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

at Horncastle, to whom, by my orders, they had delivered certain horses, but they had seen no part of the money transaction; the fellow, whether from design or not, having taken me aside into a retired place, where he had paid me three spurious notes, and induced me to change the fourth, which throughout the affair was what bore most materially against me. How matters might have terminated I do not know; I might have gone to prison, and I might have been⁠—Just then, when I most needed a friend, and least expected to find one, for though amongst those present there were several who were my neighbours, and who had professed friendship for me, none of them when they saw that I needed support and encouragement, came forward to yield me any, but, on the contrary, appeared by their looks to enjoy my terror and confusion⁠—just then a friend entered the room in the person of the surgeon of the neighbourhood, the father of him who has attended you; he was not on very intimate terms with me, but he had occasionally spoken to me, and had attended my father in his dying illness, and chancing to hear that I was in trouble, he now hastened to assist me. After a short preamble, in which he apologised to the bench for interfering, he begged to be informed of the state of the case, whereupon the matter was laid before him in all its details. He was not slow in taking a fair view of it, and spoke well and eloquently in my behalf, insisting on the improbability that a person of my habits and position would be wilfully mixed up with a transaction like that of which it appeared I was suspected, adding, that as he was fully convinced of my innocence, he was ready to enter into any surety with respect to my appearance at any time to answer anything which might be laid to my charge. This last observation had particular effect, and as he was a person universally respected, both for his skill in his profession and his general demeanour, people began to think that a person in whom he took an interest could scarcely be concerned in anything criminal, and though my friend the magistrate⁠—I call him so ironically⁠—made two or three demurs, it was at last agreed between him and his brethren of the bench, that, for the present, I should be merely called upon to enter into my own recognisance for the sum of two hundred pounds, to appear whenever it should be deemed requisite to enter into any further investigation of the matter.

“So I was permitted to depart from the tribunal of petty justice without handcuffs, and uncollared by a constable; but people looked coldly and suspiciously upon me. The first thing I did was to hasten to the house of my beloved, in order to inform her of every circumstance attending the transaction. I found her, but how? A malicious female individual had hurried to her with a distorted tale, to the effect that I had been taken up as an utterer of forged notes; that an immense number had been found in my possession; that I was already committed, and that probably I should be executed. My affianced one tenderly loved me, and her constitution was delicate; fit succeeded fit; she broke a blood-vessel, and I found her deluged in blood; the surgeon had just been sent for; he came and afforded her every possible relief. I was distracted; he bade me have hope, but I observed he looked very grave.

“By the skill of the surgeon, the poor girl was saved in the first instance from the arms of death, and for a few weeks she appeared to be rapidly recovering; by degrees, however, she became melancholy; a worm preyed upon her spirit; a slow fever took possession of her frame. I subsequently learned that the same malicious female who had first carried to her an exaggerated account of the affair, and who was a distant relative of her own, frequently visited her, and did all in her power to excite her fears with respect to its eventual termination. Time passed on in a very wretched manner, our friend the surgeon showing to us both every mark of kindness and attention.

“It was owing to this excellent man that my innocence was eventually established. Having been called to a town on the borders of Yorkshire to a medical consultation, he chanced to be taking a glass of wine with the landlord of the inn at which he stopped, when the waiter brought in a note to be changed, saying, ‘That the Quaker gentleman, who had been for some days in the house, and was about to depart, had sent it to be changed, in order that he might pay his bill.’ The landlord took the note, and looked at it. ‘A fifty-pound bill,’ said he; ‘I don’t like changing bills of that amount, lest they should prove bad ones; however, as it comes from a Quaker gentleman, I suppose it is all right.’ The mention of a fifty-pound note aroused the attention of my friend, and he requested to be permitted to look at it; he had scarcely seen it, when he was convinced that it was one of the same description as those which had brought me into trouble, as it corresponded with them in two particular features, which the agent of the bank had pointed out to him and others as evidence of their spuriousness. My friend, without a moment’s hesitation, informed the landlord that the note was a bad one, expressing at the same time a great wish to see the Quaker gentleman who wanted to have it changed. ‘That you can easily do,’ said the landlord, and forthwith conducted him into the common room, where he saw a respectable-looking man, dressed like a Quaker, and seemingly about sixty years of age.

“My friend, after a short apology, showed