“always saying something in his loud, self-asserting voice; sometimes stopping suddenly, drawing his huge stature erect, and changing the keen and haughty expression of his face into the rapt and half fatuous look of the oracle, he would without preface recite some long fragment from Welsh or Scandinavian bards, his hands hanging from his chest and flapping in symphony. Then he would push on again, and as suddenly stop, arrested by the beautiful scenery, and exclaim, ‘Ah! this is England, as the Pretender said when he again looked on his fatherland.’ Then on reaching any town, he would be sure to spy out some lurking gypsy, whom no one but himself would have known from a common horse-dealer. A conversation in Romany would ensue, a shilling would change hands, two fingers would be pointed at the gypsy, and the interview would be at an end.” [449a]
One day he asked Dr Hake’s youngest boy if he knew how to fight a man bigger than himself, and on being told that he didn’t, advised him to “accept his challenge, and tell him to take off his coat, and while he was doing it knock him down and then run for your life.” [449b]
Once Borrow arrived at Dr Hake’s house to find another caller in the person of Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton, and they “went through a pleasant trio, in which Borrow, as was his wont, took the first fiddle . . . Borrow made himself agreeable to Watts [-Dunton], recited a fairy tale in the best style to him, and liked him.” [449c] Borrow did not recognise in Mr Watts-Dunton the young man whom he had seen bathing on the beach at Great Yarmouth, pleased to be near his hero, but too much afraid to venture to address him. Writing of this meeting at Coombe End, Mr Watts-Dunton says: “There is however no doubt that Borrow would have run away from me had I been associated in his mind with the literary calling. But at that time I had written nothing at all save poems, and a prose story or two of a romantic kind.” [450] Borrow hated the literary man, he was at war with the whole genus.
Mr Watts-Dunton confesses that he made great efforts to enlist Borrow’s interest. He touched on Bamfylde Moore Carew, beer, bruisers, philology, “gentility nonsense,” the “trumpery great”; but without success. Borrow was obviously suspicious of him. Then with inspiration he happened to mention what proved to be a magic name.
“I tried other subjects in the same direction,” Mr Watts-Dunton continues, “but with small success, till in a lucky moment I bethought myself of Ambrose Gwinett, . . . the man who, after having been hanged and gibbeted for murdering a traveller with whom he had shared a double-bedded room at a seaside inn, revived in the night, escaped from the gibbet-irons, went to sea as a common sailor, and afterwards met on a British man-of-war the very man he had been hanged for murdering. The truth was that Gwinett’s supposed victim, having been attacked on the night in question by a violent bleeding of the nose, had risen and left the house for a few minutes’ walk in the sea-breeze, when the press-gang captured him and bore him off to sea, where he had been in service ever since. The story is true, and the pamphlet, Borrow afterwards told me (I know not on what authority), was written by Goldsmith from Gwinett’s dictation for a platter of cow-heel.
“To the bewilderment of Dr Hake, I introduced the subject of Ambrose Gwinett in the same manner as I might have introduced the story of ‘Achilles’ wrath,’ and appealed to Dr Hake (who, of course, had never heard of the book or the man) as to whether a certain incident in the pamphlet had gained or lost by the dramatist who, at one of the minor theatres, had many years ago dramatized the story. Borrow was caught at last. ‘What?’ said he, ‘you know that pamphlet about Ambrose Gwinett?’ ‘Know it?’ said I, in a hurt tone, as though he had asked me if I knew ‘Macbeth’; ‘of course I know Ambrose Gwinett, Mr Borrow, don’t you?’ ‘And you know the play?’ said he. ‘Of course I do, Mr Borrow,’ I said, in a tone that was now a little angry at such an insinuation of crass ignorance. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘it’s years and years since it was acted; I never was much of a theatre man, but I did go to see that.’ ‘Well I should rather think you did, Mr Borrow,’ said I. ‘But,’ said he, staring hard at me, ‘you—you were not born!’ ‘And I was not born,’ said I, ‘when the “Agamemnon” was produced, and yet one reads the “Agamemnon,” Mr Borrow. I have read the drama of “Ambrose Gwinett.” I have it bound in morocco, with some more of Douglas Jerrold’s early transpontine plays, and some Æschylean dramas by Mr Fitzball. I will lend it to you, Mr Borrow, if you like.’ He was completely conquered, ‘Hake!’ he cried, in a loud voice, regardless of my presence, ‘Hake! your friend knows everything.’ Then he murmured to himself. ‘Wonderful man! Knows Ambrose Gwinett!’
“It is such delightful reminiscences as these that will cause me to have as long as I live a very warm place in my heart for the memory of George Borrow.” [451a]
After this, intercourse proved easy. At Borrow’s suggestion they walked to the Bald-Faced Stag, in Kingston Vale, to inspect Jerry Abershaw’s sword. This famous old hostelry was a favourite haunt of Borrow’s, where he would often rest during his walk and drink “a cup of ale” (which he would call “swipes,” and make a wry face as he swallowed) and talk of the daring deeds of Jerry the highwayman.
Many people have testified to the pleasure of being in the company of the whimsical, eccentric, humbug-hating Borrow.
“He was a choice companion on a walk,” writes Mr A. Egmont Hake, “whether across country or in the slums of Houndsditch. His enthusiasm for nature was peculiar; he could draw more poetry from a wide-spreading marsh with its straggling rushes than from the most beautiful scenery, and would stand and look at it with rapture.” [451b]
Since the tour in Wales in 1854, from which he returned with the four “Note Books,” Borrow had been working steadily at Wild Wales. In 1857 the book had been announced as “ready for the press”; but this was obviously an anticipation. The manuscript was submitted to John Murray early in November 1861. On the 20th of that month he wrote the following letter, addressing it, not to Borrow, but to his wife:—