tales of Abershaw and Co. are obviously reminiscences of Borrow’s ‘Celebrated Trials.’ But the Horncastle story is weaker still. The ‘Lord’-Lieutenant, so free and young,’ is pilloried, because eighteen years afterwards he did not see his way to make Borrow a J.P. (Who would?) Murtagh is introduced merely as a lay figure, upon which to drape an inverted account of Borrow’s own travels at a later period; and that very tedious gentleman, the tall Hungarian, is a character, Professor Knapp tells us, whom Borrow met in Hungary or Wallachia in 1884. It is plain that at this point the whole story has become what Borrow calls a ‘fakement.’
But that Borrow did buy a horse with money lent by Petulengro, and sold it at a profit, we have some reason to credit. Nearly ten years before Borrow wrote ‘The Romany Rye,’ in the second edition of his ‘Zincali,’ published in 1843, he quotes a speech of Mr. Petulengro’s ‘on the day after mol-divvus, [0r] 1842.’ ‘I am no hindity mush, [0s] as you well know,’ says Jasper. ‘I suppose you have not forgot, how, fifteen years ago, when you made horse-shoes in the little dingle by the side of the Great North Road, I lent you fifty cottors [0t] to purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with the green Newmarket coat, which three days later you sold for two hundred.’ This earlier version seems more probably the true one, and since three days would find Borrow in Stafford, it seems reasonable to conclude that he sold his horse there and not in Lincolnshire. Personally, however, I must confess to feeling little interest in the fate of the animal—Belle’s donkey were a dearer object.
Mumpers’ Dingle might well become the Mecca of true Borrovians, could we but determine the authentic spot. Somewhere or other—who will find it for us?—in west
central Shropshire [0u] is a little roadside inn called the Silent Woman; [0v] a little further to the east is a milestone on the left hand side, and a few yards from the milestone the cross-road where Petulengro parted from Borrow. Ten miles further still is a town, and five miles from the town the famous dingle. Mr. Petulengro describes it as ‘surprisingly dreary’; ‘a deep dingle in the midst of a large field about which there has been a law-suit for some years past; the nearest town five miles distant, and only a few huts and hedge public-houses in the neighbourhood;’ [0w] and Borrow speaks of it as ‘a deep hollow in the midst of a wide field; the shelving sides overgrown with trees and bushes, a belt of sallows surrounding it on the top, and a steep winding path leading down into the depths.’ [0x] It was surrounded by a copse of thorn 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 reach Borrow’s ears. [0z1]
Professor Knapp has located the dingle in Monmer Lane, Willenhall, and a visit to the locality and references to old and new ordnance surveys support this view. Willenhall lies in the coal measures of Staffordshire, and the modern development of its coal and iron industries has transformed the ‘few huts and hedge public-houses’ into a thriving town of about 17,000 inhabitants. The name of ‘Mumpers’ Dingle’ did not seem to be locally recognised, and, indeed, was scornfully repudiated by the oldest inhabitant; but this may have been merely his revenge for my intrusion just about his dinner hour. But Monmer Lane, still pronounced and 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 ‘Monmer Lane Ironworks,’ which Professor Knapp, a little carelessly, assumes to have 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 the Bentley Canal, which runs through it east and west. A walk of 500 yards along the tow-path brings us to a small bridge crossing the canal. This is known as ‘Dingle Bridge,’ the little hawthorn-girt lane leading to it is called ‘Dingle Lane,’ and a field opposite bears the name of ‘Dingle Piece.’ The dingle itself has disappeared, possibly as a consequence of levelling operations in the construction of the canal, and must not be hastily identified by the pilgrim with the adjoining marl-pit, which has been excavated still more recently. But we can hardly doubt that somewhere hereabouts is the historic spot where Borrow fought and vanquished the Flaming Tinman, that here he lived with Miss Berners ‘in an uncertificated manner,’ that under an adjoining thorn-bush he held his astounding conversation with Ursula, and that from here, wearied of her companion’s frigid regard and strange bantering, poor Isopel turned away with her little donkey-cart and a heavy heart.
The public-house kept by the landlord in the green Newmarket coat, who was ‘the wonder and glory of the neighbourhood,’ and who had fought and beaten ‘Tom of Hopton,’ is still standing, though it is no longer used as an inn, and the pious Borrovian must abandon any hopes he may have cherished of drinking to the Lavengro’s memory in ‘hard old ale.’ A quaint old ‘half-way house,’ it lies, as Borrow describes, about two miles east
of the dingle—he saw the setting sun as he returned from his frequent visits there—on the right-hand side of the highroad to Walsall, along which the brewer proposed to establish ‘a stage-coach and three to run across the country’, and a little nearer Willenhall, on the north side of the road, is Bentley Hall, the ‘hall’ from which the postillion must have been returning when overtaken by the thunderstorm. The church attended by Borrow and his gypsy friends, when Mrs. Petulengro horrified the sexton by invading the nobleman’s vacant pew, may confidently be identified with Bushbury Church, which has all the features described by Borrow. It is rather over three miles’ distance from the dingle, has a peal of bells, a chancel entrance, and is surrounded by lofty beech-trees. The vicar in 1825 was a Mr. Clare, but whether of evangelical views and a widower with two daughters, the present vicar is unable to inform me. ‘The clergyman of M—, as they call him,’ probably took his name from Moseley Court or Moseley Hall, country seats in the parish 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 for himself, his fame rests upon surer foundations. A great but careless linguist, Borrow was assuredly no philologist. ‘Hair-erecting’ (haarsträubend) is the fitting epithet which an Oriental scholar, Professor Richard Pischel, of Berlin, finds to describe Borrow’s etymologies; while Pott, in quoting from the ‘Zincali,’ indicates his horror by notes of exclamation; or, when Borrow once in a way hits on the right 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 our original Merry-Andrew’s ‘Boke of Knowledge,’ were in reality good
Anglo-Romany. And whatever may have been Lavengro’s vaunted acquaintance with Armenian, it was apparently insufficient to enable him to identify any of the Armenian elements in the gypsy language.