel myself dozing. I did doze, I believe. All of a sudden I sprang up. The clock was striking one, two, but ere it could give the third chime, mercy upon us! we heard the gate slam to with a tremendous noise⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, and what happened then?”

“Happened! before I could recover myself, my sister had sprung to the door and both locked and bolted it. The next moment she was in convulsions. I scarcely knew what happened; and yet it appeared to me for a moment that something pressed against the door with a low moaning sound. Whether it was the wind or not, I can’t say. I shall never forget that night. About two hours later, my father came home. He had been set upon by a highwayman whom he beat off.”

“And what was the result?”

“The result? why, my sister was ill for many weeks. Poor thing, she never throve, married poorly, flung herself away.”

“I don’t see much in the story,” said my father; “I should have laughed at it, only there is one thing I don’t like.”

“What is that?”

“Why, the explanation of that strange child. It seems so odd that he should be able to interpret it. The idea came this moment into my head. I daresay it’s all nonsense, but, but⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, I daresay it’s nonsense. Let us go in.”

“If, after all, it should have been the worship of a demon! Your sister was punished, you say⁠—she never throve; now how do we know that you may not be punished too? That child with his confusion of tongues⁠—”

“I really think you are too hard upon him. After all, though not, perhaps, all you could wish, he is not a bad child; he is always ready to read the Bible. Let us go in; he is in the room above us; at least he was two hours ago. I left him there bending over his books; I wonder what he has been doing all this time. Let us go in, and he shall read to us.”]

“I am getting old,” said my father; “and I love to hear the Bible read to me, for my own sight is something dim; yet I do not wish the child to read to me this night, I cannot so soon forget what I have heard; but I hear my eldest son’s voice, he is now entering the gate; he shall read the Bible to us this night. What say you?”

The eldest son! The regard and affection which my father entertained for his firstborn were natural enough, and appeared to none more so than myself, who cherished the same feelings towards him. What he was as a boy the reader already knows, for the reader has seen him as a boy; fain would I describe him at the time of which I am now speaking, when he had attained the verge of manhood, but the pen fails me, and I attempt not the task; and yet it ought to be an easy one, for how frequently does his form visit my mind’s eye in slumber and in wakefulness, in the light of day, and in the night watches; but last night I saw him in his beauty and his strength; he was about to speak, and my ear was on the stretch, when at once I awoke, and there was I alone, and the night storm was howling amidst the branches of the pines which surround my lonely dwelling: “Listen to the moaning of the pine, at whose root thy hut is fastened,”⁠—a saying that, of wild Finland, in which there is wisdom; I listened, and thought of life and death.⁠ ⁠… Of all human beings that I have ever known, that elder brother was the most