Lavengro : $b The Scholar; The Gypsy; The Priest, Vol. 2 (of 2)Borrow, George
General
Lavengro : $b The Scholar; The Gypsy; The Priest, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Borrow, George
England -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction
continually jabbering to us in that, and by hearing him the maids and
myself contrived to pick up a good deal of the language, so that we
understood most that was said, and could speak it very fairly; and the
themes of his jabber were the beauty and virtues of one whom he called
Holy Mary, and the power and grandeur of one whom he called the Holy
Father; and he told us that we should shortly have an opportunity of
seeing the Holy Father, who could do anything he liked with Holy Mary: in
the meantime we had plenty of opportunities of seeing Holy Mary, for in
every church, chapel, and convent to which we were taken, there was an
image of Holy Mary, who, if the images were dressed at all in her
fashion, must have been very fond of short petticoats and tinsel, and
who, if those said figures at all resembled her in face, could scarcely
have been half as handsome as either of my two fellow-servants, not to
speak of the young ladies.
"Now it happened that one of the female servants was much taken with what
she saw and heard, and gave herself up entirely to the will of the
subordinate, who had quite as much dominion over her as his superior had
over the ladies; the other maid, however, the one who had a kind of
respect for me, was not so easily besotted; she used to laugh at what she
saw, and at what the fellow told her, and from her I learnt that amongst
other things intended by these priestly confederates was robbery; she
said that the poor old governor had already been persuaded by his
daughters to put more than a thousand pounds into the superior priest's
hands for purposes of charity and religion, as was said, and that the
subordinate one had already inveigled her fellow-servant out of every
penny which she had saved from her wages, and had endeavoured likewise to
obtain what money she herself had, but in vain. With respect to myself,
the fellow shortly after made an attempt towards obtaining a hundred
crowns, of which, by some means, he knew me to be in possession, telling
me what a meritorious thing it was to give one's superfluities for the
purposes of religion. 'That is true,' said I, 'and if, after my return
to my native country, I find I have anything which I don't want myself, I
will employ it in helping to build a Methodist chapel.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account