IN FOREIGN PARTS
“ROMANCE brought up” the year 1832. It was a year full of events with an
important bearing on the course of Borrow’s life. In the first place, he
became acquainted with the Skeppers, of Oulton Hall, near Lowestoft. The
introduction to this family issued in a friendship with Mr. Skepper’s
sister, the widow of a young naval officer named Clarke. In Mrs. Clarke,
a woman somewhat older than himself—she was thirty-six and he was
twenty-nine—he met the woman who was to bring into his life its fairest
influence and its rarest happiness. But the story of this romance must
be postponed for a few pages in order to the relation of a sequence of
affairs without which it cannot be understood. They resulted from sundry
conversations about Borrow—between the Skeppers and the Rev. Francis
Cunningham, Rector of Pakefield, and in turn between Cunningham and
Joseph Gurney, his brother-in-law, from whose meadows at Earlham George
had fished in boyhood.
Both Cunningham and Gurney were interested in the work of the Bible
Society, and between them the idea was hatched of employing Borrow’s
philological learning in its behalf. The Society happened at the moment
to be looking for a man to superintend the printing of the New Testament
in Manchu. There were many negotiations, and ultimately the engagement
was consummated which made Borrow’s modest fortune.
To go to St. Petersburg on this business of the Bible Society’s was an
adventure after Borrow’s own heart. He had passed through some
exceedingly stormy waters, and in this employment he found a secure and
congenial harbour. He could well afford to regard lightly the critical
attitude of certain people in Norwich, who did not forget to recall the
episode of “godless Billy Taylor.” Their temper was reflected in the
letter of Harriet Martineau referring to Borrow as a “polyglot
gentleman,” and remarking that his appearance as “a devout agent of the
Bible Society” evoked “one shout of laughter from all who remembered the
old Norwich days.” Borrow did not like their laughter, and he did not
forgive their contempt. But for the time he was too busy with the
actualities of his new situation to trouble about them, and too elated
with his suddenly brightened prospects to be cast down by the jeers of
the scornful.
He was going a journey into a far country, and he was going on a more or
less philological errand. His task was to undertake the production in
the Russian capital of the Manchu version of the Sacred Books made by
Lipotsof. Invited to London to see the officials of the Society, he set
off in high spirits—and on foot. The long road stretched for a hundred
and twelve miles between Norwich and London—that road which some ten
years before he had travelled by coach with the little green box of
poetical translations. He now tramped it in 27½ hours, and his expenses
_en route_ amounted to fivepence halfpenny! This feat was one of his
favourite boasts. It was, in its way, a remarkable achievement. Few
big, healthy young men would care to undertake such long-sustained
exertion on a pint of ale, half a pint of milk, a roll of bread, and two
apples. But such is Borrow’s tale of his commissariat arrangements on
this expedition.
The Society desired him to learn the Manchu language before he set out
for Russia. They gave him six months for the purpose. Even for a
meteoric philologist like Borrow, who swallowed a language by memorising
its dictionary, six months meant short commons. He could not possibly
acquire more than a nodding acquaintance with that most difficult of the
tongues of Babel. However, he set about his task with zeal.
There is one amusing passage in the correspondence between him and the
Secretary of the Bible Society. Observe the true Borrovian spirit
asserting itself in the letter where he expresses pleasure at the
prospect of “becoming useful to the Deity, to man, and to myself.”
Observe the solemn admonition of the good secretary, when he perceived
that a sense of human frailty was not one of Borrow’s most striking
characteristics: “Doubtless you mean the prospect of glorifying God.”
Thereafter, the Borrovian spirit was subdued (in correspondence) to the
proper standard of orthodoxy.
At the end of June, 1833, he set sail for St. Petersburg, by way of
Hamburg, and was highly delighted with the Russian capital. He made his
way into the acquaintanceship of a number of literary people, in whose
society he found congenial entertainment. Among them he speedily
established for himself quite a reputation. It was here that he began
his long friendship with Hasfeldt, which produced a prolific
correspondence. Hasfeldt was a Dane attached to the Russian Government,
and a linguist of attainments, who added to his income by the teaching of
European languages. He conceived a remarkable fondness for “tall
George,” as he called him; the affection was returned as fully as Borrow
could return a friendship, and that was in much higher measure than many
estimates of him suggest. He met Russian scholars, and found many
opportunities for extending his philological studies in the direction of
the Oriental languages.
His work on the Chinese version was hard and long. He had to use German
printers, who did not always feel for the task the enthusiasm which
Borrow expected everybody to throw into anything in which he himself was
concerned. They had to be bribed with vodka, and other things, in order
that progress might be secured. The Bible Society presumably swallowed
the vodka in their delight at the energy Borrow displayed, and they
passed a resolution to pay him any expenses to which he might be put in
the execution of the commission. He had to furbish up an old fount of
type in the Chinese character, that had been lying rusting in a cellar
for many years, and to get everything in order himself, because, of
course, it was impossible to obtain compositors who knew anything of the
Manchu. He even turned printer. So keen was the zest with which he
entered into the work that he submitted a proposal to the Society to
undertake the distribution of the books when they were printed, going
overland to China, and looking in upon the Tartars on the way! Without
doubt he would have done it but for the fact that the Russian Government
refused to grant him a passport for the purpose. It is characteristic of
Borrow that years afterwards he said, and doubtless thought, that he had
been overland to China.
The work of printing done, he paid a hurried visit to Moscow, gathering
impressions for the description of the Kremlin to be found in “The Bible
in Spain,” and on September 9th, 1835, he left St. Petersburg for
England, having spent the previous night in a solemn leave-taking of
Hasfeldt. While in St. Petersburg hard at work, and feeling run down, he
had “the Horrors” several times, but affected to have found a cure for it
in the shape of strong port wine. It was during his stay in Russia that
the news arrived of the death of his brother John in Mexico. He had
discovered other activities to occupy him besides the translation of the
Testament into Chinese. He turned homilies of the Church of England into
Russian and Manchu, and did translations of some of the sacred Buddhist
books from Manchu into English. He conceived at the moment no high
opinion of the Buddhist philosophy. “You will be surprised,” he writes
to the Rev. F. Cunningham, “that Satan by such inconsistent trash should
have been able to ensnare the souls of millions!” If that had been read
in the Martineau household there might have been another “burst of
laughter.” It was while he was in St. Petersburg, too, that he published
his “Targum,” a collection of poetic translations from thirty different
languages and dialects. When Pushkin, the poet, after Borrow’s
departure, received a presentation copy of this book, he expressed his
great regret that he had not met the author.
Borrow reached London on the 18th September, and went down to Norfolk,
feeling anxious again about his future, and hoping that the Bible Society
would be able to find some further employment for him. He was not
disappointed. The Society had not yet given up hope that they might find
a way to send him to China, but in the meantime they resolved to
commission him to Portugal. On November 2nd they passed a resolution
that he should be asked to go to Lisbon and Oporto to inquire about
“means and channels for promoting the circulation of the Holy Scriptures
in Portugal.” {91} Here is the origin of two of his books, of which one
was “The Bible in Spain.” On November 6th he sailed from London,
touching at Falmouth on the 8th, and was at Lisbon on the 13th. He was
to confer with one Wilby about the work; but, Wilby being away, Borrow
consoled himself with the company of Captain Heyland, of the 35th Foot,
whose acquaintance he had made on the voyage. With him he made several
trips, upon one of which he met the _bohémienne_ landlady of Cintra.
During this first expedition to the Peninsula, he set up relations with
the gypsies of Spain, which provided the germ of the first of his books
that attracted anything like general attention. At Badajoz he
encountered a gypsy tribe, by whom he was detained ten days. In that
time he had translated the Gospel of Saint Luke into the Câlo, or Spanish
gypsy language, and the version was subsequently printed by the Bible
Society. One of the Romany chals, Antonio Lopez, accompanied him most of
the way to Madrid, delaying three days at Merida in a gypsy house.
Antonio finally went off with a gitana. Borrow bought a donkey from the
girl, and rode on the animal’s back as far as Talavera, where he sold it
to a Toledo Jew whom he met on the road. The rest of the journey to
Madrid he did by the diligence, like a common Christian.
By the time of his arrival there, he had formed a definite project of
printing the New Testament in Spanish and in Spain, without comment or
note of any sort. The law would prohibit the circulation of such a book
if it were printed outside and brought into the country. It was decided
to use the current Catholic version, in order not to excite any more
prejudices than could be helped, and to sell cheaply, and thus to spread
the book among people who had never seen it before. This was a time in
Spain of constant political excitement, chronic Ministerial change, and
periodical revolution; and Borrow had much trouble in getting official
recognition for the enterprise, without which he might as well have left
it alone. But the way was smoothed for him by Sir George Villiers, the
British Minister, and at the end of twelve months he returned to England
with an active campaign mapped out in his mind, for which he soon
obtained the approval of the Society. In a letter to his mother about
this, he remarked that his “ordination” would be put off till his return.
This is the first and the last that we hear of any proposal to enter the
Church.
On his way out to Spain the second time, he happened across Santa Coloma,
the Carlist, who is frequently met with hereafter in his Spanish
adventures. “The Bible in Spain” relates very closely the events of the
next two years—his wanderings and escapes, his enterprise in Madrid,
where he set up a bookselling shop, his imprisonment for insulting the
Government and the Catholic Church—an offence of which he was quite
innocent, for such was not his method at the time. The trouble was
brought on him by an evangelical firebrand, named Lieutenant Graydon, who
led Borrow into one of his scrapes with the Peninsular powers by claiming
to be associated with him in the work of the Bible Society. Borrow’s
imprisonment resulted in a declaration by him in the Spanish Press,
directed against Graydon. He said that neither himself nor the Bible
Society was actuated by any enmity against either the Government or the
Catholic clergy of Spain, and concluded by avowing himself the sole agent
of the Society in the Peninsula. Out of this grew an estrangement
between Borrow and the Society. It happened that Graydon was one of the
pets of Mr. Brandram, joint secretary of the Society, and was actually
regarded as one of their agents, though he received no pay, being the
holder of a Government pension. He was an enthusiastic evangelist, who
seems to have lacked nothing save discretion, but manifested this defect
by fierce attacks upon the Catholic faith in its stronghold, instead of
contenting himself with prosecuting the primary work of the Society,
which was the distribution of the unadulterated Scriptures. In the
event, Graydon was withdrawn from Spain, but it was expressly stated that
this step was taken only in the interests of his own safety, and that the
Society would pass no judgment on the merits of the dispute between him
and Borrow until Graydon had returned to England and had an opportunity
of vindicating himself. Borrow at the same time was ordered to cease
issuing his advertisement. It is difficult to judge a man like Graydon.
His good faith in all he did can hardly be doubted, but there is no
question that the result of his ill-timed action was to put an end to the
work of the Society and the circulation of the Bible in Spain for many
years.
The relations between Earl Street and Borrow grew more strained, and very
soon he had practically a command to come to London. He packed up and
returned, but such was the force of his character that he fascinated Earl
Street into sending him to Spain a third time. He was only home a month
or two, and got back to the Peninsula on the last day of 1838. But the
mission was not of much further use, for there had been another change of
Ministry in the meanwhile, and Borrow and the Society were again out of
official favour.
He proceeded to Seville, settling there for a purpose, as we shall
presently see. In the sunlit southern city he was encountered by an
English traveller, who has left a most entertaining account of him. This
was Lieutenant-Colonel Elers Napier, in whose “Excursions along the
Shores of the Mediterranean” appears the remarkable figure of a Man of
Mystery, who is easily identified as Don Jorge—though apparently Napier
never learned who he was. Borrow, six feet three, with piercing black
eyes, snowy head, and swarthy, hairless face, made a profound impression
on his new friend—and we may be sure that he omitted nothing that would
deepen it. He showed off all his best points and maintained a rigid
silence upon the question of his identity, so that in Napier’s
recollections he assumes almost supernatural proportions, and is
described throughout as “The Unknown.” He revealed all his miscellaneous
acquaintance with languages, Occidental and Oriental. He conversed with
the Colonel in Spanish, in Latin, in French (“the purest Parisian
accent”), in Italian. He spoke English perfectly, but did not appear to
be an Englishman. He was even as conversant with Hindu as the
Anglo-Indian himself; he seemed, Napier says, to know everything and
everybody, but was apparently known to nobody himself. His almost magic
power over the gypsies, his familiarity with their patois and their
customs, the way in which they almost worshipped him when he took Napier
by night for a visit to one of their weird encampments, added to the
marvel.
But the real significance of the visit to Seville is not to be sought in
the archives of the Bible Society or in the jottings of Colonel Napier.
Borrow’s friendship with Mrs. Clarke, of Oulton, arose in the fashion
already mentioned. His long absences from England did not impair it, and
in 1838 it developed in peculiar circumstances, which were the subject
from time to time of scandal utterly unfounded, and of gossip more or
less impertinent and irrelevant. Whether Borrow, during the years from
1832 to 1838 nurtured dreams of any relation closer than friendship it is
hardly possible to determine. He was not “a marrying man,” and probably
the sober little romance that ended in their wedding was a thing of
sudden growth. That theory is encouraged by a passage in his
correspondence as late as 1838, when he told his friend Usóz that it was
better to suffer the halter than the yoke, and expressed his conviction
that bachelordom was the better kingdom for him. But at the end of the
same year, during his stay in England, he visited his friends at Oulton,
and found a state of affairs that doubtless altered his judgment.
The business of Mrs. Clarke, who was the principal heiress of the Oulton
Hall estate, was in a highly complicated condition. She had none but
professional advisers, save Borrow, and leant with obvious relief upon
his friendship to guide her through a puzzling maze of family disputes.
It would be wearisome to attempt to follow the controversies about the
disposition of the property. They finally involved Chancery proceedings,
and Dr. Knapp asserts that Mrs. Clarke’s solicitors advised her that it
would be well for her to disappear for a time. The reason for this
counsel is obscure, but the fact that it was followed is important. Mrs.
Clarke consulted Borrow about it, with the result that her evanishment
took the form of a journey to Spain, accompanied by her daughter
Henrietta. The fact created an amazing quantity of idle speculation and
not too generous suggestion. The plan was arranged in March, 1839.
Borrow was then in Madrid, and immediately posted off to Seville to
prepare a house for the reception of the two ladies, having given them
some useful hints, drawn from his long experience of Spain, as to the
household gods they ought to bring with them. They arrived in June, and
were installed at No. 7, Plazuela de la Pila Seca, which Borrow had
modestly furnished and was himself occupying.
The little wind of scandal that played about this arrangement will not
disturb the equanimity of those who know their Borrow. The _ménage_ was
unquestionably a little difficult to explain to the Spaniards to whom
explanation was necessary, and to this difficulty Dr. Knapp attributes
Borrow’s expedition to Tangier at the end of August. This was the trip
with which “The Bible in Spain” suddenly closed down in the approved
Borrovian style. The scandal was of short duration and small effect.
But in after years other suggestions were made, including the highly
improbable and offensive one that Mrs. Clarke was at this time pursuing
Borrow with the object of matrimony, and “travelled over half Europe in
search of him.” Another friendly theory advanced was that Borrow’s
proceedings were governed by mercenary motives, and that he married Mrs.
Clarke because she had an income of three or four hundred a year.
Meanwhile, the quarrel with the Bible Society was dragging its slow
length along. The correspondence is confused and in general
uninteresting, except that it shows how Borrow’s attitude towards Earl
Street had altered since the time when he climbed down before the
protests of the good secretary in the first days of their association.
He was on his feet now.
He felt surer of his ground than when he was at his wits’ end for
employment and subsistence. Consequently his native impatience of
restraint came out. The Bible Society never gauged their man. In one
despatch to Earl Street, Borrow had said of a certain enterprise that
“his usual good fortune accompanied them.” “This,” replied Mr. Brandram,
“is a mode of speaking to which we are not well accustomed; it savours,
some of our friends would say, a little of the profane. . . . Pious
expressions may be thrust into letters _ad nauseam_, and it is not for
that I plead; but is there not a _via media_?” The breach grew wider and
severance was ordained; it was consummated very shortly after Borrow’s
return to England at the beginning of the next year.
The visit to Tangier occupied some five or six weeks. Borrow returned to
Seville at the end of September, and set to work compiling notes and
making transcripts for his book on the Gypsies of Spain. The enterprise
was assisted by diligent friends, such as Bailly, {99a} Usóz, {99b} and
Gayangos. {99c} The fruits of their curious researches among dusty and
neglected bookshelves may be seen in the long translations from archaic
Spanish authors in “The Zincali.” It was a Spaniard who invented the
epigram on the virtues of old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old
friends to trust, and old books to read. But we may be excused for
excluding from the category of books which have the bouquet of old
crusted port the discourses of Dr. Sancho de Moncada and others to which
Borrow has treated us so liberally.
He spared time from these labours and from the task of settling up with
the Bible Society to pay considerable attention to Mrs. Clarke and
“Hen”—the affectionate diminutive given to her daughter Henrietta. The
widow had found Seville, as Borrow promised her it should be, “a most
agreeable retreat,” where “the growls of her enemies could scarcely reach
her.” The ladies enjoyed to the full the startling change from the life
of the English fens to that of the sunny and many-hued Spanish city.
They realised his prophecy that it would be a delicious existence where,
“during the summer and autumn, the people reside in their courtyards,
over which an awning is hung. A very delicious existence it is—a species
of dream of sunshine and shade, of falling water and flowers.” And,
incidentally, of course, a very fit setting for such love-making as came
to be done: the weather is always fine when people are courting, as a
modern sage has remarked. Not much more than a month after his return
from Morocco, Borrow had proposed marriage to Mrs. Clarke, and had been
accepted. The arrangement was to a certain extent a “convenient” one for
both parties. With little prospect of further employment by the Bible
Society, and only a precarious hold on any profitable literary work,
Borrow had no glowing future before him. Mrs. Clarke felt the need of a
man to manage affairs for her at Oulton. Still, there is ample evidence
that this was a fortuitous concourse of circumstances, and that it had
little to do with the marriage. The warm English friendship had become
more intimate as the years passed, and there was nothing more natural
than this sequel when they were thrown together in the “delightful
existence” in which she hid from her “enemies” at Seville.
Having decided to cross the Rubicon, Borrow determined that the sooner it
was done the better. There was to be no “sweet, reluctant, amorous
delay.” He began at once to make preparations for the return to England
in order that they might be married in their own country. One of the
first steps to be taken to this end was to procure his passport from the
Alcalde. Why this official disapproved of Borrow cannot be affirmed. As
a son of the True Church he may have conceived a prejudice against the
Protestant colporteur; he may have been infected by the “spy” mania; he
may have been merely anxious to display his own importance. At any rate,
he resolved to give the _Ingles rubio_ as much trouble as possible to
remove himself and his party out of Spain. He raised questions about the
validity of Borrow’s papers, refused the passport, and would not be
pacified by the offer of fees, “lawful or unlawful,” to quote Borrow, who
sent to him apparently under the impression that authority, though a
stubborn bear, might be led by the nose with gold, as the clown said to
Autolycus. When Don Jorge himself went to the office to inquire into the
matter, he was told to go away. Instead he continued to investigate the
motives of the Alcalde, who thereupon threatened to carry him to prison.
Borrow dared him to do so—and he did it. This was his third acquaintance
with the inside of a Spanish gaol. He sent a reassuring note to Mrs.
Clarke, and had a message taken to the British Consul. Colonel Napier
had noticed earlier in the year that the police kept sharp eyes on
Borrow, and attributed it to the suspicion that he was (of all things in
the world!) a Russian spy. There was clearly something in the suggestion
that he was under espionage, for while he was in prison his house was
searched for papers. Nothing “compromising” being found, he was released
the next night.
His indignation at this outrage reached white heat, and did not die down
for months. His insistence upon redress detained Borrow in the country
much longer than he had proposed to stop. Once having got his knife into
Spanish officialdom, he twisted it round till he had gouged out his pound
of flesh. And even then, after he had returned to England, and the knife
was no longer available, Spanish officialdom received very severe
treatment from that even more terrible weapon, his pen. From Seville he
set working all the diplomatic machinery that an injured Briton could
influence; he went to Madrid on the business; he wrote incessantly and
exhaustively about it. His return to England and his marriage had to
wait until he had settled accounts with the impertinent Alcalde de
Barrio, who had laid sacrilegious hands upon a subject of her Britannic
Majesty—and that subject George Borrow. While ambassadors and consuls
and State secretaries were busily employed in official correspondence on
his behalf, he proceeded with the work on the “Gypsies,” and did not get
away from Spain till April, 1840.
The embarkation of the colporteur and his party upon the _Royal Adelaide_
steamer at Cadiz was an impressive ceremony. Borrow was taking a long
farewell of Spain, and he was not going home without souvenirs of his
residence there. In the previous year he had purchased the Arab horse
celebrated in his books as “Sidi Habismilk” (being interpreted, “My Lord
Mustard”). The retinue at Cadiz included not only Mrs. Clarke and
Henrietta, but also Sidi Habismilk and Hayim ben Attar, “the Jew of Fez,”
Borrow’s servant. {103} They touched at Lisbon, where General Cordova
came on board—not on business of State, but in search of a consignment of
cigars that had been sent to him in the care of the captain. Borrow
wrote an amusing sketch of the General and two Secretaries of Legation
stowing Havana cigars in their pockets “with all the eagerness of
contrabandista.” {104} The vessel arrived in the port of London on April
16th, and the party put up at the Spread Eagle, in Gracechurch Street.
As soon as the licence could be obtained, the marriage of “George Henry
Borrow, bachelor,” with “Mary Clarke, widow,” was celebrated at St.
Peter’s Church, Cornhill, and witnessed by John Pilgrim, of Norwich (the
bride’s solicitor) and by her daughter Henrietta. The wedding day was
April 23rd.
There remained a very little business to do in London. He had an
interview with the General Purposes Committee of the Bible Society,
received a letter from Mr. Brandram, saying that there was no sphere open
“to which your services in connection with our Society can be
transferred,” and quickly terminated his relations with Earl Street. In
spite of the little differences that had arisen, there was a generous
reference to Borrow in the Report of the Society for 1840. He was said
to have succeeded “by almost incredible pains, and at no small cost and
hazard,” in his last mission to Spain, and to have assisted in
circulating during five years nearly fourteen thousand copies of the
Scriptures. Thus the Bible Society and Don Jorge said good-bye.
At the beginning of May, Mr. and Mrs. Borrow and Miss Clarke went down to
Oulton. The Hall having been let to a farmer, they took up their
residence in a little house on the margin of the Broad, known as Oulton
Cottage.