In spite of Borrow’s vow never to visit Scotland again, he was there eight years later—in 1866—but only in the Lowlands. His stepdaughter, Hen., or Henrietta Clarke, had married Dr. MacOubrey, of Belfast, and Borrow and his wife went on a visit to the pair. But the incorrigible vagabond in Borrow was forced to declare itself, and leaving his wife and daughter in Belfast he crossed to Stranraer by steamer on 17th July, 1866, and tramped through the lowlands, visiting Ecclefechan and Gretna Green. We have no record of his experiences at these places. The only literary impression of the Scots tour of 1866, apart from a brief reference in Dr. Knapp’s Life, is an essay on Kirk Yetholm in Romano Lavo-Lil. We would gladly have exchanged it for an account of his visits to Abbotsford and Melrose, two places which he saw in August of this year.
In his letter of 27th November from Kirkwall it will be seen that Borrow records the kindness received from “a young gentleman of the name of Petrie.” It is pleasant to find that when he returned to England he did not forget that kindness, as the next letter demonstrates:
To George Petrie, Esq., Kirkwall
39 Camperdown Place, Yarmouth, Jany. 14, 1859.
My dear Sir,—Some weeks ago I wrote to Mr. Murray [and] requested him to transmit to you two works of mine. Should you not have received them by the time this note reaches you, pray inform me and I will write to him again. They may have come already, but whenever they may come to hand, keep them in remembrance of one who will never forget your kind attention to him in Orkney.
On reaching Aberdeen I went to Inverness by rail. From there I sent off my luggage to Dunkeld, and walked thither by the Highland road. I never enjoyed a walk more—the weather was tolerably fine, and I was amidst some of the finest scenery in the world. I was particularly struck with that of Glen Truim. Near the top of the valley in sight of the Craig of Badenoch on the left hand side of the way, I saw an immense cairn, probably the memorial of some bloody clan battle. On my journey I picked up from the mouth of an old Highland woman a most remarkable tale concerning the death of Fian or Fingal. It differs entirely from the Irish legends which I have heard on the subject—and is of a truly mythic character. Since visiting Shetland I have thought a great deal about the Picts, but cannot come to any satisfactory conclusion. Were they Celts? were they Laps? Macbeth could hardly have been a Lap, but then the tradition of the country that they were a diminutive race, and their name was Pight or Pict, which I almost think is the same as petit—pixolo—puj—pigmy. It is a truly perplexing subject—quite as much so as that of Fingal, and whether he was a Scotsman or an Irishman I have never been able to decide, as there has been so much to be said on both sides of the question. Please present my kind remembrances to Mrs. Petrie and all friends, particularly Mr. Sheriff Robertson, who first did me the favour of making me acquainted with you.—And believe me to remain, dear Sir, ever sincerely yours,
George Borrow.
Thank you for the newspaper—the notice was very kind, but rather too flattering.
On the same day that Borrow wrote, Mr. Petrie sent his acknowledgment of the books, and so the letters crossed:
I was very agreeably surprised on opening a packet, which came to me per steamer ten days ago, to find that it contained a present from you of your highly interesting and valuable works Lavengro and Romany Rye. Coming from any person such books would have been highly prized by me, and it is therefore specially gratifying to have them presented to me by their author. Please to accept of my sincere and heartfelt thanks for your kind remembrance of me and your valuable gift. May I request you to confer an additional favour on me by sending me a slip of paper to be pasted on each of the five volumes, stating that they were presented to me by you. I would like to hand them down as an heirloom to my family. I am afraid you will think that I am a very troublesome acquaintance.
I would have written sooner, but I expected to have had some information to give you about some of the existing superstitions of Orkney which might perhaps have some interest for you. I have, however, been much engrossed with county business during the last fortnight, and must therefore reserve my account of these matters till another opportunity.
Mr. Balfour, our principal landowner in Orkney, is just now writing an article on the ancient laws and customs of the county to be prefixed to a miscellaneous collection of documents, chiefly of the sixteenth century. He is taking the opportunity to give an account of the nature of the tenures by which the ancient Jarls held the Jarldom, and the manner in which the odalret became gradually supplanted. I have furnished him with several of the documents, and am just now going over it with him. It is for the Bannatyne Club in Edinburgh that he is preparing it, but I have suggested to him to have it printed for general sale, as it is very interesting, and contains a great mass of curious information condensed into a comparatively small space. Mr. Balfour is very sorry that he had not the pleasure of meeting you when you were here.
My last glimpse of George Borrow in Scotland during his memorable trip of the winter of 1858 is contained in a letter that I received some time ago from the Rev. J. Wilcock of St. Ringan’s Manse, Lerwick, which runs as follows:
Nov. 18th, 1903.
Dear Sir,—As I see that you are interested in George Borrow, would you allow me to supply you with a little notice of him which has not appeared in print? A friend here—need I explain that this is written from the capital of the Shetlands?—a friend, I say, now dead, told me that one day early in the forenoon, during the winter, he had walked out from the town for a stroll into the country. About a mile out from the town is a piece of water called the Loch of Clickimin, on a peninsula, in which is an ancient (so-called) “Pictish Castle.” His attention was attracted by a tall, burly stranger, who was surveying this ancient relic with deep interest. As the water of the loch was well up about the castle, converting the plot of ground on which it stood almost altogether into an island, the stranger took off shoes and stockings and trousers, and waded all round the building in order to get a thorough view of it. This procedure was all the more remarkable from the fact, as above mentioned, that the season was winter. I believe that there was snow on the ground at the time. My friend noticed on meeting him again in the course of the same walk that he was very lightly clothed. He had on a cotton shirt, a loose open jacket, and on the whole was evidently indifferent to the rigour of our northern climate at that time of the year.
In addition to the visit to Belfast in 1866, Borrow was in Ireland the year following his Scots tour of 1858, that is to say from July to November, 1859. He went, accompanied by his wife and daughter, by Holyhead to Dublin, where, as Dr. Knapp has discovered, they resided at 75 St. Stephen’s Green, South. Borrow, as was his custom, left his family while he was on a walking tour which included Connemara and on northward to the Giant’s Causeway. He was keenly interested in the two Societies in Dublin engaged upon the study of ancient Irish literature, and he became a member of the Ossianic Society in July of this year. I have a number of Borrow’s translations from the Irish in my possession, but no notebooks of his tour on this occasion.
All Irishmen who wish their country to preserve its individuality should have a kindly feeling for George Borrow. Opposed as he was to the majority of the people in religion and in politics, he was about the only Englishman of his time who took an interest in their national literature, language and folk-lore. Had he written such another travel book about Ireland as he wrote about Wales he would certainly have added to the sum of human pleasure.
I find only one letter to his wife during this Irish journey: