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 his 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.
I was quite sorry to find this extract from the Bury Post among my Borrow Papers in Mrs. Borrow's handwriting. It a little suggests that she sent the copy to the journal in question, or at least inspired the paragraph, perhaps in a letter to her friend, Dr. Gordon Hake, who with his family then resided at Bury St. Edmunds. Borrow was a perfect swimmer, and there is no reason to suppose but that he did act heroically.[178] In my Borrow Papers I find in his handwriting his own account of the adventure:
I was seated on Yarmouth jetty; the weather was very stormy; there came a tremendous sea, which struck the jetty, and made it quiver; there was a boat on the lee-side of the jetty fastened by a painter; the surge snapped the painter like a thread, the boat was overset with two men in it, there was a cry, 'The men must be drowned.' I started up from my seat on the north side of the jetty, and saw the boat bottom upwards, and I heard some people say, 'The men are under it.' I ran a little way along the jetty, and then jumped upon the sand; before taking the leap I saw a man flung by the surge upon the shore; he crawled up upon the beach, and was, I believe, lifted up upon his legs by certain beachmen. I had my eye upon the boat, which was now near the shore; I had an idea that there was a man under it; I flung off my coat and hat, and went a little way into the sea, about parallel to some beachmen who were moving backwards and forwards as the waves advanced and receded. I now saw a man as a wave recoiled lying close by the boat in the reflux. I dashed forward and made a grip at the man, then came a tremendous wave which tumbled me heels over head; being an expert diver I did not attempt to rise, lest I should be flung on shore. When the wave receded, I found myself near the boat; the man was now nearer to the shore than myself. I believe a man or two were making towards him; another wave came which overwhelmed me, and flung me on the shore, to which I was now making with all my strength. I got on my legs for one moment, when the advanced guard, if I may call it so, of another wave, struck me on the back, and laid me upon my face, but I was now quite out of danger. A man now came and lifted me up, as others lifted up the other man, who seemed quite unable to exert himself. The above is a plain statement of facts. I was the only person, with the exception of the man in distress, who was in the deep water, or who confronted the billows, which were indeed monstrous, but which I cared little for, being, as I said before, an expert diver. Had I been alone the result of the affair would have been much the same; as it is, after the last wave I could easily have dragged the man up upon the beach. I am willing to give to the beachmen whatever credit is due to them; I am anxious to believe that one of them was once up to his middle in water, but truth compels me to state that I never saw one of them up to his knees. I received very uncivil language from one of them, but every species of respect and sympathy from the genteel part of the spectators. A gentleman, I believe from Norwich, and a policeman, attended me in a cab to my lodgings, where they undressed and dressed me. The kindness of these two individuals I shall never forget.
In any case this adventure had exceptional publicity. For example Mr. Robert Cooke of John Murray's firm wrote to Mrs. Borrow on 13th October 1853 to say that while travelling abroad he had read in Galignani's Messenger an account of his friend Lavengro's 'daring and heroic act in rescuing so many from a watery grave.' 'I wish they had all been critics,' he adds; 'he would have done just the same, and they might perhaps have shown their gratitude when they got among his inky waves of literature.'
More than this, the paragraph in the Bury St. Edmunds newspaper was copied into the Plymouth Mail, and was there read by the Borrows of Cornwall, who had heard nothing of their relative, Thomas Borrow, the army captain and his family, for fifty years or more. One of Borrow's cousins by marriage, Robert Taylor of Penquite, invited him to his father's homeland, and Borrow accepted, glad, we may be sure, of any excuse for a renewal of his wanderings. And so on the 23rd of December 1853 Borrow made his way from Yarmouth to Plymouth by rail, and thence walked twenty miles to Liskeard, where quite a little party of Borrow's cousins were present to greet him. The Borrow family consisted of Henry Borrow of Looe Doun, the father of Mrs. Taylor, William Borrow of Trethinnick, Thomas Nicholas and Elizabeth Borrow, all first cousins, except Anne Taylor. Anne, talking to a friend, describes Borrow on this visit better than any one else has done:
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.[179]
Dr. Knapp possessed two 'notebooks' of this Cornish tour. Borrow stayed at Penquite with his cousins from 24th December to 9th January, then he went on a walking tour to Land's End, through Truro and Penzance; he was back at Penquite from 26th January to 1st February, and then took a week's tramp to Tintagel, King Arthur's Castle, and Pentire. Naturally he made inquiries into the language, already extinct, but spoken within the memory of the older inhabitants. 'My relations are most excellent people,' he wrote to his wife from London on his way back, 'but I could not understand more than half of what they said.'
I have only one letter to Mrs. Borrow written during this tour:
To Mrs. George Borrow
Penquite, 27th Janry. 1854.