Handbook goes forthwith to press.
I am here on a visit to El Gitano; two “rum coves,” in a queer country. This is a regular Patmos, an ultima Thule; placed in an angle of the most unvisited, out-of-the-way portion of England. His house hangs over a lonely lake covered with wild fowl, and is girt with dark firs, through which the wind sighs sadly; however, we defy the elements, and chat over las cosas de España, and he tells me portions of his life, more strange even than his book. We scamper by day over the country in a sort of gig, which reminds me of Mr. Weare on his trip with Mr. Thurtell (Borrow’s old preceptor); “Sidi Habismilk” is in the stable, and a Zamarra [sheepskin coat] now before me, writing as I am in a sort of summer-house called La Mezquita, in which El Gitano concocts his lucubrations, and paints his pictures, for his object is to colour up and poetise his adventures.
Writing to Ford from Oulton Hall, February 9th, 1844, Borrow says:
Almost as soon as I got back from Norwich the weather became very disagreeable, a strange jumble of frost, fog, and wet. I am glad that during your stay here it has been a little more favourable. I still keep up, but not exactly the thing. You can’t think how I miss you and our chats by the fireside. The wine, now I am alone, has lost its flavour, and the cigars make me ill. I am very frequently in my valley of the shadows, and had I not my summer jaunt to look forward to, I am afraid it would be all up with your friend and Batushka [little father]. I still go on with my Life, but slowly and lazily. What I write, however, is good. I feel it is good, strange and wild as it is.
Ford’s correspondence with Addington is resumed.
Heavitree, May 23, 1844.
As your Excellency is naturally a studier of human character, I think you will be edified by beholding me in a new phase, that of Church-building and drawing up reports thereanent; so I enclose you the particulars.
Mrs. Ford and myself are about to quit these bemyrtled bowers on Monday next: we proceed to Eton, where my son and heir is to figure in the Montem Saturnalia, in a red coat, cocked hat and sword, and to be brought back,—oh sight painful to parents! drunk in a wheelbarrow. There is nothing like spending £250 a year in giving one’s boy a liberal good education. Hawtrey has bidden us to the feastings which he gives to sundry Papas and Mamas.
Handbook is slowly printing. The Mañana of Spain has infected even Albemarle Street; but we have got well to page 264 of Vol. I.
The rail is now open, and Exeter is 7-1/2 hours from London. We hope some day that you and mi Señora (c.p.b.) may be tempted to come and see us and the New Church.