It was in 1881 that Borrow, who some seven years before went down to Oulton, as he told me, “to die,” achieved death. And it devolved upon me as the chief friend of his latest years to write an obituary notice of him in The Athenæum. Among the many interesting letters
that it brought me from strangers was one from Groome, whose name was familiar to me as the author of the article ‘Gypsies’ in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ But besides this I had read ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ a picture of the very kind of gipsies I knew myself, those of East Anglia—a picture whose photographic truth had quite startled me. Howsoever much of matter of fact may be worked into ‘Lavengro’ (and to no one did Borrow talk with so little reticence upon this delicate subject as to me during many a stroll about Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park), I am certain that his first-hand knowledge of gipsy life was quite superficial compared with Groome’s during the nine years or so that he was brought into contact with them in Great Britain and on the Continent. Hence a book like ‘In Gypsy Tents’ has for a student of Romany subjects an interest altogether different from that which Borrow’s books command; for while Borrow, the man of genius, throws by the very necessities of his temperament the colours of romance around his gipsies, the characters of ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ depicted by a man of remarkable talent merely, are as realistic as though painted by Zola, while the wealth of gipsy lore at his command is simply overwhelming.
At that time—with the exception of Borrow and the late Sir Richard Burton—the only man of letters with whom I had been
brought into contact who knew anything about the gipsies was Tom Taylor, whose picture of Romany life in an anonymous story called ‘Gypsy Experiences,’ which appeared in The Illustrated London News in 1851, and in his play ‘Sir Roger de Coverley,’ is not only fascinating, but on the whole true. By-the-by, this charming play might be revived now that there is a revived interest in Romany matters. George Meredith’s wonderful ‘Kiomi’ was a picture, I think, of the only Romany chi he knew; but genius such as his needs little straw for the making of bricks. The letter I received from Groome enclosed a ragged and well-worn cutting from a forgotten anonymous Athenæum article of mine, written as far back as 1877, in which I showed acquaintance with gipsydom and described the ascent of Snowdon in the company of Sinfi Lovell, which was afterwards removed bodily to ‘Aylwin.’ Here is the cutting:—
“We had a striking instance of this some years ago, when crossing Snowdon from Capel Curig, one morning, with a friend. She was not what is technically called a lady, yet she was both tall and, in her way, handsome, and was far more clever than many of those who might look down upon her; for her speculative and her practical abilities were equally remarkable: besides being the first palmist of her time, she had the reputation of being able to make more clothes-pegs in an hour, and sell more, than any other woman in England. The splendour of that ‘Snowdon sunrise’ was such as we can say, from much experience, can only be seen about once in a lifetime, and could never be given by any pen or pencil. ‘You don’t seem to enjoy it a bit,’ was the irritated remark we could not help making to our friend, who stood quite silent and apparently deaf to the rhapsodies in which we had been indulging, as we both stood looking at the peaks, or rather at the vast masses of billowy vapours enveloping them, as they sometimes boiled and sometimes blazed, shaking, whenever the sun struck one and then another, from amethyst to vermilion, ‘shot’ now and then with gold. ‘Don’t injiy it, don’t I?’ said she, removing her pipe. ‘You injiy talking about it, I injiy lettin’ it soak in.’”
Groome asked whether the gipsy mentioned in the cutting was not a certain Romany chi whom he named, and said that he had always wondered who the writer of that article was, and that now he wondered no longer, for he knew him to be the writer of the obituary notice of George Borrow. Interested as I was in his letter, it came at a moment when the illness of a very dear friend of mine threw most other things out of my mind, and it was a good while before I answered it, and told him what I had to tell about my Welsh gipsy experiences and the adventure on Snowdon. I got another letter from him, and this was the beginning of a charming correspondence. After a while
I discovered that there were, besides Romany matters, other points of attraction between us. Groome was the son of Edward FitzGerald’s intimate friend Robert Hindes Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk. Now long before the great vogue of Omar Khayyam, and, of course, long before the institution of the Omar Khayyam Club, there was a little group of Omarians of which I was a member. I need not say here who were the others of that group, but it was to them I alluded in the ‘Toast to Omar Khayyam,’ which years afterwards I printed in The Athenæum, and have since reprinted in a volume of mine.
After a while it was arranged that he was to come and visit us for a few days at The Pines. When it got wind in the little household here that another Romany Rye, a successor to George Borrow, was to visit us, and when it further became known that he had travelled with Hungarian gipsies, Roumanian gipsies, Roumelian gipsies, &c., I don’t know what kind of wild and dishevelled visitor was not expected. Instead of such a guest there appeared one of the neatest and most quiet young gentlemen who had ever presented themselves at the door. No one could possibly have dared to associate Bohemia with him. As a friend remarked who was afterwards invited to meet him at luncheon, “Clergyman’s son—suckling for the Church, was stamped upon him from head to foot.”
I will not deny that so respectable a looking Romany Rye rather disappointed The Pines at first. At that time he was a little over thirty, but owing to his slender, graceful figure, and especially owing to his lithe movements and elastic walk, he seemed to be several years younger.
The subject of Welsh gipsies, and especially of the Romany chi of Swindon, made us intimate friends in half an hour, and then there were East Anglia, Omar Khayyàm, and Edward FitzGerald to talk about!—a delightful new friend for a man who had so lately lost the only other Romany Rye in the world. Owing to his youthful appearance, I christened him there and then the “Tarno Rye,” in remembrance of that other “Tarno Rye” whom Rhona Boswell loved. I soon found that, great as was the physical contrast between the Tarno Rye and the original Romany Rye, the mental contrast was greater still. Both were shy—very shy; but while Borrow’s shyness seemed to be born of wariness, the wariness of a man who felt that he was famous and had a part to play before an inquisitive world, Groome’s shyness arose from a modesty that was unique.