Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕

put me in the stocks. Well, I call it abusing them, to suppose they would do any such thing⁠—stocks, indeed!⁠—there are no stocks in all the land. Put me in the stocks? why, the President will come down to the quay, and ask me to dinner, as soon as he hears what I have said about the King and the Church.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said I, “if you go to America, you will say of the President and country what now you say of the King and Church, and cry out for somebody to send you back to England.”

The radical dashed his pipe to pieces against the table. “I tell you what, young fellow, you are a spy of the aristocracy, sent here to kick up a disturbance.”

“Kicking up a disturbance,” said I, “is rather inconsistent with the office of spy. If I were a spy, I should hold my head down, and say nothing.”

The man in black partially raised his head and gave me another peculiar glance.

“Well, if you ar’n’t sent to spy, you are sent to bully, to prevent people speaking, and to run down the great American nation; but you shan’t bully me. I say down with the aristocracy, the beggarly aristocracy. Come, what have you to say to that?”

“Nothing,” said I.

“Nothing!” repeated the radical.

“No,” said I, “down with them as soon as you can.”

“As soon as I can! I wish I could. But I can down with a bully of theirs. Come, will you fight for them?”

“No,” said I.

“You won’t?”

“No,” said I; “though from what I have seen of them I should say they are tolerably able to fight for themselves.”

“You won’t fight for them,” said the radical, triumphantly; “I thought so; all bullies, especially those of the aristocracy, are cowards. Here, landlord,” said he, raising his voice, and striking against the table with the jug, “some more ale⁠—he won’t fight for his friends.”

“A white feather,” said his companion.

“He! he!” tittered the man in black.

“Landlord, landlord,” shouted the radical, striking the table with the jug louder than before. “Who called?” said the landlord, coming in at last. “Fill this jug again,” said the other, “and be quick about it.” “Does anyone else want anything?” said the landlord. “Yes,” said the man in black; “you may bring me another glass of gin and water.” “Cold?” said the landlord. “Yes,” said the man in black, “with a lump of sugar in it.”

“Gin and water cold, with a lump of sugar in it,” said I, and struck the table with my fist.

“Take some?” said the landlord, inquiringly.

“No,” said I, “only something came into my head.”

“He’s mad,” said the man in black.

“Not he,” said the radical. “He’s only shamming; he knows his master is here, and therefore has recourse to these manoeuvres, but it won’t do. Come, landlord, what are you staring at? Why don’t you obey your orders? Keeping your customers waiting in this manner is not the way to increase your business.”

The landlord looked at the radical and then at me. At last, taking the jug and glass, he left the apartment, and presently returned with each filled with its respective liquor. He placed the jug with the beer before the radical, and the glass with the gin and water before the man in black, and then, with a wink to me, he sauntered out.

“Here is your health, sir,” said the man of the snuff-coloured coat, addressing himself to the man in black, “I honour you for what you said about the Church of England. Everyone who speaks against the Church of England has my warm heart. Down with it, I say, and may the stones of it be used for mending the roads, as my friend William says in his Register.”

The man in black, with a courteous nod of his head, drank to the man in the snuff-coloured coat. “With respect to the steeples,” said he, “I am not altogether of your opinion; they might be turned to better account than to serve to mend the roads; they might still be used as places of worship, but not for the worship of the Church of England. I have no fault to find with the steeples, it is the church itself which I am compelled to arraign; but it will not stand long, the respectable part of its ministers are already leaving it. It is a bad church, a persecuting church.”

“Whom does it persecute?” said I.

The man in black glanced at me slightly, and then replied slowly, “the Catholics.”

“And do those whom you call Catholics never persecute?” said I.

“Never,” said the man in black.

“Did you ever read Fox’s Book of Martyrs?” said I.

“He! he!” tittered the man in black, “there is not a word of truth in Fox’s Book of Martyrs.”

“Ten times more than in the Flos Sanctorum,” said I.

The man in black looked at me, but made no answer.

“And what say you to the Massacre of the Albigenses and the Vaudois, ‘whose bones lie scattered on the cold Alp,’ or the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes?”

The man in black made no answer.

“Go to,” said I, “it is because the Church of England is not a persecuting church, that those whom you call the respectable part are leaving her; it is because they can’t do with the poor Dissenters what Simon de Montfort did with the Albigenses, and the cruel Piedmontese with the Vaudois, that they turn to bloody Rome; the Pope will no doubt welcome them, for the Pope, do you see, being very much in want, will welcome⁠—”

“Hollo!” said the radical, interfering, “What are you saying about the Pope? I say hurrah for the Pope! I value no religion three halfpence, as I said before, but if I were to adopt any, it should be the Popish, as it’s called, because I conceives the Popish to be the grand enemy of the Church of England, of the beggarly aristocracy, and the borough-monger system, so I won’t hear the Pope abused