Isopel Berners / The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825

by George Borrow

of Lavengro, or the apostrophe to the Irish cob and the Author’s first ride in chapter thirteen.

Borrow’s is a wonderful book for one to lose one’s way in, among the dense undergrowth, but it is a still grander book for the reader to lose himself in. In the dingle, best of all, he can “forget his own troublesome personality as completely as if he were in the depths of the ancient forest along with Gurth and Wamba.” Labyrinthine, however, as the autobiography may at first sight appear, the true lover of Borrow will soon have little difficulty in finding the patteran or gypsy trail (for indeed the Romany element runs persistently as a chorus-thread through the whole of the autobiographical writings), which serves as a clue to the delights of which his work is so rich a storehouse. The question that really exercises Borrovians most is the relative merit of stories and sections of the narrative—the comparative excellence of the early ‘life’ in Lavengro and of the later detached episodes in the Romany Rye. Most are in some sort of agreement as to the supremacy of the dingle episode, which has this advantage: Borrow is always at his best when dealing with strange beings and abnormal experiences. When he is describing ordinary mortals he treats them with coldness as mere strangers. The commonplace town-dwellers seldom arouse his sympathy, never kindle his enthusiasm. He is quite another being when we wander by his side within the bounds of his enchanted dingle.

This history of certain doings in a Staffordshire dingle, during the month of July 1825, begins with a battle-royal,

which places Borrow high amongst the narrators of human conflicts from the days of the Iliad to those of Pierce Egan; yet the chapters that set forth this episode of the dingle are less concerned with the “gestes” than with the sayings of its occupants. Rare, indeed, are the dramatic dialogues amid the sylvan surroundings of the tree-crowned hollow, that surpass in interest even the vivid details of the memorable fray between the flaming tinman and the pugilistic philologer. Pre-eminent amongst the dialogues are those between the male occupant of the dingle and the popish propagandist, known as the man in black. More fascinating still, perhaps, are the word-master’s conversations with Jasper; most wonderful of all, in the opinion of many, is his logomachy with Ursula under the thorn bush. We shall not readily forget Jasper’s complaints that all the ‘old-fashioned, good-tempered constables’ are going to be set aside, or his gloomy anticipations of the iron roads in which people are to ‘thunder along in vehicles pushed forward by fire and smoke.’ As for his comparison of the gypsies to cuckoos, the roguish charring fellows, for whom every one has a bad word, yet whom every one is glad to greet once again when the spring comes round, or Ursula’s exposition of gypsy love and marriage beneath the hedge,—these are Borrow at his best, as he is most familiar to us, in the open air among gypsies. With the popish emissary it is otherwise: his portrait is the creation of Borrow’s most studied hatred. Yet it must be admitted that the man in black is a triumph of complex characterisation. A joyous liver and an unscrupulous

libertine, sceptical as Voltaire, as atheistic as a German professor, as practical as a Jew banker, as subtle as a Jesuit, he has as many ways of converting the folks among whom he is thrown as Panurge had of eating the corn in ear. For the simple and credulous—crosses and beads; for the hard-hearted and venal—material considerations; for the cultured and educated—a fine tissue of epigrams and anthropology; for the ladies—flattery and badinage. A spiritual ancestor of Anatole France’s marvellous full-length figure of Jerôme Coignard, Borrow’s conception takes us back first to Rabelais and secondly to the seventeenth-century conviction of the profound Machiavellism of Jesuitry.

The man in black and Jasper are great, but the master attraction of the region that we are to traverse is admittedly Isopel Berners. It will perhaps be observed that our heroine makes her appearance on the stage rather more in the fashion of Molly Seagrim than of that other engaging Amazon of romance, Diana Vernon, whose “long hair streaming in the wind” forms one single point of resemblance to our fair Isopel. In other respects, certainly no two heroines could be more dissimilar. Unaided even by the slightest assistance from the graphic arts, the difficulty of picturing the lineaments of this muscular beauty, as she first burst on the sight of our autobiographer upon the declivity of the dingle, may be freely confessed, ere an attempt is made to describe her. We know, however, on the testimony of a sincere admirer, that she was over six feet high, with loose-flowing, flaxen hair; that she wore a

tight bodice and a skirt of blue, to match the colour of her eyes; and that eighteen summers had passed over her head since she first saw the light in the great house of Long Melford, a nursery in which she learnt to fear God and take her own part, and a place the very name of which she came to regard as a synonym for a strong right arm. Borrow’s first impression of her was one of immensity; she was big enough, he said, to have been born in a church; almost simultaneously, he observed her affinity to those Scandinavian divinities to which he assigned the first place in the pantheon of his affections. She reminded him, indeed, of the legendary Ingeborg, queen of Norway. It is remarkable, and well worth noticing, that the impression that she produced was instantaneous. Our wanderer had never been impressed in any similar fashion by any of the gypsy women with whom he was brought into contact, though, as many a legend and ballad can attest, such women have often exerted extraordinary attraction over Englishmen of pure blood. But it is evident that his physical admiration was reserved for a tall blonde of the Scandinavian type, to which he gave the name of a Brynhilde. Hence, notwithstanding his love of the economics of gypsy life, his gypsy women are for the most part no more than scenic characters; they clothe and beautify the scene, but they have little dramatic force about them. And when he comes to delineate a heroine, Isopel Berners, she is physically the very opposite of a Romany chi.

Fewer words will suffice to describe Isopel’s first impressions of her future partner in the dingle. She

unmistakably regarded him as a chaffing fellow who was not quite right in his head; and there is reason for believing, that, though she came to entertain a genuine regard for the young ‘squire,’ her opinions as to the condition of his brain underwent no sensible modification. She herself is fairly explicit on this subject: she seems indeed to have arrived at the deliberate conviction that, if not abnormally selfish, he was at any rate fundamentally mad; and there was perhaps a germ of truth in the conclusion, sufficient at any rate to colour Lombroso’s theory of the inherent madness of men of genius. One of the testimonies that we have as to Borrow’s later life at Oulton is to the effect that he got bewildered at times and fancied himself Wodin; but the substratum of sanity is strongly exhibited in the remedy which he himself applied. “What do you think I do when I get bewildered after this fashion? I go out to the sty and listen to the grunting of the pigs until I get back to myself.” [{49}]

Of Isopel’s history we know extremely little, save what she herself tells us. Her father was an officer