through Wales he was accompanied by his wife and step-daughter. How the journey was brought about he explains in the first chapter of “Wild Wales,” a work which, published in 1862, was the outcome of his ramblings in the Principality. “In the summer of 1854, myself, wife and daughter, determined upon going into Wales, to pass a few months there. We are country-people of a corner of East Anglia, and, at the time of which I am speaking, had been residing so long on our own little estate that we had become tired of the objects around us, and conceived that we should be all the better for changing the scene for a short period. We were undetermined for some time with respect to where we should go. I proposed Wales from the first, but my wife and daughter, who have always had rather a hankering after what is fashionable, said they thought it would be more advisable to go to Harrogate or Leamington. On my observing that these were terrible places for expense, they replied that though the price of corn had of late been shamefully low we had a spare hundred pounds or two in our pockets and could afford to pay for a little insight into fashionable life. I told them that there was nothing I so much hated as fashionable life, but that, as I was anything but a selfish person, I would endeavour to stifle my abhorrence of it for a time and attend them either to Leamington or Harrogate. By this speech I obtained my wish, even as I knew I should, for my wife and daughter instantly observed that, after all, they thought we
had better go into Wales, which, though not so fashionable as either Leamington or Harrogate, was a very picturesque country, where they had no doubt they should get on very well, more especially as I was acquainted with the Welsh language.”
This is Borrow’s account of how he obtained his own way; it would have been interesting had his wife and step-daughter also recorded their version of the affair.
Borrow’s mother, who had given up her house in Willow Lane, died at Oulton, in 1860. The same year Borrow published a small volume, entitled “The Sleeping Bard,” a translation from the Welsh of Elis Wyn. During the years 1862–3 various translations of his appeared in Once a Week, a magazine that then numbered amongst its contributors such writers as Harriet Martineau and S. Baring-Gould, and artists as Leech, Keene, Tenniel, Millais and Du Maurier. Amongst these translations were “The Hailstorm, or the Death of Bui,” from the ancient Norse; “The Count of Vendal’s Daughter,” from the ancient Danish; “Harald Harfagr,” from the Norse; “Emelian the Fool,” and “The Story of Yashka with the Bear’s Ear,” from the Russian; and several ballads from the Manx. Other translations from the Danish of Oehlenschlaeger are still in the possession of Mrs. MacOubrey, and have never been printed. His last book, “The Romano Lavo-Lil,” was issued in 1872.
Between 1860 and 1870, Borrow spent a good
deal of his time in London, at his house in Hereford Square. This was mainly on account of the ill-health of his wife, who died there in 1869, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. After her death, however, he returned to Oulton, telling Mr. Watts that he was going down into East Anglia to die.
From that time his life was lived more apart from the world than ever. His visitors were few; and fewer still were the visits he paid to others. During his latter years his tall, erect, somewhat mysterious figure was often seen in the early hours of summer mornings or late at night on the lonely pathways that wind in and out from the banks of Oulton Broad. He loved to be mysterious, and the village children used to hush their voices and draw aside at his approach. They looked upon him with fear and awe—for had they not seen him stop and talk with the gipsies, who ran away with little children? But in his heart, Borrow was fond of the little ones, though it amused him to watch the impression his strange personality made upon them. Older people he seldom spoke to when out on his solitary rambles; but sometimes he would flash out such a glance from beneath his broad-brimmed hat and shaggy eyebrows as would make timid country-folk hasten on their way filled with vague thoughts and fears of the evil eye. Mr. John Murray has referred to this love of mystery on the part of his father’s friend, and also to his moody and variable temperament; while Mr. G. T. Bettany has related how he enjoyed
creating a sensation by riding about on a fine Arab horse which he brought home with him from Turkey in 1844.
Still Borrow was not unpopular with the villagers, many of whom, long after his death, remembered little acts of kindness on his part by which they had benefited. To the sick and infirm he was always a good friend, though his almost invariable remedy for all the ills that flesh is heir to were wine and ale. He was exceedingly fond of animals, and nothing aroused his wrath more than to see them badly treated. On one occasion, while out walking not far from his home, he encountered some men who were ill-using a fallen horse. He remonstrated with them, and his words, backed by his commanding figure, prevailed upon them to desist from their cruelty. He then sent one of them for a bowl of ale. When it was brought, he knelt down on the road beside the exhausted animal, and poured it down its throat. Having afterwards assisted the men in getting the horse upon its feet, he left them, but not before he had given them a severe lecture on the treatment of dumb animals in general and fallen horses in particular.
At another time, a favourite old cat that was ill, crawled out of his house to die in the garden hedge. Borrow no sooner missed the poor creature than he went in search of it, and brought it indoors in his arms. He then laid it down in a comfortable spot, and sat and watched it till it was dead.