The Romany Rye Read online

  Diary.

  1st day [Tuesday, May 24, 1825]. Leaves London, afternoon; walks ninemiles S.W.; takes coach to [Amesbury].

  2nd day [Wednesday, May 25]. Arrives [Amesbury] before dawn; seesStonehenge; crosses Avon; descends to City of the Spire [Salisbury].

  3rd day [Thursday, May 26]. Salisbury.

  4th day [Friday, May 27]. Leaves Salisbury; walks N.W., about twelvemiles to small town [? Heytesbury].

  5th to 8th day [Saturday, May 28, to Tuesday, May 31]. Walks N.W.,twenty to twenty-five miles per day.

  9th day [Wednesday, June 1]. About two reaches small town, meets authorand accompanies him home (two miles off main road).

  10th day [Thursday, June 2]. Rev. Mr. Platitude visits author, Borrowleaves early; walks N. for two hours; buys Slingsby's pony and cart;afternoon travels N.W.; late at night arrives at a dingle [inShropshire].

  11th day [Friday, June 3]. Learning tinkering in dingle.

  12th to 14th day [Saturday, June 4, to Monday, June 6]. Tinkering indingle. {0f}

  15th day [Tuesday, June 7]. Visited by Leonora.

  16th day [Wednesday, June 8]. Collects kettles to mend.

  17th to 18th day [Thursday, June 9, to Friday, June 10]. Uneventful.

  19th day [Saturday, June 11]. Poisoned by Mrs. Herne's cake; saved byintervention of Welsh preacher and his wife; travels with them by night.

  20th day [Sunday, June 12]. Peter Williams preaches; Borrow bathes;meets the dairyman's daughter.

  21st day [Monday, June 13]. Uneventful.

  22nd day [Tuesday, June 14]. Peter promises to tell his tale.

  23rd to 24th day [Wednesday, June 15, to Thursday, June 16]. Uneventful.

  25th day [Friday, June 17]. Peter tells his tale.

  26th day [Saturday, June 18]. Peter tranquillized.

  27th day [Sunday, June 19]. Peter preaches.

  28th day [Monday, June 20]. Borrow talks of departing.

  29th day [Tuesday, June 21]. Accompanies preacher and wife to Welshborder; meets Mr. Petulengro; returns with him; parts near the SilentWoman; settles in Mumper's Dingle.

  30th to 32nd day [Wednesday, June 22, to Friday, June 24]. Practisesmaking horse-shoes.

  33rd day [Saturday, June 25]. Succeeds (after four days); at evening thehorrors.

  34th day [Sunday, June 26]. Better; reads Welsh Bible.

  35th day [Monday, June 27]. Uneventful.

  36th day [Tuesday, June 28]. Fight with Flaming Tinman; meets IsopelBerners, who remains in dingle.

  37th day [Wednesday, June 29]. Visits public-house (landlord says fighttook place day before); meets Man in Black; gives Belle her firstArmenian lesson; Man in Black visits dingle.

  38th to 40th day [Thursday, June 30, to Saturday, July 2]. Uneventful.

  41st day [Sunday, July 3]. Landlord tells Borrow of approachingcock-fight.

  42nd to 43rd day [Monday, July 4, to Tuesday, July 5]. Uneventful.

  44th day [Wednesday, July 6]. The cock-fight.

  45th to 47th day [Thursday, July 7, to Saturday, July 9]_. _Uneventful.

  48th to 50th day [Sunday, July 10, to Tuesday, July 12]. Landlord's lossof cock-fight generally known.

  51st day [Wednesday, July 13]. Landlord proposes fight between Borrowand Belle.

  52nd to 53rd day [Thursday, July 14, to Friday, July 15]. On one ofthese days Man in Black probably visits dingle.

  54th to 55th day [Saturday, July 16, to Sunday, July 17]. Uneventful.

  56th day [Monday, July 18]. Thunderstorm; postillion's chaiseoverturned.

  [_End of_ '_Lavengro_.']

  NOTE.--The last twenty dates are thus arrived at. There are tworeferences to the lapse of a fortnight since June 29, which was the dateof Borrow's first visit to the public-house, and of Belle's firstArmenian lesson. 'In about a fortnight Belle had hung up 100 Haikannumerals on the hake of her memory;' while the landlord, on the occasionwhen he suggests a fight between Borrow and Belle, complains that Huntercalls _him _an old fool, whereas a fortnight ago it was _he _who calledHunter a fool. The date, then, of this last visit of Borrow's to thepublic-house must have been on or about July 13. The defeat of thelandlord's game-cocks has been noised abroad for the past three days(July 10, 11, 12), and since the landlord had referred ten days before tothe fact that the fight was about to come off on the following Wednesday,it must have occurred on July 6. 'One day'--not necessarily the 14th or15th, but this date is unimportant--the Man in Black revisits the dingle,and then follow three uneventful days, on the last evening of which isthe great thunderstorm (July 18). Henceforward the daily record is plainand straightforward, and definitely fixed by the mention of the Sunday onwhich Borrow and the gypsies attend the church of M--.

  [_Beginning of_ '_Romany Rye_.']

  57th day [Tuesday, July 19]. Makes linchpin; postillion departs;evening, Man in Black.

  58th day [Wednesday, July 20]. Arrival of gypsies; Belle goes on shortjourney.

  59th day [Thursday, July 21]. Gypsies feast at Ursula's wedding.

  60th to 61st day [Friday, July 22, to Saturday, July 23]. Uneventful.

  62nd day [Sunday, July 24]. Afternoon church at M--; talk with Ursulaunder hedge; Belle returns at night.

  63rd day [Monday, July 25]. Landlord in despair; evening, gypsiesprepare for fair.

  64th day [Tuesday, July 26]. Attends fair with gypsies; last view ofBelle; sees horse.

  65th day [Wednesday, July 27]. Gypsies return from fair.

  66th to 67th day [Thursday, July 28, to Friday, July 29]. No Belle.

  68th day [Saturday, July 30]. Belle's letter; Borrow sleeps soundly.

  69th day [Sunday, July 31]. Landlord in luck; horse at public-house;Petulengro lends Borrow 50 pounds.

  70th day [Monday, August 1]. Buys horse.

  71st day [Tuesday, August 2]. Leaves dingle; rescues old man's ass; putsup at small inn on the North Road.

  72nd day [Wednesday, August 3]. Reaches posting house [Swan Hotel,Stafford].

  So far as we have proceeded the accuracy of this calculation depends upontwo dates only. Can we verify it by establishing the truth of any of theevents recorded by Borrow? In reply to my enquiry whether the_Wolverhampton Chronicle _contains any reference to a thunderstormoccurring on July 18, Mr. J. Elliot, the city librarian replied bysending me the following extract from that paper for Wednesday, July 20,1825:

  'On Monday afternoon [_i.e._, July 18] three men who were mowing in a field at the Limes, near Seabridge, in this county, took shelter under the hedge from a violent thunderstorm. They had not been long there before one of them was struck with the electric fluid, causing his immediate death. The other two men were a short distance from the ill-fated man above mentioned, and were stunned about an hour, but not injured further.'

  Again, Borrow mentions attending a horse and cattle fair, in company withthe gypsies, on the morning of the day when, looking backward toward thedingle, he saw Isopel Berners for the last time 'standing at the mouth,{0g} the beams of the morning sun shining full on her noble face andfigure.' It seems probable that this fair, which took the party abouttwo hours to reach, was the Tamworth horse and cattle fair held on July26.

  Again, Borrow tells us that 'a young moon gave a feeble light,' as hemounted the coach to Amesbury, and on May 24 the moon _was _in its firstquarter. {0h} The planet Jupiter, too, he could have seen after 10 p.m.on June 3, but his reference to the position of Ursus Major on theevening of his talk with Ursula is less satisfactory. 'On arriving atthe mouth of the dingle, which fronted the east, I perceived,' saysBorrow, 'that Charles's Wain was nearly opposite to it high above in theheavens, by which I knew that the night was tolerably well advanced.'But on July 24, as I learn, Charles's Wain was in the N.W., and atmidnight or 1 a.m. lay nearly due north, and as low down in the sky as itcould be. This, however, is perhaps to consider too closely. Indeed,the general accuracy of this part of Borrow
's story renders it probablethat it was expanded from a brief diary kept at the time.

  It will be seen that the dates thus arrived at differ from those ofBorrow's biographer. According to Professor Knapp, {0i} Borrow visitsGreenwich Fair on May 12, 1825, writes 'Joseph Sell' May 13 to 18, anddisposes of the MS. on the 20th; leaves London on the 22nd, reachesAmesbury on the 23rd; leaves Salisbury May 26, and meets author (man whotouches) May 30. On May 31 he buys Slingsby's pony, is in dingle June 1,visited by Leonora on the 5th, and drugged by Mrs. Herne on the 8th. Hepasses Sunday, June 12, and the following week with Peter Williams andhis wife, on the 21st he sees them to the border, turns back withPetulengro and settles in Mumpers' Dingle. His fight with the FlamingTinman, Professor Knapp tells us, must have occurred about the end ofJune. The Professor's chronology, however, seems to me derived from acalculation--not in itself over-exact {0j}--based upon the erroneous ideathat the fair took place on May 12. {0k} This is traceable to astatement in Thorpe {0l} that 'the fair lasted as a "hog" and pleasurefair, and was held on May 12 and October 11, till 1872'; but Thorpe hererefers to a later period, and there is no doubt that in 1825 theGreenwich Fair was held on Whit-Monday, May 23.

  Not the least interesting corollary from this correction is the discoverythat 'that extraordinary work,' the 'Life of Joseph Sell,' was neverwritten. To me Borrow's insistent iteration of the bare statement thathe wrote such a book is in itself suspicious, and it _is _not a littlestrange that a work for which 'during the last few months (before August,1825) there has been a prodigious demand'{0m} should have entirelydisappeared from the face of the earth. The name 'Sell,' which in somecurious fashion seems to carry conviction to Professor Knapp's mind, {0n}seems to me a singularly inauspicious one, especially when coming from awriter who, like Pakomovna, was 'born not far from the sign of thegammon,' and who boasts in his appendix of having inserted deliberatemisstatements in his books in order to deceive and mislead his critics.{0o} But why should Borrow pretend to have written this book? Chiefly,I think, to emphasize that independence of character of which he sofrequently boasts, and which, after his marriage fifteen years later to awell-to-do widow, he is perhaps a little apt to antedate. {0p} HoweverBorrow obtained the money which enabled him to leave London, it is plainthat it was not by writing 'Joseph Sell' at the time and in the mannerdescribed. If he were in as desperate circumstances as he represents, heprobably accepted Mr. Petulengro's offer, {0q} unless we are to supposethat he imitated the methods of Jerry Abershaw, Galloping Dick, or someof the 'fraternity of vagabonds' whose lives Borrow had chronicled in his'Celebrated Trials.'

  Borrow's narrative after his arrival at Stafford becomes dull, shadowy,and unconvincing--a strong argument against its truth; for while Borroweasily lived the life romantic, he seems to have lacked the power toimagine it. He describes himself as accepting a somewhat nondescriptoffice at the posting-inn on the Great North Road, where he remains foran undefined but considerable period, and meets again with Francis Ardreyand the Rev. Mr. Platitude. On leaving the inn he refuses to accept thelandlord's offer of an honorarium of 10 pounds, and sets off with _his_horse to Horncastle Fair. He meets with an accident a day's journeyfrom his destination, which confines him for eight days in the house ofthe old man who could read Chinese crockery, but could not tell what waso'clock. Ultimately he reaches Horncastle before the end of the fair,sells his horse to Jack Dale the jockey, and journeys towards Norwich,where we part with him at Spalding.

  These statements are mutually irreconcilable. Horncastle Fair was heldfrom August 10 (the Feast of St. Lawrence) to August 21, and had 'justbegun' on the day following his accident; but, as his journey lasted sixdays, this leaves no time at all for his experiences at the inn, where hemust have stopped for some weeks, and apparently a much longer period, as'a kind of overlooker in the stables.' If, on the other hand, we alloweven a fortnight for his stop at the inn, for which 10 pounds would behandsome payment, then he could not have arrived at Horncastle before theend of the fair. Which part of his story, if any, are we to accept?

  The Stafford story is decidedly weak. Borrow, being no fool, would nothave journeyed north for two days on his road to Horncastle, nor wouldArdrey have taken coach to Stafford _en route _for a lion fight atWarwick, which had taken place several days before. Mr. Platitude'sreappearance is extremely artificial, and the ostler's tales of Abershawand Co. are obviously reminiscences of Borrow's 'Celebrated Trials.' Butthe Horncastle story is weaker still. The 'Lord'-Lieutenant, _so _freeand young,' is pilloried, because eighteen years afterwards _he _did notsee _his _way to make Borrow a J.P. (Who would?) Murtagh is introducedmerely as a lay figure, upon which to drape an inverted account ofBorrow's own travels at a later period; and that very tedious gentleman,the tall Hungarian, _is _a character, Professor Knapp tells us, whomBorrow met in Hungary or Wallachia in 1884. It is plain that at thispoint the whole story has become what Borrow calls a 'fakement.'

  But that Borrow _did _buy a horse with money lent by Petulengro, and soldit at a profit, we have some reason to credit. Nearly ten years beforeBorrow wrote 'The Romany Rye,' in the second edition of his 'Zincali,'published in 1843, he quotes a speech of Mr. Petulengro's 'on the dayafter _mol-divvus_, {0r} 1842.' 'I am no _hindity mush_, {0s} as youwell know,' says Jasper. 'I suppose you have not forgot, how, fifteenyears ago, when you made horse-shoes in the little dingle by the side ofthe Great North Road, I lent you fifty _cottors_ {0t} to purchase thewonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with the green Newmarket coat,which three days later you sold for two hundred.' This earlier versionseems more probably the true one, and since three days would find Borrowin Stafford, it seems reasonable to conclude that he sold his horse thereand not in Lincolnshire. Personally, however, I must confess to feelinglittle interest in the fate of the animal--Belle's donkey were a dearerobject.

  Mumpers' Dingle might well become the Mecca of true Borrovians, could webut determine the authentic spot. Somewhere or other--who will find itfor us?--in west central Shropshire {0u} is a little roadside inn calledthe Silent Woman; {0v} a little further to the east is a milestone on theleft hand side, and a few yards from the milestone the cross-road wherePetulengro parted from Borrow. Ten miles further still is a town, andfive miles from the town the famous dingle. Mr. Petulengro describes itas 'surprisingly dreary'; 'a deep dingle in the midst of a large fieldabout which there has been a law-suit for some years past; the nearesttown five miles distant, and only a few huts and hedge public-houses inthe neighbourhood;' {0w} and Borrow speaks of it as 'a deep hollow in themidst of a wide field; the shelving sides overgrown with trees andbushes, a belt of sallows surrounding it on the top, and a steep windingpath leading down into the depths.' {0x} It was surrounded by a copse ofthorn bushes, {0y} and the mouth of the dingle fronted the east, {0z}while the highroad lay too far distant for the noise of traffic to reachBorrow's ears. {0z1}

  Professor Knapp has located the dingle in Monmer Lane, Willenhall, and avisit to the locality and references to old and new ordnance surveyssupport this view. Willenhall lies in the coal measures ofStaffordshire, and the modern development of its coal and iron industrieshas transformed the 'few huts and hedge public-houses' into a thrivingtown of about 17,000 inhabitants. The name of 'Mumpers' Dingle' did notseem to be locally recognised, and, indeed, was scornfully repudiated bythe oldest inhabitant; but this may have been merely his revenge for myintrusion just about his dinner hour. But Monmer Lane, still pronouncedand in the older ordnance surveys written 'Mumber Lane,' is known to all.At the top of this lane on the east side of the bridge lies the 'MonmerLane Ironworks,' which Professor Knapp, a little carelessly, assumes tohave been the site of the dingle; {0z2} and to the west a large flat,bare, uncultivated piece of land, Borrow's 'plain,' cut in two by theBentley Canal, which runs through it east and west. A walk of 500 yardsalong the tow-path brings us to a small bridge crossing the canal. Thisis known as 'Dingle Bridge,' the little hawthorn-girt lane leading to itis called 'Dingle Lane,' and a fie
ld opposite bears the name of 'DinglePiece.' The dingle itself has disappeared, possibly as a consequence oflevelling operations in the construction of the canal, and must not behastily identified by the pilgrim with the adjoining marl-pit, which hasbeen excavated still more recently. But we can hardly doubt thatsomewhere hereabouts is the historic spot where Borrow fought andvanquished the Flaming Tinman, that here he lived with Miss Berners 'inan uncertificated manner,' that under an adjoining thorn-bush he held hisastounding conversation with Ursula, and that from here, wearied of hercompanion's frigid regard and strange bantering, poor Isopel turned awaywith her little donkey-cart and a heavy heart.

  The public-house kept by the landlord in the green Newmarket coat, whowas 'the wonder and glory of the neighbourhood,' and who had fought andbeaten 'Tom of Hopton,' is still standing, though it is no longer used asan inn, and the pious Borrovian must abandon any hopes he may havecherished of drinking to the Lavengro's memory in 'hard old ale.' Aquaint old 'half-way house,' it lies, as Borrow describes, about twomiles east of the dingle--he saw the setting sun as he returned from hisfrequent visits there--on the right-hand side of the highroad to Walsall,along which the brewer proposed to establish 'a stage-coach and three torun across the country', and a little nearer Willenhall, on the northside of the road, is Bentley Hall, the 'hall' from which the postillionmust have been returning when overtaken by the thunderstorm. The churchattended by Borrow and his gypsy friends, when Mrs. Petulengro horrifiedthe sexton by invading the nobleman's vacant pew, may confidently beidentified with Bushbury Church, which has all the features described byBorrow. It is rather over three miles' distance from the dingle, has apeal of bells, a chancel entrance, and is surrounded by loftybeech-trees. The vicar in 1825 was a Mr. Clare, but whether ofevangelical views and a widower with two daughters, the present vicar isunable to inform me. 'The clergyman of M--, as they call him,' probablytook his name from Moseley Court or Moseley Hall, country seats in theparish of Bushbury.

  It is as a contribution to philology, Borrow tells us in the Appendix,that he wishes 'Lavengro' and this book to be judged. Fortunately forhimself, his fame rests upon surer foundations. A great but carelesslinguist, Borrow was assuredly no philologist. 'Hair-erecting'(_haarstraubend_) is the fitting epithet which an Oriental scholar,Professor Richard Pischel, of Berlin, finds to describe Borrow'setymologies; while Pott, in quoting from the 'Zincali,' indicates hishorror by notes of exclamation; or, when Borrow once in a way hits on theright etymon, confirms the statement with an ironical 'Ganz recht!'Though Borrow had read Borde, it was reserved for a Viennese scholar, Dr.Zupitza, to discover that the specimens of 'Egipt speche,' in ouroriginal Merry-Andrew's 'Boke of Knowledge,' were in reality goodAnglo-Romany. And whatever may have been Lavengro's vaunted acquaintancewith Armenian, it was apparently insufficient to enable him to identifyany of the Armenian elements in the gypsy language.

  Touching Borrow's knowledge of Romani, it must be confessed that while hehas been the means of attracting others to the study of that interestingtongue, his own command of it was of the slightest. He never mastered'deep' (or inflected) Romani, and even his broken gypsy is a curiousBorrovian variety, distinct from the idiom of the tents. No gypsy everuses _chal _or _engro _as a separate word, or talks of the _dukkeringdook _or _of penning a dukkerin_. His genders are perversely incorrect,as in the title of the present book; and his 'Romano Lavo-Lil: Word Bookof the Romany or English Gypsy Language' probably contains more 'howlers'than any other vocabulary in the world. He is responsible for thecreation of such ghost-words as _asarlas_, 'at all, in no manner'(mistaking _helpasar les _for _help asarlas_, pp 18, 110); _cappi_,'booty, gain' (_to lel cappi_, pp 28, 176 = 'to get blankets'); _ebyok_,'sea' (? the gypsy questioned, mishearing 'ebb-eye' for 'ebb-tide');_is_, 'if,' p. 51; _kokkodus_, 'uncle' (perhaps mistaking some suchphrase as 'like my _koko _does' for 'like my _kokkodus_'); _lutherum_,'sleep'; _medisin_, 'measure' (perhaps because medicine is measured out);_moskey_, 'a spy' (? mistaking _dikamaski _for _dik_! _a moskey)_; _o_,'he' (mistaking _kai jivela _for _kai jivvel o_, p. 53); _pahamengro_,'turnip' (probably mistaking _pusamengro_, 'pitchfork,' for the turnip itwas used to uproot); _pazorrhus_, 'indebted' = 'trust us'); _pios_,'drunken as a health' (_aukko tu_ [_to_] _pios_, p. 78 = 'here's fun');_sar_, 'with'; _sherrafo_, 'religious, converted,' pp. 89, 194 (really'chief, principal,' from _shero_, 'head'); _sicovar_, 'eternally' (_sicovar ajaw_, p. 90 = 'so the thing is'); _sos_, 'who' (= 'what's');_talleno_, 'woollen, flannel' (mistaking _talleno chofa_, p. 93,'under-skirt' for 'flannel petticoat'), etc. Perhaps the most amusinginstance of all is the word _hinjiri _in 'Lavengro.' When Mrs. Hernehanged herself, Petulengro says that she 'had been her own _hinjiri_,'{0z3} and the word is explained by Professor Knapp as the feminine of_hinjiro_, 'executioner,' from _djandjir_, 'a chain.' {0z4} But there_is _no such word as _hinjero_, and _hinjiri _is merely the English'injury' with a superfluous aspirate.

  On the Sunday evening after his conversation with Ursula, Borrow, movedby his discovery of the original meaning of the gypsy word _patteran_,falls into a strange train of thought. 'No one at present,' he says,'knew that but myself and Ursula, who had learnt it from Mrs. Herne, thelast, it was said, of the old stock; and then I thought what strangepeople the gypsies must have been in the old time. They weresufficiently strange at present, but they must have been far stranger ofold; they must have been a more peculiar people--their language must havebeen more perfect--and they must have had a greater stock of strangesecrets. I almost wished that I had lived some two or three hundredyears ago, that I might have observed these people when they were yetstranger than at present. I wondered whether I could have introducedmyself to their company at that period, whether I should have been sofortunate as to meet such a strange, half-malicious, half good-humouredbeing as Jasper, who would have instructed me in the language, then moredeserving of note than at present. What might I not have done with thatlanguage had I known it in its purity? Why, I might have written booksin it! Yet those who spoke it would hardly have admitted me to theirsociety at that period, when they kept more to themselves. Yet I thoughtthat I might possibly have gained their confidence, and have wanderedabout with them, and learnt their language and all their strange ways,and then--and then--and a sigh rose from the depth of my breast; for Ibegan to think, "Supposing I had accomplished all this, what would havebeen the profit of it? and in what would all this wild gypsy dream haveterminated?"'

  It is one of the ironies of fate that Borrow, neither then nor thirtyyears later, when he made his pedestrian tour through Wales, should haveknown that there was still in that country a gypsy tribe who _had_preserved the language of two or three hundred years ago. He might havemet gypsies who had spoken to that Romani patriarch Abram Wood; he mighthave told us the origin of the mysterious Ingrams, for one of whom he washimself mistaken; {0z5} he might have learned from Black Ellen some ofthe three hundred folk-tales with which she is credited; he might havesat at the feet of that fairy witch Alabina the _Meleni_, or havedescribed 'Taw' as a girl in her teens. We may sigh for the pictureswhich the word-master would have given us of this people, but the sigh isalmost one of relief when we think of the escape of the exquisite tonguewhich Borrow would have tortured and defaced, and I, for one, cannotpretend to regret that the discovery of Welsh Romani should have falleninstead to the lot of that perfect scholar-gypsy and gypsy-scholar,FRANCIS HINDES GROOME.

  * * * * *

  NOTE.--The page references to 'Lavengro' in the foot-notes are to F. H.Groome's edition published in this series; references to 'RomanoLavo-Lil' and 'Wild Wales' are to the original editions. Borrow's ownfoot-notes are marked (G. B.), and facts quoted on Professor Knapp'sauthority (Kn.).