It May Be That This Eccentric Individual Is
Remembered By Some Of My Readers, But I Assure Them That He Was Quite
A St. James's Park Dandy Compared With My Hermit.
He wore a pair of
gigantic shoes, about a foot broad at the toes, made out of thick cow-
hide with the hair on; and on his head was a tall rimless cow-hide hat
shaped like an inverted flower-pot.
His bodily covering was, however,
the most extraordinary: the outer garment, if garment it can be
called, resembled a very large mattress in size and shape, with the
ticking made of innumerable pieces of raw hide sewn together. It was
about a foot in thickness and stuffed with sticks, stones, hard lumps
of clay, rams' horns, bleached bones, and other hard heavy objects; it
was fastened round him with straps of hide, and reached nearly to the
ground. The figure he made in this covering was most horribly uncouth
and grotesque, and his periodical visits used to throw us into a great
state of excitement. And as if this awful burden with which he had
saddled himself - enough to have crushed down any two ordinary men - was
not sufficient, he had weighted the heavy stick used to support his
steps with a great ball at the end, also with a large circular bell-
shaped object surrounding the middle. On arriving at the house, where
the dogs would become frantic with terror and rage at sight of him, he
would stand resting himself for eight or ten minutes; then in a
strange language, which might have been Hebrew or Sanscrit, for there
was no person learned enough in the country to understand it, he would
make a long speech or prayer in a clear ringing voice, intoning his
words in a monotonous sing-song. His speech done, he would beg, in
broken Spanish, for the usual charity; and, after receiving it, he
would commence another address, possibly invoking blessings of all
kinds on the donor, and lasting an unconscionable time. Then, bidding
a ceremonious farewell, he would take his departure.
From the sound of certain oft-recurring expressions in his recitations
we children called him "Con-stair Lo-vair"; perhaps some clever pundit
will be able to tell me what these words mean - the only fragment saved
of the hermit's mysterious language. It was commonly reported that he
had at one period of his life committed some terrible crime, and that,
pursued by the phantoms of remorse, he had fled to this distant
region, where he would never be met and denounced by any former
companion, and had adopted his singular mode of life by way of
penance. This was, of course, mere conjecture, for nothing could be
extracted from him. When closely questioned or otherwise interfered
with, then old Con-stair Lo-vair would show that his long cruel
penance had not yet banished the devil from his heart. A terrible
wrath would disfigure his countenance and kindle his eyes with
demoniac fire; and in sharp ringing tones, that wounded like strokes,
he would pour forth a torrent of words in his unknown language,
doubtless invoking every imaginable curse on his tormentor.
For upwards of twenty years after I as a small child made his
acquaintance he continued faithfully pursuing his dreary rounds,
exposed to cold and rain in winter and to the more trying heats of
summer; until at last he was discovered lying dead on the plain,
wasted by old age and famine to a mere skeleton, and even in death
still crushed down with that awful burden he had carried for so many
years. Thus, consistent to the end, and with his secret untold to any
sympathetic human soul, perished poor old Con-stair Lo-vair, the
strangest of all strange beings I have met with in my journey through
life.
CHAPTER II
MY NEW HOME
We quit our old home - A winter day journey - Aspect of the country - Our
new home - A prisoner in the barn - The plantation - A paradise of rats -
An evening scene - The people of the house - A beggar on horseback - Mr.
Trigg our schoolmaster - His double nature - Impersonates an old woman -
Reading Dickens - Mr. Trigg degenerates - Once more a homeless wanderer
on the great plain.
The incidents and impressions recorded in the preceding chapter
relate, as I have said, to the last year or two of my five years of
life in the place of my birth. Further back my memory refuses to take
me. Some wonderful persons go back to their second or even their first
year; I can't, and could only tell from hearsay what I was and did up
to the age of three. According to all accounts, the clouds of glory I
brought into the world - a habit of smiling at everything I looked at
and at every person that approached me - ceased to be visibly trailed
at about that age; I only remember myself as a common little boy - just
a little wild animal running about on its hind legs, amazingly
interested in the world in which it found itself.
Here, then, I begin, aged five, at an early hour on a bright, cold
morning in June - midwinter in that southern country of great plains or
pampas; impatiently waiting for the loading and harnessing to be
finished; then the being lifted to the top with the other little ones
- at that time we were five; finally, the grand moment when the start
was actually made with cries and much noise of stamping and snorting
of horses and rattling of chains. I remember a good deal of that long
journey, which began at sunrise and ended between the lights some time
after sunset; for it was my very first, and I was going out into the
unknown. I remember how, at the foot of the slope at the top of which
the old home stood, we plunged into the river, and there was more
noise and shouting and excitement until the straining animals brought
us safely out on the other side.
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