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

of the Sergeant, who gave me further lessons, so that in a little time I became a very fair boxer, beating everybody of my own size who attacked me. The old gentleman, however, made me promise never to be quarrelsome, nor to turn his instructions to account, except in self-defence. I have always borne in mind my promise, and have made it a point of conscience never to fight unless absolutely compelled. Folks may rail against boxing if they please, but being able to box may sometimes stand a quiet man in good stead. How should I have fared today, but for the instructions of Sergeant Broughton? But for them, the brutal ruffian who insulted me must have passed unpunished. He will not soon forget the lesson which I have just given him⁠—the only lesson he could understand. What would have been the use of reasoning with a fellow of that description? Brave old Broughton! I owe him much.”

“And your manner of fighting,” said I, “was the manner employed by Sergeant Broughton?”

“Yes,” said my new acquaintance; “it was the manner in which he beat everyone who attempted to contend with him, till, in an evil hour, he entered the ring with Slack, without any training or preparation, and by a chance blow lost the battle to a man who had been beaten with ease by those who, in the hands of Broughton, appeared like so many children. It was the way of fighting of him who first taught Englishmen to box scientifically, who was the head and father of the fighters of what is now called the old school, the last of which were Johnson and Big Ben.”

“A wonderful man, that Big Ben,” said I.

“He was so,” said the elderly individual; “but had it not been for Broughton, I question whether Ben would have ever been the fighter he was. Oh! there was no one like old Broughton; but for him I should at the present moment be sneaking along the road, pursued by the hissings and hootings of the dirty flatterers of that blackguard coachman.”

“What did you mean,” said I, “by those words of yours, that the coachmen would speedily disappear from the roads?”

“I meant,” said he, “that a new method of travelling is about to be established, which will supersede the old. I am a poor engraver, as my father was before me; but engraving is an intellectual trade, and by following it I have been brought in contact with some of the cleverest men in England. It has even made me acquainted with the projector of the scheme, which he has told me many of the wisest heads of England have been dreaming of during a period of six hundred years, and which it seems was alluded to by a certain Brazen Head in the storybook of Friar Bacon,273 who is generally supposed to have been a wizard, but in reality was a great philosopher. Young man, in less than twenty years, by which time I shall be dead and gone, England will be surrounded with roads of metal, on which armies may travel with mighty velocity, and of which the walls of brass and iron by which the friar proposed to defend his native land are types.” He then, shaking me by the hand, proceeded on his way, whilst I returned to the inn.

XXVII

A few days after the circumstance which I have last commemorated, it chanced that, as I was standing at the door of the inn, one of the numerous stagecoaches which were in the habit of stopping there, drove up, and several passengers got down. I had assisted a woman with a couple of children to dismount, and had just delivered to her a bandbox, which appeared to be her only property, which she had begged me to fetch down from the roof, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and heard a voice exclaim: “Is it possible, old fellow, that I find you in this place?” I turned round, and, wrapped in a large blue cloak, I beheld my good friend Francis Ardry. I shook him most warmly by the hand, and said: “If you are surprised to see me, I am no less so to see you; where are you bound to?”

“I am bound for L⁠⸺;274 at any rate, I am booked for that seaport,” said my friend in reply.

“I am sorry for it,” said I, “for in that case we shall have to part in a quarter of an hour, the coach by which you came stopping no longer.”

“And whither are you bound?” demanded my friend.

“I am stopping at present in this house, quite undetermined as to what to do.”

“Then come along with me,” said Francis Ardry.

“That I can scarcely do,” said I; “I have a horse in the stall which I cannot afford to ruin by racing to L⁠⸺ by the side of your coach.”

My friend mused for a moment: “I have no particular business at L⁠⸺,” said he; “I was merely going thither to pass a day or two, till an affair, in which I am deeply interested, at C⁠⸺⁠275 shall come off. I think I shall stay with you for four-and-twenty hours at least; I have been rather melancholy of late, and cannot afford to part with a friend like you at the present moment; it is an unexpected piece of good fortune to have met you; and I have not been very fortunate of late,” he added, sighing.

“Well,” said I, “I am glad to see you once more, whether fortunate or not; where is your baggage?”

“Yon trunk is mine,” said Francis, pointing to a trunk of black Russian leather upon the coach.

“We will soon have it down,” said I; and at a word which I gave to one of the hangers-on of the inn, the trunk was taken from the top of the coach. “Now,” said I to Francis Ardry, “follow