Old Familiar Faces

by Theodore Watts-Dunton

I will try, however, to give the reader an

idea of the whim of Borrow’s conversation, by giving it in something like a dramatic form. Let the reader suppose himself on a summer’s evening at that delightful old roadside inn the Bald-Faced Stag, in the Roehampton Valley, near Richmond Park, where are sitting, over a “cup” (to use Borrow’s word) of foaming ale, Lavengro himself, one of his oldest friends, and a new acquaintance, a certain student of things in general lately introduced to Borrow and nearly, but not quite, admitted behind the hedge of Borrow’s shyness, as may be seen by the initiated from a certain rather constrained, half-resentful expression on his face. Jerry Abershaw’s [34] sword (the chief trophy of mine host) has been introduced, and Borrow’s old friend has been craftily endeavouring to turn the conversation upon that ever fresh and fruitful topic, but in vain. Suddenly the song of a nightingale, perched on a tree not far off, rings pleasantly through the open window and fills the room with a new atmosphere of poetry and romance. “That nightingale has as fine a voice,” says Borrow, “as though he were born and bred in the Eastern Counties.” Borrow is proud of being

an East-Anglian, of which the student has already been made aware and which he now turns to good account in the important business he has set himself, of melting Lavengro’s frost and being admitted a member of the Open-Air Club. “Ah!” says the wily-student, “I know the Eastern Counties; no nightingales like those, especially Norfolk nightingales.” Borrow’s face begins to brighten slightly, but still he does not direct his attention to the stranger, who proceeds to remark that although the southern counties are so much warmer than Norfolk, some of them, such as Cornwall and Devon, are without nightingales. Borrow’s face begins to get brighter still, and he looks out of the window with a smile, as though he were being suddenly carried back to the green lanes of his beloved Norfolk.

“From which well-known fact of ornithology,” continues the student, “I am driven to infer that in their choice of habitat nightingales are guided not so much by considerations of latitude as of good taste.” Borrow’s anger is evidently melting away. The talk runs still upon nightingales, and the student mentions the attempt to settle them in Scotland once made by Sir John Sinclair, who introduced nightingales’ eggs from England into robins’ nests in Scotland, in the hope that the young nightingales, after enjoying a Scotch summer, would return to the place of their birth, after

the custom of English nightingales. “And did they return?” says Borrow, with as much interest as if the honour of his country were involved in the question. “Return to Scotland?” says the student quietly; “the entire animal kingdom are agreed, you know, in never returning to Scotland. Besides, the nightingales’ eggs in question were laid in Norfolk.” Conquered at last, Borrow extends the hand of brotherhood to the impudent student (whose own private opinion, no doubt, is that Norfolk is more successful in producing Nelsons than nightingales), and proceeds without more ado to tell how “poor Jerry Abershaw,” on being captured by the Bow Street runners, had left his good sword behind him as a memento of highway glories soon to be ended on the gallows tree. (By-the-bye, I wonder where that sword is now; it was bought by Mr. Adolphus Levy, of Alton Lodge, at the closing of the Bald-Faced Stag.)

From Jerry Abershaw Borrow gets upon other equally interesting topics, such as the decadence of beer and pugilism, and the nobility of the now neglected British bruiser, as exampled especially in the case of the noble Pearce, who lost his life through rushing up a staircase and rescuing a woman from a burning house after having on a previous occasion rescued another woman by blacking the eyes of six gamekeepers, who had been set upon her by some noble lord

or another. Then, while the ale sparkles with a richer colour as the evening lights grow deeper, the talk gets naturally upon “lords” in general, gentility nonsense, and “hoity-toityism” as the canker at the heart of modern civilization.

II.

Borrow could look at Nature without thinking of himself—a rare gift, for Nature, as I have said, has been disappointed in man. Her great desire from the first has been to grow an organism so conscious that it can turn round and look at her with intelligent eyes. She has done so at last, but the consciousness is so high as to be self-conscious, and man cannot for egotism look at his mother after all. Borrow was a great exception. Thoreau’s self-consciousness showed itself in presence of Nature, Borrow’s in presence of man. The very basis of Borrow’s nature was reverence. His unswerving belief in the beneficence of God was most beautiful, most touching. In his life Borrow had suffered much: a temperament such as his must needs suffer much—so shy it was, so proud, and yet yearning for a close sympathy such as no creature and only solitary communing with Nature can give. Under any circumstances, I say, Borrow would have known how sharp and cruel are the flints along the road—how tender are a poet’s feet; but his road at one time was rough indeed; not when he was with his gipsy friends (for a tent is freer than a roof, according to the grammarian of Codling Gap, and roast hedgehog is the daintiest of viands), but when he was toiling in London, his fine gifts unrecognized

and useless—that was when Borrow passed through the fire. Yet every sorrow and every disaster of his life he traced to the kindly hand of a benevolent and wise Father, who sometimes will use a whip of scorpions, but only to chastise into a right and happy course the children he loves.