A WANDERING CHILDHOOD
WE do not need to inquire too deeply as to Borrow’s possible gypsy origin
in order to account for his vagabond propensities. The lives of his
parents before his birth, and the story of his own boyhood, sufficiently
account for the dominant tendency in Borrow. His father and mother were
married in 1793. Almost every year they changed their domicile. In 1801
a son was born to them,—they still continued to change their domicile.
Captain Borrow followed his regiment from place to place, and his family
accompanied him on these journeys. Dover, Colchester, Sandgate,
Canterbury, Chelmsford—these are some of the towns where the Borrows
sojourned. It was the merest accident—the Peace of Amiens, to be
explicit—that led them back to East Dereham in 1803, so that the second
son was born in his grandfather’s house. George was only a month old
when he was carried off to Colchester; in 1804 he was in the barracks of
Kent, in 1805 of Sussex, in 1806 at Hastings, in 1807 at Canterbury, and
so on. The whole of the first thirteen years of Borrow’s life is filled
up in this way, until in 1816 he and his parents found a home of some
permanence in Norwich. In 1809–10 they were at East Dereham, in 1810–11
at Norman Cross, in 1812 wandering from Harwich to Sheffield, and in 1813
wandering from Sheffield to Edinburgh; in 1814 they were in Norwich, and
in 1815–16 in Ireland. In this last year they returned to Norwich, the
father to retire on full pay, and to live in Willow Lane until his death.
How could a boy, whose first twelve years of life had been made up of
such continual wandering, have been other than a restless, nomad-loving
man, envious of the free life of the gypsies, for whom alone in later
life he seemed to have kindliness? Those twelve years are to most boys
merely the making of a moral foundation for good or ill; to Borrow they
were everything, and at least four personalities captured his imagination
during that short span, as we see if we follow his juvenile wanderings
more in detail to Dereham, Norman Cross, Edinburgh, and Clonmel, and the
personalities are Lady Fenn, Ambrose Smith, David Haggart, and Murtagh.
Let us deal with each in turn:
In our opening chapter we referred to the lines in _Lavengro_, where
Borrow recalls his early impressions of his native town, or at least the
town in the neighbourhood of the hamlet in which he was born. Borrow, we
may be sure, would have repudiated “Dumpling Green” if he could. The
name had a humorous suggestion. To this day they call boys from Norfolk
“Norfolk Dumplings” in the neighbouring shires. But East Dereham was
something to be proud of. In it had died the writer who, through the
greater part of Borrow’s life, remained the favourite poet of that half
of England which professed the Evangelical creed in which Borrow was
brought up. Cowper was buried here by the side of Mary Unwin, and every
Sunday little George would see his tomb just as Henry Kingsley was wont
to see the tombs in Chelsea Old Church. The fervour of devotion to
Cowper’s memory that obtained in those early days must have been a
stimulus to the boy, who from the first had ambitions far beyond anything
that he was to achieve. Here was his first lesson. The second came from
Lady Fenn—a more vivid impression for the child. Twenty years before
Borrow was born Cowper had sung her merits in his verse. She and her
golden-headed cane are commemorated in _Lavengro_. Dame Eleanor Fenn had
made a reputation in her time. As “Mrs. Teachwell” and “Mrs. Lovechild”
she had published books for the young of a most improving character, _The
Child’s Grammar_, _The Mother’s Grammar_, _A Short History of Insects_,
and _Cobwebs to Catch Flies_ being of the number. The forty-fourth
edition of _The Child’s Grammar_ by Mrs. Lovechild appeared in 1851, and
the twenty-second edition of _The Mother’s Grammar_ in 1849. But it is
her husband that her name most recalls to us. Sir John Fenn gave us the
delightful Paston Letters—of which Horace Walpole said that “they make
all other letters not worth reading.” Walpole described “Mr. Fenn of
East Dereham in Norfolk” as “a smatterer in antiquity, but a very good
sort of man.” Fenn, who held the original documents of the Letters, sent
his first two volumes, when published, to Buckingham Palace, and the King
acknowledged the gifts by knighting the editor, who, however, died in
1794, before George Borrow was born. His widow survived until 1813, and
Borrow was in his seventh or eighth year when he caught these notable
glimpses of his “Lady Bountiful,” who lived in “the half-aristocratic
mansion” of the town. But we know next to nothing of Borrow in East
Dereham, from which indeed he departed in his eighth year. There are,
however, interesting references to his memories of the place in
_Lavengro_, the best of which is when he goes to church with the gypsies
and dreams of an incident in his childhood:
It appeared as if I had fallen asleep in the pew of the old church of
pretty Dereham. I had occasionally done so when a child, and had
suddenly woke up. Yes, surely, I had been asleep and had woke up;
but no! if I had been asleep I had been waking in my sleep,
struggling, striving, learning and unlearning in my sleep. Years had
rolled away whilst I had been asleep—ripe fruit had fallen, green
fruit had come on whilst I had been asleep—how circumstances had
altered, and above all myself whilst I had been asleep. No, I had
not been asleep in the old church! I was in a pew, it is true, but
not the pew of black leather in which I sometimes fell asleep in days
of yore, but in a strange pew; and then my companions, they were no
longer those of days of yore. I was no longer with my respectable
father and mother, and my dear brother, but with the gypsy cral and
his wife, and the gigantic Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people.
And what was I myself? No longer an innocent child but a moody man,
bearing in my face, as I knew well, the marks of my strivings and
strugglings; of what I had learnt and unlearnt.
But Borrow left Dereham in his eighth year, only to revisit it when
famous.
In _Lavengro_ Borrow recalls childish memories of Canterbury and of
Hythe, at which latter place he saw the church vault filled with ancient
skulls as we may see it there to-day. And after that the book which
impressed itself most vividly upon his memory was _Robinson Crusoe_. How
much he came to revere Defoe the pages of _Lavengro_ most eloquently
reveal to us. “Hail to thee, spirit of Defoe! What does not my own poor
self owe to thee?” In 1810–11 his father was in the barracks at Norman
Cross in Huntingdonshire. Here the Government had bought a large tract
of land, and built upon it a huge wooden prison, and overlooking this a
substantial barrack also of wood, the only brick building on the land
being the house of the Commandant. The great building was destined for
the soldiers taken prisoners in the French wars. The place was
constructed to hold 5000 prisoners, and 500 men were employed by the War
Office in 1808 upon its construction. The first batch of prisoners were
the victims of the battle of Vimeiro in that year. Borrow’s description
of the hardships of the prisoners has been called in question by a later
writer, Arthur Brown, who denies the story of bad food and “straw-plait
hunts,” and charges Borrow with recklessness of statement. “What could
have been the matter with the man to write such stuff as this?” asks
Brown in reference to Borrow’s story of bad meat and bad bread: which was
not treating a great author with quite sufficient reverence. Borrow was
but recalling memories of childhood, a period when one swallow does make
a summer. He had doubtless seen examples of what he described, although
it may not have been the normal condition of things. Brown’s own
description of the Norman Cross prison was interwoven with a love
romance, in which a French officer fell in love with a girl of the
neighbouring village of Yaxley, and after Waterloo returned to England
and married her. When he wrote his story a very old man was still living
at Yaxley, who remembered, as a boy, having often seen the prisoners on
the road, some very well dressed, some in tatters, a few in uniform. The
milestone is still pointed out which marked the limit beyond which the
officer-prisoners might not walk. The buildings were destroyed in 1814,
when all the prisoners were sent home, and the house of the Commandant,
now a private residence, alone remains to recall this episode in our
history. But Borrow’s most vivid memory of Norman Cross was connected
with the viper given to him by an old man, who had rendered it harmless
by removing the fangs. It was the possession of this tame viper that
enabled the child of eight—this was Borrow’s age at the time—to impress
the gypsies that he met soon afterwards, and particularly the boy Ambrose
Smith, whom Borrow introduced to the world in _Lavengro_ as Jasper
Petulengro. Borrow’s frequent meetings with Petulengro are no doubt many
of them mythical. He was an imaginative writer, but Petulengro was a
very real person, who lived the usual roving gypsy life. There is no
reason to assume otherwise than that Borrow did actually meet him at
Norman Cross when he was eight years old, and Ambrose a year younger, and
not thirteen as Borrow states. In the original manuscript of _Lavengro_
in my possession, “Ambrose” is given instead of “Jasper,” and the name
was altered as an afterthought. It is of course possible that Borrow did
not actually meet Jasper until his arrival in Norwich, for in the first
half of the nineteenth century various gypsy families were in the habit
of assembling their carts and staking their tents on the heights above
Norwich, known as Mousehold Heath, that glorious tract of country that
has been rendered memorable in history by the tragic life of Kett the
tanner, and has been immortalised in painting by Turner and Crome. Here
were assembled the Smiths and Hernes and Boswells, names familiar to
every student of gypsy lore. Jasper Petulengro, as Borrow calls him, or
Ambrose Smith, to give him his real name, was the son of Fāden Smith, and
his name of Ambrose was derived from his uncle, Ambrose Smith, who was
transported for stealing harness. Ambrose was twice married, and it was
his second wife, Sanspirella Herne, who comes into the Borrow story. He
had families by both his wives. Ambrose had an extraordinary varied
career. It will be remembered by readers of the _Zincali_ that when he
visited Borrow at Oulton in 1842 he complained that “There is no living
for the poor people, brother, the chokengres (police) pursue us from
place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or miserly that
they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the wayside, and ourselves a
yard of ground to light a fire upon.” After a time Ambrose left the
eastern counties and crossed to Ireland. In 1868 he went to Scotland,
and there seems to have revived his fortunes. In 1878 he and his family
were encamped at Knockenhair Park, about a mile from Dunbar. Here Queen
Victoria, who was staying at Broxmouth Park near by with the Dowager
Duchess of Roxburghe, became interested in the gypsies, and paid them a
visit. This was in the summer of 1878. Ambrose was then a very old man.
He died in the following October. His wife, Sanspi or Sanspirella,
received a message of sympathy from the Queen. Very shortly after
Ambrose’s death, however, most of the family went off to America, where
doubtless they are now scattered, many of them, it may be, leading
successful lives, utterly oblivious of the associations of one of their
ancestors with Borrow and his great book. Ambrose Smith was buried in
Dunbar cemetery, the Christian service being read over his grave, and his
friends erected a stone to him which bears the following inscription:—
In Memory of
AMBROSE SMITH, who died 22nd
October 1878, aged 74 years.
Also
THOMAS, his son,
who died 28th May 1879, aged 48 years.
Three years separated the sojourn of the Borrow family at Norman Cross
from their sojourn in Edinburgh—three years of continuous wandering. The
West Norfolk Militia were watching the French prisoners at Norman Cross
for fifteen months. After that we have glimpses of them at Colchester,
at East Dereham again, at Harwich, at Leicester, at Huddersfield,
concerning which place Borrow incidentally in _Wild Wales_ writes of
having been at school, in Sheffield, in Berwick-on-Tweed, and finally the
family are in Edinburgh, where they arrive on 6th April, 1813. We have
already referred to Borrow’s presence at the High School of Edinburgh,
the school sanctified by association with Walter Scott and so many of his
illustrious fellow-countrymen. He and his brother were at the High
School for a single session, that is, for the winter session of 1813–14,
although with the licence of a maker of fiction he claimed, in
_Lavengro_, to have been there for two years. But it is not in this
brief period of schooling of a boy of ten that we find the strongest
influence that Edinburgh gave to Borrow. Rather may we seek it in the
acquaintanceship with the once too notorious David Haggart. Seven years
later than this all the peoples of the three kingdoms were discussing
David Haggart, the Scots Jack Sheppard, the clever young prison-breaker,
who was hanged at Edinburgh in 1821 for killing his gaoler in Dumfries
prison. How much David Haggart filled the imagination of every one who
could read in the early years of last century is demonstrated by a
reference to the Library Catalogue of the British Museum, where we find
pamphlet after pamphlet, broadsheet after broadsheet, treating of the
adventures, trial, and execution of this youthful gaolbird. But by far
the most valuable publication with regard to Haggart is one that Borrow
must have read in his youth. This was a life of Haggart written by
himself, a little book that had a wide circulation. From this little
biography we learn that Haggart was born in Golden Acre, near
Canon-Mills, in the county of Edinburgh in 1801, his father, John
Haggart, being a gamekeeper, and in later years a dog-trainer. The boy
was at school under Mr. Robin Gibson at Canon-Mills for two years. He
left school at ten years of age, and from that time until his execution
seems to have had a continuous career of thieving. He tells us that
before he was eleven years old he had stolen a bantam cock from a woman
belonging to the New Town of Edinburgh. He went with another boy to
Currie, six miles from Edinburgh, and there stole a pony, but this was
afterwards returned. When but twelve years of age he attended Leith
races, and it was here that he enlisted in the Norfolk Militia, then
stationed in Edinburgh Castle. This may very well have brought him into
contact with Borrow in the way described in _Lavengro_. He was only,
however, in the regiment for a year, for when it was sent back to England
the Colonel in command of it obtained young Haggart’s discharge. These
dates coincide with Borrow’s presence in Edinburgh. Haggart’s history
for the next five or six years was in truth merely that of a wandering
pickpocket, sometimes in Scotland, sometimes in England, and finally he
became a notorious burglar. Incidentally he refers to a girl with whom
he was in love. Her name was Mary Hill. She belonged to Ecclefechan,
which Haggart more than once visited. He must therefore have known
Carlyle, who had not then left his native village. In 1820 we find him
in Edinburgh, carrying on the same sort of depredations both there and at
Leith—now he steals a silk plaid, now a greatcoat, and now a silver
teapot. These thefts, of course, landed him in gaol, out of which he
breaks rather dramatically, fleeing with a companion to Kelso. He had,
indeed, more than one experience of gaol. Finally, we find him in the
prison of Dumfries destined to stand his trial for “one act of
house-breaking, eleven cases of theft, and one of prison-breaking.”
While in prison at Dumfries he planned another escape, and in the attempt
to hit a gaoler named Morrin on the head with a stone he unexpectedly
killed him. His escape from Dumfries gaol after this murder, and his
later wanderings, are the most dramatic part of his book. He fled
through Carlisle to Newcastle, and then thought that he would be safer if
he returned to Scotland, where he found the rewards that were offered for
his arrest faced him wherever he went. He turned up again in Edinburgh,
where he seems to have gone about freely, although reading everywhere the
notices that a reward of seventy guineas was offered for his
apprehension. Then he fled to Ireland, where he thought that his safety
was assured. At Dromore he was arrested and brought before the
magistrate, but he spoke with an Irish brogue, and declared that his name
was John M‘Colgan, and that he came from Armagh. He escaped from Dromore
gaol by jumping through a window, and actually went so far as to pay
three pound ten shillings for his passage to America, but he was afraid
of the sea, and changed his mind, and lost his passage money at the last
moment. After this he made a tour right through Ireland, in spite of the
fact that the Dublin _Hue and Cry_ had a description of his person which
he read more than once. His assurance was such that in Tullamore he made
a pig-driver apologise before the magistrate for charging him with theft,
although he had been living on nothing else all the time he was in
Ireland. Finally, he was captured, being recognised by a policeman from
Edinburgh. He was brought from Ireland to Dumfries, landed in Calton
gaol, Edinburgh, and was tried and executed.
We may pass over the brief sojourn in Norwich that was Borrow’s lot in
1814, when the West Norfolk Militia left Scotland. When Napoleon escaped
from Elba the West Norfolk Regiment was despatched to Ireland, and
Captain Borrow again took his family with him. We find the boy with his
family at Clonmel from May to December of 1815. Here Borrow’s elder
brother, now a boy of fifteen, was promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant.
In January, 1816, the Borrows moved to Templemore, returning to England
in May of that year. Borrow, we see, was less than a year in Ireland,
and he was only thirteen years of age when he left the country. But it
seems to have been the greatest influence that guided his career. Three
of the most fascinating chapters in _Lavengro_ were one outcome of that
brief sojourn, a thirst for the acquirement of languages was another, and
perhaps a taste for romancing a third. Borrow never came to have the
least sympathy with the Irish race, or its national aspirations. As the
son of a half-educated soldier he did not come in contact with any but
the vagabond element of Ireland, exactly as his father had done before
him. Captain Borrow was asked on one occasion what language is being
spoken:
“Irish,” said my father with a loud voice, “and a bad language it is.
. . . There’s one part of London where all the Irish live—at least
the worst of them—and there they hatch their villainies to speak this
tongue.”
And Borrow followed his father’s prejudices throughout his life, although
in the one happy year in which he wrote _The Bible in Spain_ he was able
to do justice to the country that had inspired so much of his work:
Honour to Ireland and her “hundred thousand welcomes”! Her fields
have long been the greenest in the world; her daughters the fairest;
her sons the bravest and most eloquent. May they never cease to be
so. {33a}
In later years Orangemen were to him the only attractive element in the
life of Ireland, and we may be sure that he was not displeased when his
stepdaughter married one of them. Yet the creator of literature works
more wisely than he knows, and Borrow’s books have won the wise and
benign appreciation of many an Irish and Roman Catholic reader, whose
nationality and religion Borrow would have anathematised. Irishmen may
forgive Borrow much, because he was one of the first of modern English
writers to take their language seriously. {33b} It is true that he had
but the most superficial knowledge of it. He admits—in _Wild Wales_—that
he only knew it “by ear.” The abundant Irish literature that has been so
diligently studied during the last quarter of a century was a closed book
to Borrow, whose few translations from the Irish have but little value.
Yet the very appreciation of Irish as a language to be seriously studied
in days before Dr. George Sigerson and Dr. Douglas Hyde had waxed
enthusiastic and practical kindles our gratitude. Then what a character
is Murtagh. We are sure there was a Murtagh, although, unlike Borrow’s
other boyish and vagabond friend Haggart, we know nothing about him but
what Borrow has to tell. Yet what a picture is this where Murtagh wants
a pack of cards:
“I say, Murtagh!”
“Yes, Shorsha dear!”
“I have a pack of cards.”
“You don’t say so, Shorsha ma vourneen?—you don’t say that you have
cards fifty-two?”
“I do, though; and they are quite new—never been once used.”
“And you’ll be lending them to me, I warrant?”
“Don’t think it!—But I’ll sell them to you, joy, if you like.”
“Hanam mon Dioul! am I not after telling you that I have no money at
all?”
“But you have as good as money, to me, at least; and I’ll take it in
exchange.”
“What’s that, Shorsha dear?”
“Irish!”
“Irish?”
“Yes, you speak Irish; I heard you talking it the other day to the
cripple. You shall teach me Irish.”
“And is it a language-master you’d be making of me?”
“To be sure!—what better can you do?—it would help you to pass your
time at school. You can’t learn Greek, so you must teach Irish!”
Before Christmas, Murtagh was playing at cards with his brother
Denis, and I could speak a considerable quantity of broken Irish.
{34}
With what distrust as we learn again and again in _Lavengro_ did Captain
Borrow follow his son’s inclination towards languages, and especially the
Irish language, in his early years, although anxious that he should be
well grounded in Latin. Little did the worthy Captain dream that this,
and this alone, was to carry down his name through the ages:
Ah, that Irish! How frequently do circumstances, at first sight the
most trivial and unimportant, exercise a mighty and permanent
influence on our habits and pursuits!—how frequently is a stream
turned aside from its natural course by some little rock or knoll,
causing it to make an abrupt turn! On a wild road in Ireland I had
heard Irish spoken for the first time; and I was seized with a desire
to learn Irish, the acquisition of which, in my case, became the
stepping-stone to other languages. I had previously learnt Latin, or
rather Lilly; but neither Latin nor Lilly made me a philologist.
Borrow was never a philologist, but this first inclination for Irish was
to lead him later to Spanish, to Welsh, and above all to Romany, and to
make of him the most beloved traveller and the strangest vagabond in all
English literature.