After many painful experiences in London, whither he went in the hope of
being able to gain a livelihood by devoting himself to literature, George
Borrow turned his back upon the metropolis, and set out on that wild,
rambling excursion narrated and enlarged upon in the pages of "Lavengro."
Lapse of time has emphasised the impossibility of ascertaining how much
is fact and how much fiction in the fascinating account of his
wanderings. Criticism on that point is unjustifiable, for Borrow
announced that the book was "a dream," and a history only up to a certain
point. From what the writer has gathered, however, from those who knew
Borrow intimately, he has good reason to believe that there are more
facts recorded in the latter part of "Lavengro," and in "The Romany Rye,"
than are credited by many students of "Don Jorge's" writings.
After lengthy roamings far and wide, he returned again to Norwich, where
he lived for a time a quiet life, of which he has left no record. His
literary exploits had not been of such a nature as to rank his name with
those of the known writers of his day; indeed, there is every reason for
believing that as an author he was as little known as on the day when he
abandoned the quiet little house in Willow Lane for a wider field of
life. Yet, painful, and even heartbreaking, as his experiences had been,
he was infinitely the gainer by the hard fate that sent him out a
wanderer upon the face of the earth, and we who read his books to-day may
be thankful for the tears and toilings that brought about so rich and
abundant a harvest.
An introduction from Joseph John Gurney to the British and Foreign Bible
Society resulted in Borrow's leaving England in 1830 for the Continent,
where he went on another _wanderjahre_ not unlike that he had taken in
his native land.
After visiting France, Austria and Italy, we eventually find him in St.
Petersburg, where he undertook the translation of the Bible into the
Mandschu-Tartar language, and issued in 1835, through Schulz and Beneze,
his "Targum; or Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and
Dialects." While in Russia, he made many friends amongst the nobility
there, who frequently invited him to their country homes. In the same
year that saw the publication of "Targum," he returned home. His stay in
England, however, was a very short one. The British and Foreign Bible
Society was so satisfied with his work in Russia that they pressed him to
continue to serve them, and undertake a journey into Spain for the
purpose of circulating the Scriptures in that country. His travels in
Spain occupied over four years. While there he met Mrs. Mary Clarke, who
afterwards became his wife. This lady, who was the widow of a naval
officer, was connected with a Suffolk family which had been associated
with the village of Oulton for several generations. Their name was
Skeppar, and it was in their old Suffolk home by the side of Oulton Broad
that Borrow went to live on his return to England.
* * * * *
Borrow, who was now in his thirty-eighth year, set to work at Oulton upon
his "Bible in Spain," which was published by Mr. John Murray, three years
later, in 1843. Of his method, or lack of method, in working, something
may be gathered from the preface to the second edition of "The Zincali,"
which was written about the time of the issue of the former book. Mr.
Murray had advised him to try his hand at something different from his
"sorry trash" {41} about gipsies, and write a work that would really be
of credit to the great firm in Albemarle Street. Borrow responded by
starting on an account of his wanderings in Spain.
"At first I proceeded slowly--sickness was in the land, and the face of
Nature was overcast--heavy rainclouds swam in the heavens, the blast
howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the
waters of the lake, which lies before it, so quiet in general and
tranquil, were fearfully agitated . . . A dreary summer and autumn passed
by, and were succeeded by as gloomy a winter. I still proceeded with the
Bible in Spain. The winter passed, and spring came, with cold dry winds
and occasional sunshine, whereupon I arose, shouted, and mounting my
horse, even Sidi Habismilk, I scoured all the surrounding district, and
thought but little of the Bible in Spain. So I rode about the country,
over the heaths, and through the green lanes of my native land,
occasionally visiting friends at a distance, and sometimes, for variety's
sake, I stayed at home and amused myself by catching huge pike, which lie
perdue in certain deep ponds skirted with lofty reeds, upon my land, and
to which there is a communication from the lagoon by a deep and narrow
watercourse. I had almost forgotten the Bible in Spain. Then came the
summer with much heat and sunshine, and then I would lie for hours in the
sun and recall the sunny days I had spent in Andalusia, and my thoughts
were continually reverting to Spain, and at last I remembered that the
Bible in Spain was still unfinished; whereupon I arose and said: 'This
loitering profiteth nothing,' and I hastened to my summer-house by the
side or the lake, and there I thought and wrote, and thought and wrote,
until I had finished the 'Bible in Spain.'"
Within a few weeks of the publication of the "Bible in Spain," Borrow's
name was in everyone's mouth. Attempts were made to "lionise" him; but
were met with his distinct disapproval, though it was always a pleasure
to him to be looked upon as a celebrity. To escape from the Mrs. Leo
Hunters of fashionable society, he almost immediately fled to the
Continent, where he went on another pilgrimage. Having journeyed through
Turkey, Albania, Hungary, and Wallachia, he again came home to Oulton,
and completed "Lavengro," which had been commenced almost as soon as the
manuscript of "The Bible in Spain" had left his hands. This book was
finished in the summer-house of his garden by the broad where most of his
future work was done, and was issued in 1851.
Defending himself against the critics who attacked him for intermingling
truth and fiction in "Lavengro," he afterwards wrote: "In the preface
'Lavengro' is stated to be a dream; and the writer takes this opportunity
of stating that he never said it was an autobiography; never authorised
any person to say that it was one; and that he has in innumerable
instances declared in public and in private, both before and after the
work was published, that it was not what is generally termed an
autobiography: but a set of people who pretend to write criticisms on
books, hating the author for various reasons, amongst others, because,
having the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not in the
year 1843, choose to permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in
London, and especially because he will neither associate with, nor curry
favour with, them who are neither gentlemen nor scholars--attack his book
with abuse and calumny."
Interrogated by Mr. Theodore Watts as to the real nature of an
autobiography, Borrow asked the question, "What is an autobiography? Is
it a mere record of the incidents of a man's life? or is it a picture of
the man himself--his character, his soul?"
This, Mr. Watts thinks, was a very suggestive query of Borrow's with
regard to himself and his work. "That he sat down to write his own life
in 'Lavengro' I know. He had no idea then of departing from the strict
line of fact. Indeed, his letters to his friend, Mr. John Murray, would
alone be sufficient to establish this in spite of his calling 'Lavengro'
a dream. In the first volume he did almost confine himself to matters of
fact. But as he went on he clearly found that the ordinary tapestry into
which Destiny had woven the incidents of his life were not tinged with
sufficient depth of colour to satisfy his sense of wonder. . . . When he
wishes to dive very boldly into the 'abysmal deeps of personality,' he
speaks and moves partly behind the mask of some fictitious character . . .
Let it be remembered that it was this instinct of wonder, not the
instinct of the mere _poseur_, that impelled him to make certain
exaggerated statements about the characters themselves that are
introduced into his books."
The village of Oulton lies on the border of the marshland about a mile
from the most easterly point of England, and within hearing of the
beating of the billows of the wild North Sea. Borrow's home, which was
little more than a cottage, stood on the side of a slight rising bank
overlooking Oulton Broad, and was sheltered from the winds of the sea and
marshland by a belt of storm-rent pines. The house contained a
sitting-room on either side of the entrance-hall, a kitchen, four
bedrooms, and two attics. It was its smallness and compactness that
commended it to Borrow, and it also had the extra recommendation to a man
of his disposition of being quiet and secluded. Indeed, so
out-of-the-way was its situation that to take a boat upon the broad was
looked upon as the best and most direct means of attaining this isolated
nook of the Broadland.
At the present time the broad, that stretches away from Lake Lothing to
the westward of Borrow's Ham, {45} is for several months of the year
picturesque with the white sails of yachts and other pleasure boats that
have skimmed its placid waters since the Broadland first became a holiday
resort. In the early days of Borrow's residence at Oulton, the only
craft that stirred its sunlit ripples were the punts of the eel-catcher
and wildfowl-seeker and the slowly gliding wherries voyaging to and from
the coast and inland towns. To-day, a little colony of dwellers in
red-brick villas have invaded the lonely spot where Borrow lived; but
even now you have but to turn aside a few steps from the lake side to
reach the edge of far-stretching marshland levels that have changed their
face but little during the passage of many centuries. Farther away the
marshlanders have seized upon any slight piece of rising ground to
establish a firm foundation for their humble homes; here and there a grey
church tower or skeleton windmill breaks the line of the level horizon.
The meres and marshes have the silence of long dead years resting upon
them, save where the breeze stirs the riverside reeds or a curlew cries
above the ooze flats.
Queer company the "walking lord of gipsy lore" must have kept as he sat
alone in that little book-lined summer-house, hearing strange voices in
the sighing of the wind through the fir-trees and the distant sobbing of
the sea. Out of the shadow of the past there would come to him, not only
the swarthy Romanies, but Francis Ardrey, the friend of his youth; the
Armenian merchant, with whom Lavengro discussed Haik; the victim of the
evil chance, who talked nonsense about the _star_ Jupiter and told him
that "touching" story of his fight against destiny; the Rev. Mr.
Platitude, who would neither admit there were any Dissenters nor permit
any to exist; Peter Williams, the man who committed the unpardonable sin
against the Holy Ghost, and Winifred, his patient, constant wife; the
student of Chinese, who learnt the language of the land of the Celestials
from the figures on the teapots; the Hungarian, who related so many
legends and traditions of the Magyars; and Murtagh, with his wonderful
stories of the Pope. These were the friends with whom he spent the real
life of his latter days, and it is hardly surprising that under the
influence of their companionship he should have become somewhat of a
recluse, and lost touch with living friends and acquaintances.
Dr. Gordon Hake, whose residence at Bury St. Edmunds was contemporary
with Borrow's settling down at Oulton, writes in his Memoirs: "George
Borrow was one of those whose mental powers are strong, and whose bodily
frame is yet stronger--a conjunction of forces often detrimental to a
literary career in an age of intellectual predominance. His temper was
good and bad; his pride was humility; his humility was pride; his vanity,
in being negative, was of the most positive kind. He was reticent and
candid, measured in speech, with an emphasis that makes trifles
significant. Borrow was essentially hypochondriacal. Society he loved
and hated alike; he loved it that he might be pointed out and talked of;
he hated it because he was not the prince that he felt himself in its
midst. His figure was tall, and his bearing noble; he had a finely
moulded head and thick white hair--white from his youth; his brown eyes
were soft, yet piercing; his nose somewhat of the Semitic type, which
gave his face the cast of the young Memnon; his mouth had a generous
curve, and his features, for beauty and true power, were such as can have
no parallel in our portrait gallery, where it is to be hoped the likeness
of him, in Mr. Murray's possession, may one day find a place. Borrow and
his family used to stay with me at Bury; I visited him, less often, at
his cottage on the lake at Oulton, a fine sheet of water that flows into
the sea at Lowestoft. He was much courted there by his neighbours and by
visitors to the seaside. I there met Baron Alderson and his daughters,
who had ridden from Lowestoft to see him."
Borrow had many good qualities, but it must be admitted that his temper
was queer and uncertain. At times he was passionate and overbearing, and
he never had the necessary patience to submit to what seemed to him the
inanities and boredom of admirers, hero worshippers, and others who were
desirous of being brought to his notice. Mr. J. W. Donne, who occupied
the position of librarian of the London Library and was afterwards reader
of plays, related to Dr. Hake how on one occasion Miss Agnes Strickland
urged him to introduce her to her brother author. Borrow, who was in the
room at the time, offered some objection, but was at length prevailed
upon to accept the introduction. Ignorant of the peculiar twists in
Borrow's nature, the gifted authoress commenced the conversation by an
enthusiastic eulogy of his works, and concluded by asking permission to
send him a copy of her "Queens of England." "For God's sake, don't,
madam," exclaimed Borrow. "I should not know what to do with them." He
then got up in a rage, and, addressing Mr. Donne, said, "What a d--- fool
that woman is!"
"He once," writes Dr. Hake, "went with me to a dinner at Mr. Bevan's
country-house, Rougham Rookery, and placed me in an extremely awkward
position. Mr. Bevan was a Suffolk banker, a partner of Mr. Oakes. He
was one of the kindest and most benevolent of men. His wife was gentle,
unassuming, attentive to her guests. A friend of Borrow, the heir to a
very considerable estate, had run himself into difficulties and owed
money, which was not forthcoming, to the Bury banking-house; and in order
to secure repayment Mr. Bevan was said to have 'struck the docket.' I
knew this beforehand from Borrow, who, however, accepted the invitation,
and was seated at dinner at Mrs. Bevan's side. This lady, a simple,
unpretending woman, desirous of pleasing him, said, 'Oh, Mr. Borrow, I
have read your books with so much pleasure!' On which he exclaimed,
'Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean my account-books?' On
this he fretted and fumed, rose from the table, and walked up and down
amongst the servants during the whole of dinner, and afterwards wandered
about the rooms and passage, till the carriage could be ordered for our
return home."
On another occasion Hake and Borrow were guests together at Hardwicke
House, Suffolk, a fine old Jacobean Hall, then the residence of Sir
Thomas Cullum. There were also staying at the Hall at the time Lord
Bristol, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, William Makepeace Thackeray, and other
distinguished people. Borrow and Thackeray did not get on well together.
The latter evidently felt it his duty to live up to his reputation by
entertaining the company with lively sallies and witticisms. At last he
approached Borrow, and inquired, "Have you read my Snob Papers in
_Punch_?" "In _Punch_?" asked Borrow. "It is a periodical I never look
at."
Mr. John Murray, in his "Reminiscences," has also given instances of
Borrow's strange behaviour in other people's houses; but there is reason
to believe that he often keenly reproached himself afterwards for giving
way in public to such unseemly displays of temper and spleen. That his
heart was in the right place and he was not lacking in powers of
restraint, are facts fully demonstrated by the following incident. He
was invited to meet Dr. Robert Latham at the house of Dr. Hake, who had
many inward tremors at what might be the outcome of bringing them
together. Latham was in the habit of indulging somewhat too freely at
table, and under such circumstances, as might be expected, was often
deficient in tact and courtesy.
"All, like most things that are planned, began well. But with Latham
life was a game of show. He had to put forth all his knowledge of
subjects in which he deemed Borrow was an adept. He began with
horse-racing. Borrow quietly assented. He showed off all he knew of the
ring. Borrow freely responded. He had to show what he knew of
publishers, instancing the Longmans. Borrow said, 'I suppose you dine
with your publishers sometimes?' It was Latham's opportunity; he could
not resist it, and replied, 'Never; I hope I should never do anything so
low. You do not dine with Mr. John Murray, I presume?' 'Indeed, I do,'
said Borrow, emotionally. 'He is a most kind friend. When I have had
sickness in my house he has been unfailing in his goodness towards me.
There is no man I value more.' Latham's conversation was fast falling
under the influence of wine; with this his better taste departed from
him. 'I have heard,' he said, 'that you are a brave man over a bottle of
wine. Now, how many bottles can you get through at a sitting?' Borrow
saw what the other was; he was resolved not to take offence at what was
only impertinent and self-asserting, so he said, 'When I was in Madrid I
knew a priest who would sit down alone to his two bottles.' 'Yes,'
replied Latham, with his knowing look and his head on one side like a
bird, 'but what I want to know is, how many bottles you can manage at one
sitting?' 'I once knew another priest,' said Borrow, 'it was at Oporto;
I have seen him get through two bottles by himself.' By this time Latham
was a little unsteady, he slipped from his chair as if it had been an
inclined plane and lay on the carpet. He was unable to rise, but he held
his head up with a cunning smile, saying, 'This must be a very
disreputable house.' Borrow saw Latham after this at times on his way to
me, and always stopped to say a kind word to him, seeing his forlorn
condition."
Given as he was to snubbing and browbeating others, Borrow was not a man
to sit silent and see another man badly treated without raising hand or
voice in his defence. Proof of this is found in an instructive story
related by Mr. J. Ewing Ritchie in his chatty "East Anglian
Reminiscences." "One good anecdote I heard about George Borrow," writes
Mr. Ritchie. "My informant was an Independent minister, at the time
supplying the pulpit at Lowestoft and staying at Oulton Hall, then
inhabited by a worthy dissenting tenant. One night a meeting of the
Bible Society was held at Mutford Bridge, at which the party from the
Hall attended, and where George Borrow was one of the speakers. After
the meeting was over, all the speakers went back to supper at Oulton
Hall, and my friend among them, who, in the course of the supper, found
himself violently attacked by a clergyman for holding Calvinistic
opinions. Naturally my friend replied that the clergyman was bound to do
the same. 'How do you make that out?' 'Why, the Articles of your Church
are Calvinistic, and to them you have sworn assent!' 'Oh yes, but there
is a way of explaining them away!' 'How so?' said my friend. 'Oh,'
replied the clergyman, 'we are not bound to take the words in their
natural sense.' My friend, an honest, blunt East Anglian, intimated that
he did not understand that way of evading the difficulty; but he was then
a young man and did not like to continue the discussion further.
However, George Borrow, who had not said a word hitherto, entered into
the discussion, opening fire on the clergyman in a very unexpected
manner, and giving him such a setting down as the hearers, at any rate,
never forgot. All the sophistry about the non-natural meaning of terms
was held up by Borrow to ridicule, and the clergyman was beaten at every
point. 'Never,' says my friend, 'did I hear one man give another such a
dressing as on that occasion.'"
* * * * *
Borrow was often asked by visitors to Oulton if it was his intention to
leave behind him the necessary material for the compilation of a
biography of his strange career. This, however, he could never be
persuaded to do. He maintained that "Lavengro," "The Romany Rye," and
"The Bible in Spain," contained all of his life that it was necessary for
posterity to know. It was not the man but his works that should live, he
would say, and his books contained the best part of himself. While in
London, however, at the house which he took in Hereford Square, Brompton,
he consented to sit for his portrait, the artist being Henry Philips.
This picture afterwards passed into the possession of his step-daughter,
Mrs. Henrietta MacOubrey.
Of the painting of this portrait a very good story is told. Borrow was a
very bad sitter, he was ever anxious to get out into the fresh air and
sunlight. Philips was greatly hindered by this restlessness, but one day
he hit upon a plan which conquered the chafing child of Nature and served
his own purpose admirably. He was aware of Borrow's wonderful gift of
tongues and the fascination that philological studies had for him. So he
remarked, "I have always heard, Mr. Borrow, that the Persian is a very
fine language; is it so?" "It is, Philips; it is," replied "Lavengro."
"Perhaps you will not mind reciting me something in the Persian tongue?"
"Dear me, no; certainly not." And then Borrow's face lit up with the
light that Philips longed for, and he commenced declaiming at the top of
his voice, while the painter made the most of his opportunity. When he
found his subject was lapsing into silence, and that the old feeling of
weariness and boredom was again creeping upon him, he would start him off
again by saying, "I have always heard that the Turkish--or the
Armenian--is a very fine language," with a like result, until at length
the portrait was completed.
The monotony of Borrow's life at Oulton was varied by occasional visits
to London and excursions into Wales and to the Isle of Man. In his
travels 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.
Owing to the somewhat eccentric manner in which he passed his latter
days, there were some persons who assumed after his death that in his
declining years he lacked the attention of friends, and the little
comforts and considerations that are due to old age. Yet this was not
so; if the world heard little of him from the time of his final
retirement into rural seclusion, and lost sight of him and believed him
dead, it was his own choosing that they should remain in ignorance. He
had had his day, a longer and fuller one than falls to the lot of most of
the sons of men, and, when the weight of years began to tell upon him, he
chose to live out the little time that was left to him amidst such scenes
as were in harmony with his nature. He died at Oulton on July 26, 1881,
just three weeks after the completion of his seventy-eighth year. His
step-daughter, Mrs. MacOubrey, the Henrietta of "Wild Wales," who had a
sincere affection for him, was his constant attendant during his last
illness, and was with him at the end. He was buried at Brompton
Cemetery, where his body lies beside that of his wife. Not long after
his death, his Oulton home was pulled down. All that now remains to mark
the spot where it once stood are the old summer-house in which he loved
to linger, and the ragged fir-trees that sighed the requiem of his last
hours.