One of the finest traits in Borrow's character was his devotion to his mother. He was always thoughtful for her comfort, even when fighting that almost hopeless battle in Russia, and later in the midst of bandits and bloody patriots in Spain. She was now, in 1849, an old woman, too feeble to live alone, and it was decided to transfer her to Oulton. An addition to the Hall was constructed for her accommodation, and she was to be given an attendant-companion in the person of the daughter of a local farmer.
For thirty-three years she had lived in the little house in Willow Lane; yet it was not she, but Borrow, who felt the parting from old associations. "I wish," she writes to her daughter-in-law on 16th September 1849, "my dear George would not have such fancies about the old house; it is a mercy it has not fallen on my head before this." The old lady was anxious to get away. It would not be safe, she thought, for her to be shut up alone, as the old woman who had looked after her could, for some reason or other, do so no longer. She urges her daughter-in-law to represent this to Borrow.
"There is a low, noisy set close to me," she continues. "I shall not die one day sooner, or live one day longer. If I stop here and die on a sudden, half the things might be lost or stolen, therefore it seems as if the Lord would provide me a SAFER HOME. I have made up my mind to the change and only pray that I may be able to get through the trouble."
It would appear that the move, which took place at the end of September, was brought about by the old lady's appeals and insistence, and that Borrow himself was not anxious for it. He felt a sentimental attachment to the old place, which for so many years had been a home to him.
In 1853 Borrow removed to Great Yarmouth. During the summer of that year, Dr Hake had peremptorily ordered Mrs George Borrow not to spend the ensuing winter and spring at Oulton, and the move was made in August. The change was found to be beneficial to Mrs Borrow and agreeable to all, and for the next seven years (Aug. 1853-June 1860) Borrow's headquarters were to be at Great Yarmouth, where he and his family occupied various lodgings.
Shortly before leaving Oulton, Borrow had received the following interesting letter from FitzGerald:-
BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, 22nd July 1853.
MY DEAR SIR,--I take the liberty of sending you a book [Six Dramas from Calderon], of which the title-page and advertisement will sufficiently explain the import. I am afraid that I shall in general be set down at once as an impudent fellow in making so free with a Great Man; but, as usual, I shall feel least fear before a man like yourself, who both do fine things in your own language and are deep read in those of others. I mean, that whether you like or not what I send you, you will do so from knowledge and in the candour which knowledge brings.
I had even a mind to ask you to look at these plays before they were printed, relying on our common friend Donne for a mediator; but I know how wearisome all MS. inspection is; and, after all, the whole affair was not worth giving you such a trouble. You must pardon all this, and believe me,--Yours very faithfully,
EDWARD FITZGERALD.
Soon after his arrival by the sea, Borrow performed an act of bravery of which The Bury Post (17th Sept. 1852) gave the following account, most likely written by Dr Hake:-
"INTREPIDITY.--Yarmouth jetty presented an extra-ordinary and thrilling spectacle on Thursday, the 8th inst., about one o'clock. The sea raged frantically, and a ship's boat, endeavouring to land for water, was upset, and the men were engulfed in a wave some thirty feet high, and struggling with it in vain. The moment was an awful one, when George Borrow, the well-known author of Lavengro, and The Bible in Spain, dashed into the surf and saved one life, and through his instrumentality the others were saved. We ourselves have known this brave and gifted man for years, and, daring as was this deed we have known him more than once to risk his life for others. We are happy to add that he has sustained no material injury."
Borrow was a splendid swimmer. {404a} In the course of one of his country walks with Robert Cooke (John Murray's partner), with whom he was on very friendly terms, "he suggested a bathe in the river along which they were walking. Mr Cooke told me that Borrow, having stripped, took a header into the water and disappeared. More than a minute had elapsed, and as there were no signs of his whereabouts, Mr Cooke was becoming alarmed, lest he had struck his head or been entangled in the weeds, when Borrow suddenly reappeared a considerable distance off, under the opposite bank of the stream, and called out 'What do you think of that?'" {404b}
Elizabeth Harvey, in telling the same story, says that on coming up he exclaimed: "There, if that had been written in one of my books, they would have said it was a lie, wouldn't they?"
The paragraph about Borrow's courage was printed in various newspapers throughout the country, amongst others in the Plymouth Mail under the heading of "Gallant Conduct of Mr G. Borrow," and was read by Borrow's Cornish kinsmen, who for years had heard nothing of Thomas Borrow. Apparently quite convinced that George was his son, they deputed Robert Taylor, a farmer of Penquite Farm (who had married Anne Borrow, granddaughter of Henry Borrow), to write to Borrow and invite him to visit Trethinnick. The letter was dated 10th October and directed to "George Borrow, Yarmouth." Borrow replied as follows:-
YARMOUTH, 14th Octr., 1853.
MY DEAR SIR,--I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 10th inst. in which you inform me of the kind desire of my Cornish relatives to see me at Trethinnock (sic). Please to inform them that I shall be proud and happy to avail myself of their kindness and to make the acquaintance of "one and all" {405a} of them. My engagements will prevent my visiting them at present, but I will appear amongst them on the first opportunity. I am delighted to learn that there are still some living at Trethinnock who remember my honoured father, who had as true a Cornish heart as ever beat.
I am at present at Yarmouth, to which place I have brought my wife for the benefit of her health; but my residence is Oulton Hall, Lowestoft, Suffolk. With kind greetings to my Cornish kindred, in which my wife and my mother join,--I remain, my dear Sir, ever sincerely yours, -
GEORGE BORROW.
Borrow was not free to visit his kinsfolk until the following Christmas. First advising Robert Taylor of his intention, and receiving his approval and instructions for the journey, Borrow set out from Great Yarmouth on 23rd December. He spent the night at Plymouth. Next morning on finding the Liskeard coach full, he decided to walk. Leaving his carpet-bag to be sent on by the mail, and throwing over his arm the cloak that had seen many years of service, he set out upon his eighteen-mile tramp. He arrived at Liskeard in the afternoon, and was met by his cousin Henry Borrow and Robert Taylor, as well as by several local celebrities.
After tea Borrow, accompanied by Robert Taylor, rode to Penquite, four miles away. "Ride by night to Penquite, Borrow records in his Journal. House of stone and slate on side of a hill. Mrs Taylor. Hospitable reception. Christmas Eve. Log on fire." He found alive of his own generation, Henry, William, Thomas, Elizabeth (who lived to be 94 years of age) and Nicholas, the children of Henry Borrow, Captain Borrow's eldest brother. Also Anne, daughter of Henry, who married Robert Taylor, and their daughter, likewise named Anne, and William Henry, son of Nicholas.
In the Cornish Note Books there appears under the date of 3rd January the following entry: "Rain and snow. Rode with Mr Taylor to dine at Trethinnick. House dilapidated. A family party. Hospitable people." On first entering his father's old home tears had sprung to Borrow's eyes, and he was much affected. There was present at the dinner the vicar of St Cleer, the Rev. J. R. P. Berkeley, a pleasant Irish clergyman who, years later, was able to give to Dr Knapp an account of what took place. He noticed the "vast difference in appearance and manners between the simple yet shrewd Cornish farmers and the betravelled gentleman their kinsman;" yet for all this there were shades of resemblance--in a look, some turn of thought or tone of voice. George Borrow was not at his best that evening, Mr Berkeley relates of the dinner at Trethinnick:
"his feelings were too much excited. He was thinking of the time when his father's footsteps and his father's voice re-echoed in the room in which we were sitting. His eyes wandered from point to point, and at times, if I was not mistaken, a tear could be seen trembling in them. At length he could no longer control his feelings. He left the hall suddenly, and in a few moments, but for God's providential care, the career of George Borrow would have been ended. There was within a few feet of the house a low wall with a drop of some feet into a paved yard. He walked rapidly out, and, it being nearly dark, he stepped one side of the gate and fell over the wall. He did not mention the accident, although he bruised himself a good deal, and it was some days before I heard of it. His words to me that evening, when bidding me good-bye, were: 'Well, we have shared the old-fashioned hospitality of old-fashioned people in an old-fashioned house.'" {407a}
Borrow created something of a sensation in the neighbourhood. As a celebrity his autograph was much sought after; but he would gratify nobody. His hosts experienced many little surprises from their guest's strange ways. He would plunge into a moorland pool to fetch a bird that had fallen to his gun, or, round the family fireside, he would shout his ballads of the North, at one time alarming his audience by seizing a carving-knife and brandishing it about in the air to emphasize the passionate nature of his song. When a card- party proved too dull he slipped off and found his way into some slums, picking up all the disreputable characters he could find, working off his knowledge of cant on them, and getting out of them what he could. {407b}
On one occasion when dining at the house of a local celebrity he was suddenly missed from table during dessert.
"A search revealed him in a remote room surrounded by the children of the house, whom he was amusing by his stories and catechising in the subject of their studies and pursuits. He excused his absence by saying that he had been fascinated by the intelligence of the children, and had forgotten about the dinner." {407c}
His hatred of gentility led him into some actions that can only be characterised as childish. Even in Cornwall he was on the lookout for his fetish. On one occasion when dining with the ex-Mayor of Liskeard, he pulled out of his pocket and used instead of a handkerchief, a dirty old grease-stained rag with which he was wont to clean his gun. {408a} This was done as a protest against something or other that seemed to him to suggest mock refinement.
When at Wolsdon as the guest of the Pollards there arrived a lady and gentleman of the name of Hambly, according to the Note Books. In spite of this brief reference, Borrow immediately recognised a hated name. Never was one of the name good, he informed Mr Berkeley. He may even have been informed that they were descendants of the Headborough whom his father had knocked down. He showed his detestation for the name by being as rude as he could to those who bore it.
Borrow was as incapable of dissimulating his dislikes as he was of controlling his moods. Even during his short stay at Penquite he was on one occasion, at least, plunged into a deep melancholy, sitting before a huge fire entirely oblivious to the presence of others in the room. Mrs Berkeley, who, with the vicar himself, was a caller, thinking to produce some good effect upon the gloomy man, sat down at the piano and played some old Irish and Scottish airs. After a time Borrow began to listen, then he raised his head, and finally "he suddenly sprang to his feet, clapped his hands several times, danced about the room, and struck up some joyous melody. From that moment he was a different man." He told them "tales and side-splitting anecdotes," he joined the party at supper, and when the vicar and his wife rose to take their leave he pressed Mrs Berkeley's hands, and told her that her music had been as David's harp to his soul.
To the young man he met during this visit who informed him that he had left the Army as it was no place for a gentleman, Borrow replied that it was no place for a man who was not a gentleman, and that he was quite right in leaving it. To speak against the Army to Borrow was to speak against his honoured father.
How Borrow struck his Cornish kinsfolk is shown in a letter written by his hostess to a friend. "I must tell you," she writes, "a bit about our distinguished visitor." She gives one of the most valuable portraits of Borrow that exists. He was to her:
"A fine tall man of about six feet three, well-proportioned and not stout; able to walk five miles an hour successively; rather florid face without any hirsute appendages; hair white and soft; eyes and eyebrows dark; good nose and very nice mouth; well-shaped hands-- altogether a person you would notice in a crowd. His character is not so easy to portray. The more I see of him the less I know of him. He is very enthusiastic and eccentric, very proud and unyielding. He says very little of himself, and one cannot ask him if inclined to . . . He is a marvel in himself. There is no one here to draw him out. He has an astonishing memory as to dates when great events have taken place, no matter in what part of the world. He seems to know everything." {409a}
Borrow was gratified at the welcome he received, and was much pleased with the neighbourhood and its people. "My relations are most excellent people," he wrote to his wife, "but I could not understand more than half they said." He was puzzled to know why the head of a family, which was reputed to be worth seventy thousand pounds, should live in a house which could not boast of a single grate--"nothing but open chimneys."
He remained at Penquite for upwards of a fortnight, at one time galloping over snowy hills and dales with Anne Taylor, Junr., "as gallant a girl as ever rode," at another, alert as ever for fragments of folk-lore or philology, jotting down the story of a pisky-child from the dictation of his cousin Elizabeth.
On 9th January Borrow left Penquite on a tour to Truro, Penzance, Mousehole, and Land's End, armed with the inevitable umbrella, grasped in the centre by the right hand, green, manifold and bulging, that so puzzled Mr Watts-Dunton and caused him on one occasion to ask Dr Hake, "Is he a genuine Child of the Open Air?" It was one of the first things to which Borrow's pedestrian friends had to accustom themselves. With this "damning thing . . . gigantic and green," Borrow set out upon his excursion, now examining some Celtic barrow, now enquiring his way or the name of a landmark, occasionally singing in that tremendous voice of his, "Look out, look out, Swayne Vonved!"
At Mousehole he called upon a relative, H. D. Burney (who was, it would seem, in charge of the Coast Guard Station), to whom he had a letter of introduction from Robert Taylor. Mr Burney entertained him with stories, showed him places and things of interest in the neighbourhood, and accompanied him on his visit to St Michael's Mount. Borrow returned to Penquite on the 25th with a considerable store of Cornish legends and Cornish words, and the knowledge that you can only see Cornwall or know anything about it by walking through it.
The next excursion was to the North Coast, Pentire Point, Tintagel, King Arthur's Castle, etc. On the 1st of February he left Penquite, and slept the night at Trethinnick. The next morning he set out on horseback accompanied by Nicholas Borrow.
To the vicar of St Cleer and his family, Borrow was a very welcome visitor. Mr Berkeley's eldest son, a boy of ten years of age, on being introduced to the distinguished caller, gazed at him for some moments and then without a word left the room and, going straight to his mother in another apartment cried, "Well, mother, that IS a man." Borrow was delighted when he heard of the child's enthusiasm. Mr Berkeley give a picture of his distinguished visitor far more prepossessing than many that exist. He was particularly struck, as was everybody, by the beauty of Borrow's hands, and their owner's vanity over them as the legacy of his Huguenot ancestors. Mr Berkeley found Borrow's countenance pleasing, betokening calm firmness, self-confidence and a mind under control, though capable of passion. He could on occasion prove a delightful talker, and he gave to the vicar's family a new maxim to implant upon their Christianity, the old prize-fighters receipt for a quiet life: "Learn to box, and keep a civil tongue in your head." He would often drop in at the vicarage in the evening, when he would
"sit in the centre of a group before the fire with his hands on his knees--his favourite position--pouring forth tales of the scenes he had witnessed in his wanderings. . . . Then he would suddenly spring from his seat and walk to and fro the room in silence; anon he would clap his hands and sing a Gypsy song, or perchance would chant forth a translation of some Viking poem; after which he would sit down again and chat about his father, whose memory he revered as he did his mother's; {411a} and finally he would recount some tale of suffering or sorrow with deep pathos--his voice being capable of expressing triumphant joy or the profoundest sadness."
It was Borrow's intention to write a book about his visit to Cornwall, and he even announced it at the end of The Romany Rye. He was delighted with the Duchy, and evidently gave his relatives to understand that it was his intention to use the contents of his Note Books as the nucleus of a book. "He will undoubtedly write a description of his visit," Mrs Taylor wrote to her friend. "I walked through the whole of Cornwall and saw everything," Borrow wrote to his wife after his return to London. "I kept a Journal of every day I was there, and it fills TWO pocket books."
Borrow left Cornwall the second week in February and was in London on the 10th, where he was to break his journey home in order to obtain some data at the British Museum for the Appendix of The Romany Rye. On 13th February he writes to his wife:-
"For three days I have been working hard at the Museum, I am at present at Mr Webster's, but not in the three guinea lodgings. I am in rooms above, for which I pay thirty shillings a week. I live as economically as I can; but when I am in London I am obliged to be at certain expense. I must be civil to certain friends who invite me out and show me every kindness. Please send me a five pound note by return of post."
His wife appears to have been anxious for his return home, and on the 17th he writes to her:-
"It is hardly worth while making me more melancholy than I am. Come home, come home! is the cry. And what are my prospects when I get home? though it is true that they are not much brighter here. I have nothing to look forward to. Honourable employments are being given to this and that trumpery fellow; while I, who am an honourable man, must be excluded from everything."
Of literature he expressed himself as tired, there was little or nothing to be got out of it, save by writing humbug, which he refused to do. "My spirits are very low," he continues, "and your letters make them worse. I shall probably return by the end of next week; but I shall want more money. I am sorry to spend money for it is our only friend, and God knows I use as little as possible, but I can't travel without it." {412b} A few days later there is another letter with farther reference to money, and protests that he is spending as little as possible. "Perhaps you had better send another note," he writes, "and I will bring it home unchanged, if I do not want any part of it. I have lived very economically as far as I am concerned personally; I have bought nothing, and have been working hard at the Museum." {413a}
These constant references to money seem to suggest either some difference between Borrow and his wife, or that he felt he was spending too much upon himself and was anticipating her thoughts by assuring her of how economically he was living. He had an unquestioned right to spend, for he had added considerable sums to the exchequer from the profits of his first two books.
Borrow returned to Yarmouth on 25th February. The Romany Rye was now rapidly nearing completion; but there was no encouragement to publish a new book. He worked at The Romany Rye, not because he saw profit in it, not because he was anxious to give another book to an uneager public; but because of the sting in its tail, because of the thunderbolt Appendix in which he paid off old scores against the critics and his personal enemies. The Romany Rye was to him a work of hate; it was a bomb disguised as a book, which he intended to throw into the camp of his foes. He was tired of literature, by which he meant that he was tired of producing his best for a public that neither wanted nor understood it. He forgot that the works of a great writer are sometimes printed in his own that they may be read in another generation.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。