The Romany Rye / A Sequel to 'Lavengro'

by George Borrow

I sat down on my stone, with my letter in my hand. I knew perfectly well that it could have come from no other person than Isopel Berners; but what did the letter contain? I guessed tolerably well what its purport was—an eternal farewell! yet I was afraid to open the letter, lest my expectation should be confirmed. There I sat with the letter, putting off the evil moment as long as possible. At length I glanced at the direction, which was written in a fine bold hand, and was directed, as the old woman had said, to the young man in ‘Mumper’s Dingle,’ with the addition near ---, in the county of ---. Suddenly the idea occurred to me, that, after all, the letter might not contain an eternal farewell, and that Isopel might have written, requesting me to join her. Could it be so?’ ‘Alas! no,’ presently said Foreboding. At last I became ashamed of my weakness. The letter must be opened sooner or later. Why not at once? So as the bather who, for a considerable time has stood shivering on the bank, afraid to take the decisive plunge, suddenly takes it, I tore open the letter almost before I was aware. I had no sooner done so than a paper fell out. I examined it; it contained a lock of bright flaxen hair. ‘This is no good sign,’ said I, as I thrust the lock and paper into my bosom, and proceeded to read the letter, which ran as follows:

‘To the Young Man in Mumper’s Dingle.

Sir,

I send these lines, with the hope and trust that they will find you well, even as I am myself at this moment, and in much better spirits, for my own are not such as I could wish they were, being sometimes rather hysterical and vapourish, and at other times, and most often, very low. I am at a sea-port, and am just going on shipboard; and when you get these I shall be on the salt waters, on my way to a distant country, and leaving my own behind me, which I do not expect ever to see again.

‘And now, young man, I will, in the first place, say something about the manner in which I quitted you. It must have seemed somewhat singular to you that I went away without taking any leave, or giving you the slightest hint that I was going; but I did not do so without considerable reflection. I was afraid that I should not be able to support a leave-taking; and as you had said that you were determined to go wherever I did, I thought it best not to tell you at all; for I did not think it advisable that you should go with me, and I wished to have no dispute.

‘In the second place, I wish to say something about an offer of wedlock which you made me; perhaps, young man, had you made it at the first period of our acquaintance, I should have accepted it, but you did not, and kept putting off and putting off, and behaving in a very strange manner, till I could stand your conduct no longer, but determined upon leaving you and Old England, which last step I had been long thinking about; so when you made your offer at last everything was arranged—my cart and donkey engaged to be sold—and the greater part of my things disposed of. However, young man, when you did make it, I frankly tell you that I had half a mind to accept it; at last, however, after very much consideration, I thought it best to leave you for ever, because, for some time past, I had become almost convinced, that though with a wonderful deal of learning, and exceedingly shrewd in some things, you were—pray don’t be offended—at the root mad! and though mad people, I have been told, sometimes make very good husbands, I was unwilling that your friends, if you had any, should say that Belle Berners, the workhouse girl, took advantage of your infirmity; for there is no concealing that I was born and bred up in a workhouse; notwithstanding that, my blood is better than your own, and as good as the best; you having yourself told me that my name is a noble name, and once, if I mistake not, that it was the same word as baron, which is the same thing as bear; and that to be called in old times a bear was considered as a great compliment—the bear being a mighty strong animal, on which account our forefathers called all their great fighting-men barons, which is the same as bears.

‘However, setting matters of blood and family entirely aside, many thanks to you, young man, from poor Belle, for the honour you did her in making that same offer; for, after all, it is an honour to receive an honourable offer, which she could see clearly yours was, with no floriness nor chaff in it; but, on the contrary, entire sincerity. She assures you that she shall always bear it and yourself in mind, whether on land or water; and as a proof of the good-will she bears to you, she has sent you a lock of the hair which she wears on her head, which you were often looking at, and were pleased to call flax, which word she supposes you meant as a compliment, even as the old people meant to pass a compliment to their great folks, when they called them bears; though she cannot help thinking that they might have found an animal as strong as a bear, and somewhat less uncouth, to call their great folks after: even as she thinks yourself, amongst your great store of words, might have found something a little more genteel to call her hair after than flax, which, though strong and useful, is rather a coarse and common kind of article.

‘And as another proof of the goodwill she bears to you, she sends you, along with the lock, a piece of advice, which is worth all the hair in the world, to say nothing of the flax.

‘Fear God, and take your own part. [108] There’s Bible in that, young man; see how Moses feared God, and how he took his own part against everybody who meddled with him. And see how David feared God, and took his own part against all the bloody enemies which surrounded him—so fear God, young man, and never give in! The world can bully, and is fond, provided it sees a man in a kind of difficulty, of getting about him, calling him coarse names, and even going so far as to hustle him; but the world, like all bullies, carries a white feather in its tail, and no sooner sees a man taking off his coat, and offering to fight his best, than it scatters here and there, and is always civil to him afterwards. So when folks are disposed to ill-treat you, young man, say, “Lord have mercy upon me!” and then tip them Long Melford, [109] to which, as the saying goes, there is nothing comparable for shortness all the world over; and these last words, young man, are the last you will ever have from her who is, nevertheless,

‘Your affectionate female servant,
‘Isopel Berners.’

After reading the letter I sat for some time motionless, holding it in my hand. The day-dream in which I had been a little time before indulging, of marrying Isopel Berners, of going with her to America, and having by her a large progeny, who were to assist me in felling trees, cultivating the soil, and who would take care of me when I was old, was now thoroughly dispelled. Isopel had deserted me, and was gone to America by herself, where, perhaps, she would marry some other person, and would bear him a progeny, who would do for him what in my dream I had hoped my progeny by her would do for me. Then the thought came into my head that though she was gone I might follow her to America, but then I thought that if I did I might not find her; America was a very large place, and I did not know the port to which she was bound; but I could follow her to the port from which she had sailed, and there possibly discover the port to which she was bound; but then I did not even know the port from which she had set out, for Isopel had not dated her letter from any place. Suddenly it occurred to me that the post-mark on the letter would tell me from whence it came, so I forthwith looked at the back of the letter, and in the post-mark read the name of a well-known and not very distant sea-port. I then knew with tolerable certainty the port where she had embarked, and I almost determined to follow her, but I almost instantly determined to do no such thing. Isopel Berners had abandoned me, and I would not follow her; ‘perhaps,’ whispered pride, ‘if I overtook her, she would only despise me for running after her;’ and it also told me

pretty roundly that, provided I ran after her, whether I overtook her or not, I should heartily despise myself. So I determined not to follow Isopel Berners; I took her lock of hair, and looked at it, then put it in her letter, which I folded up and carefully stowed away, resolved to keep both for ever, but I determined not to follow her. Two or three times, however, during the day, I wavered in my determination, and was again and again almost tempted to follow her, but every succeeding time the temptation was fainter. In the evening I left the dingle, and sat down with Mr. Petulengro and his family by the door of his tent; Mr. Petulengro soon began talking of the letter which I had received in the morning. ‘Is it not from Miss Berners, brother?’ said he. I told him it was. ‘Is she coming back, brother?’ ‘Never,’ said I; ‘she is gone to America, and has deserted me.’ ‘I always knew that you two were never destined for each other,’ said he. ‘How did you know that?’ I inquired. ‘The dook told me so, brother; you are born to be a great traveller.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if I had gone with her to America, as I was thinking of doing, I should have been a great traveller.’ ‘You are to travel in another direction, brother,’ said he. ‘I wish you would tell me all about my future wanderings,’ said I. ‘I can’t, brother,’ said Mr. Petulengro, ‘there’s a power of clouds before my eye.’ ‘You are a poor seer, after all,’ said I, and getting up, I retired to my dingle and my tent, where I betook myself to my bed, and there, knowing the worst, and being no longer agitated by apprehension, nor agonized by expectation, I was soon buried in a deep slumber, the first which I had fallen into for several nights.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PUBLIC-HOUSE—LANDLORD ON HIS LEGS AGAIN—A BLOW IN SEASON—THE WAY OF THE WORLD—THE GRATEFUL MIND—THE HORSE’S NEIGH

It was rather late on the following morning when I awoke. At first I was almost unconscious of what had occurred on the preceding day; recollection, however, by degrees returned, and I felt a deep melancholy coming over me, but perfectly aware that no advantage could be

derived from the indulgence of such a feeling, I sprang up, prepared my breakfast, which I ate with a tolerable appetite, and then left the dingle, and betook myself to the gypsy encampment, where I entered into discourse with various Romanies, both male and female. After some time, feeling myself in better spirits, I determined to pay another visit to the landlord of the public-house. From the position of his affairs when I had last visited him, I entertained rather gloomy ideas with respect to his present circumstances. I imagined that I should either find him alone in his kitchen smoking a wretched pipe, or in company with some surly bailiff or his follower, whom his friend the brewer had sent into the house in order to take possession of his effects.

Nothing more entirely differing from either of these anticipations could have presented itself to my view than what I saw about one o’clock in the afternoon, when I entered the house. I had come, though somewhat in want of consolation myself, to offer any consolation which was at my command to my acquaintance Catchpole, and perhaps, like many other people who go to a house with ‘drops of compassion trembling on their eyelids,’ I felt rather disappointed at finding that no compassion was necessary. The house was thronged with company, the cries for ale and porter, hot brandy and water, cold gin and water, were numerous; moreover, no desire to receive and not to pay for the landlord’s liquids was manifested—on the contrary, everybody seemed disposed to play the most honourable part: ‘Landlord, here’s the money for this glass of brandy and water—do me the favour to take it; all right, remember I have paid you.’ ‘Landlord, here’s the money for the pint of half-and-half—four-pence halfpenny, a’nt it?—here’s sixpence, keep the change—confound the change!’ The landlord, assisted by his niece, bustled about; his brow erect, his cheeks plumped out, and all his features exhibiting a kind of surly satisfaction. Wherever he moved, marks of the most cordial amity were shown him, hands were thrust out to grasp his, nor were looks of respect, admiration, nay almost of adoration, wanting. I observed one fellow, as the landlord advanced, take the pipe out of his mouth, and gaze upon him with a kind of grin of wonder, probably much the same as his ancestor, the Saxon lout of old, put on when he saw his idol Thur dressed in a new

kirtle. To avoid the press, I got into a corner, where, on a couple of chairs, sat two respectable-looking individuals, whether farmers or sow-gelders, I know not, but highly respectable-looking, who were discoursing about the landlord. ‘Such another,’ said one, ‘you will not find in a summer’s day.’ ‘No, nor in the whole of England,’ said the other. ‘Tom of Hopton,’ said the first; ‘ah! Tom of Hopton,’ echoed the other; ‘the man who could beat Tom of Hopton could beat the world.’ ‘I glory in him,’ said the first. ‘So do I,’ said the second, ‘I’ll back him against the world. Let me hear any one say anything against him, and if I don’t—’ then, looking at me, he added, ‘have you anything to say against him, young man?’ ‘Not a word,’ said I, ‘save that he regularly puts me out.’ ‘He’ll put any one out,’ said the man, ‘any one out of conceit with himself;’ then, lifting a mug to his mouth, he added, with a hiccough, ‘I drink his health.’ Presently the landlord, as he moved about, observing me, stopped short: ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘are you here? I am glad to see you, come this way. Stand back,’ said he to his company, as I followed him to the bar, ‘stand back for me and this gentleman.’ Two or three young fellows were in the bar, seemingly sporting yokels, drinking sherry and smoking. ‘Come, gentlemen,’ said the landlord, ‘clear the bar, I must have a clear bar for me and my friend here.’ ‘Landlord, what will you take?’ said one—‘a glass of sherry? I know you like it.’ ‘--- sherry and you too,’ said the landlord; ‘I want neither sherry nor yourself; didn’t you hear what I told you?’ ‘All right, old fellow,’ said the other, shaking the landlord by the hand—‘all right; don’t wish to intrude—but I suppose when you and your friend have done I may come in again.’ Then, with ‘A sarvant, sir,’ to me, he took himself into the kitchen, followed by the rest of the sporting yokels.