of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller,” an entirely fictitious personage. This was completed within a week, towards the end of May, 1825, and the story brought the author a welcome twenty pounds. Such is the record. Dr. Knapp believes that there was such a story, probably part of a series, but Mr. Jenkins gives good reasons for thinking that “Joseph Sell” was not written till 1829, when Borrow would more probably be in want of money than just after payment for his “Trials” (in every sense trials) from Phillips. Anyway, on May 24th, 1825, Borrow left London. At starting he encountered Arden driving a cabriolet, who asked him whither he was bound. “I don’t know,” replied Borrow, “all I can say is that I am about to leave London.” Being out of condition, he tired of walking, mounted a coach, “tipped the blunt” to the driver, and alighted at Amesbury, near Stonehenge, whence he began a ramble which became a perfect Iliad of strange happenings. His health improved, his spirits rose, as he tramped on, his journeyings varying from twenty to twenty-five miles a day. On the fifth day of his tramp he met at an inn the mysterious stranger who “touched,” as Borrow himself did, against the evil eye; Dr. Johnson was an habitual toucher, and even Macaulay owned to a kindred feeling. While a guest of the “touching” gentleman, Borrow was introduced to the Rev. Mr. Platitude, a notable character in his literary portrait gallery—“he did not go to college a gentleman; he went an ass and returned a prig,” writes Borrow fiercely. No biographer, so far as I know, has identified Platitude, but Mr. Donne evidently knew him, for he calls Borrow’s account a “gross and unfair caricature.” I believe I have identified “the rascally Unitarian minister who went over to the High Church,” with the Rev. Theophilus Browne, Fellow and Tutor of Peterhouse, Cambridge, who quitted the Church for conscience sake, obtained an appointment at the York Unitarian College, and was minister at the Octagon Chapel in 1809, but was paid to resign the following year. He died at Bath in May, 1835. The historian of the Octagon applies Milton’s line to him:
“New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.”
Arriving at Tamworth, Borrow entered a cottage inn, and, as was his custom, called “House!” as loud as he could. Whilst drinking his beer he cheered the heart of the sorrowful Jack Slingsby by buying his whole tinker’s stock-in-trade—beat, plant, pony, and all—concluding that “a tinker is his own master, a scholar is not.” Poor Slingsby had been driven off the road by the great Flaming Tinman, “Black Jack,” whose clan name was Anselo Herne, who, thrusting a Bible into Slingsby’s mouth, forced him to swear his Bible oath that he would surrender his beat. Here was a truly picturesque situation after Borrow’s own taste, and, no doubt with a joyful heart, he paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for his tinker’s outfit, bought a wagoner’s frock from the landlady, and felt ready enough to encounter the dreaded “Black Jack.”
Borrow avers that he fled from London “from fear of consumption,” that he must do something or go mad, so, having a knowledge of smithing that enabled him to acquire the tinkering craft, he became a sort of Petulengro himself. A few days after pitching his tent in Mumper’s Dingle, near Willenhall, as he slept against an ash tree, a voice seemed to cry in his ear Danger! Danger! and he awoke to see Leonora, a pretty gypsy girl of thirteen, wearing a handsome necklace of corals and gold. She offered him a manricli, or cake, saying “Eat, pretty brother, grey-haired brother.” After some demur, he ate part of it; it was poisoned, and he fell into a swoon. Soon he heard the voice of the malicious old hag Mrs. Herne, who, gloating over her enemy, told him he had taken drows, as, however he began to move they set their juggal (dog) at him; but the animal, fled from the flash of the tinker’s eye, and Mrs. Herne realised that he would live—the dook (spirit of divination) told her so. The arrival of the Welsh preacher Peter Williams, and his wife Winifred, in their cart put the gypsy witch-wife and her daughter to flight. The Welshman administered some oil, which, after two hours of suspense, and with the help of an opiate, saved the life of Lavengro. During this companionship Borrow found that Williams suffered excruciating spiritual terrors from the conviction that he had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost—pechod Ysprydd Glan!
Borrow left his Welsh friends to join no less a personage than Jasper Petulengro, “one of the clibberty-clabber,” quoted Peter from a Welsh poet; Borrow’s pal had a wondrous story to tell of Mrs. Herne, of the “drows,” who had “been her own hinjiri,” i.e. hanged herself. The girl Leonora told Jasper that she had tracked Borrow and found him, alive and well, ‘discussing religion with a Methody, and that when she told the old woman, Mrs. Herne said it was all up with her, and she must take a long journey. In March, 1911, died Isaac Herne, of the same family, son of beautiful Sinfi; he was known as “King of the Gypsies,” and to the last would tell of his meetings and talks with the “Romany Rye.” Unlike his clanswoman, who was buried “like a Roman woman of the old blood,” he was buried in gorgious fashion—in the graveyard of Manston Church, near Leeds.
Borrow soon parted from Jasper, and settled himself in the beautiful Mumper’s Dingle, where he had the historic fight with the “Flaming Tinman,” getting the victory by using his “Long Melford,” on the advice of that towering and handsome female bearing the name of Isopel Berners, who now comes on the scene, and who will ever remain one of the most fascinating figures in the wonderful gallery of Borrovian characters.
“I never saw such a face and figure,” exclaims Borrow, “both regal—why, you look like Ingeborg, Queen of Norway; she had twelve brothers, you know, and could lick them all, though they were heroes—
“‘On Dovrefeld in Norway,
Were once together seen,
The twelve heroic brothers
Of Ingeborg the queen.’”
(See “Romantic Ballads,” p. 59.)