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

if ye ever heard of such a book; all the hangdog names in the Newgate histories, and the lives of Irish rogues, did we call each other⁠—his reverence and I! Suddenly, however, putting out his hand, he seized the cards, saying, ‘I will examine these cards, ye chating scoundrel! for I believe there are dirty marks on them, which ye have made in order to know the winning cards.’ ‘Give me back my pack,’ said I, ‘or m’anam on Dioul338 if I be not the death of ye!’ His reverence, however, clapped the cards into his pocket, and made the best of his way to the door, I hanging upon him. He was a gross, fat man, but, like most fat men, deadly strong, so he forced his way to the door, and, opening it, flung himself out, with me still holding on him like a terrier dog on a big fat pig; then he shouts for help, and in a little time I was secured and thrust into a lockup room, where I was left to myself. Here was a purty alteration. Yesterday I was the idol of the religious house, thought more on than his reverence, everyone paying me court and wurtship, and wanting to play cards with me, and to learn my tricks, and fed, moreover, on the tidbits of the table; and today I was in a cell, nobody coming to look at me but the blackguard porter who had charge of me, my cards taken from me, and with nothing but bread and water to live upon. Time passed dreary enough for a month, at the end of which time his reverence came to me, leaving the porter just outside the door in order to come to his help should I be violent; and then he read me a very purty lecture on my conduct, saying I had turned the religious house topsy-turvy, and corrupted the scholars, and that I was the chate of the world, for that on inspecting the pack he had discovered the dirty marks which I had made upon the trump cards for to know them by. He said a good dale more to me, which is not worth relating, and ended by telling me that he intended to let me out of confinement next day, but that if ever I misconducted myself any more, he would clap me in again for the rest of my life. I had a good mind to call him an ould thaif, but the hope of getting out made me hold my tongue, and the next day I was let out; and need enough I had to be let out, for what with being alone, and living on the bread and water, I was becoming frighted, or, as the doctors call it, narvous. But when I was out⁠—oh, what a change I found in the religious house; no card-playing, for it had been forbidden to the scholars, and there was now nothing going on but reading and singing; divil a merry visage to be seen, but plenty of prim airs and graces; but the case of the scholars, though bad enough, was not half so bad as mine, for they could speak to each other, whereas I could not have a word of conversation, for the ould thaif of a rector had ordered them to send me to ‘Coventry,’ telling them that I was a gambling chate, with morals bad enough to corrupt a horse regiment; and whereas they were allowed to divert themselves with going out, I was kept reading and singing from morn till night. The only soul who was willing to exchange a word with me was the cook, and sometimes he and I had a little bit of discourse in a corner, and we condoled with each other, for he liked the change in the religious house almost as little as myself; but he told me that, for all the change below stairs, there was still card-playing going on above, for that the ould thaif of a rector, and the sub-rector, and the almoner played at cards together, and that the rector won money from the others⁠—the almoner had told him so⁠—and, moreover, that the rector was the thaif of the world, had been a gambler in his youth, and had once been kicked out of a clubhouse at Dublin for chating at cards, and after that circumstance had apparently reformed and lived dacently till the time when I came to the religious house with my pack, but that the sight of that had brought him back to his ould gambling. He told the cook, moreover, that the rector frequently went out at night to the houses of the great clergy and chated at cards.

“In this melancholy state, with respect to myself, things continued a long time, when suddenly there was a report that his Holiness the Pope intended to pay a visit to the religious house in order to examine into its state of discipline. When I heard this I was glad, for I determined, after the Pope had done what he had come to do, to fall upon my knees before him, and make a regular complaint of the treatment I had received, to tell him of the chating at cards of the rector, and to beg him to make the ould thaif give me back my pack again. So the day of the visit came, and his Holiness made his appearance with his attendants, and, having looked over the religious house, he went into the rector’s room with the rector, the sub-rector, and the almoner. I intended to have waited until his Holiness came out, but finding he stayed a long time I thought I would e’en go into him, so I went up to the door without anybody observing me⁠—his attendants being walking about the corridor⁠—and opening it I slipped in, and there what do you think I saw? Why, his Holiness