As the atmosphere of the two autobiographical books is more intense and
pure than that of "The Bible in Spain," so the characters in it are more
elaborate. "The Bible in Spain" contained brilliant sketches and
suggestions of men and women. In the autobiography even the sketches are
intimate, like that of the "Anglo-Germanist," William Taylor; and they
are not less surprising than the Spanish sketches, from the Rommany chal
who "fought in the old Roman fashion. He bit, he kicked, and screamed
like a wild cat of Benygant; casting foam from his mouth, and fire from
his eyes"--from this man upwards and downwards. Some are highly
finished, and these are not always the best. For example, the portrait
of his father, the stiff, kindly, uncomprehending soldier, strikes me as
a little too much "done to a turn." It is a little too like a man in a
book, and so perfectly consistent, except for that one picturesque
weakness--the battle with Big Ben, whose skin was like a toad. Borrow
probably saw and cared very little for his father, and therefore found it
too easy to idealise and produce a mere type, chiefly out of his head.
His mother is more certainly from life, and he could not detach himself
from her sufficiently to make her clear; yet he makes her his own mother
plainly enough. His brother has something of the same unreality and
perfection as his father. These members of his family belong to one
distinct class of studies which includes among others the publisher, Sir
Richard Phillips. They are of persons not quite of his world whom he
presents to us with admiration, or, on the other hand, with dislike, but
in either case without sympathy. They do not contribute much to the
special character of the autobiography, except in humour. The interviews
with Sir Richard Phillips, in particular, give an example of Borrow's
obviously personal satire, poisonous and yet without rancour. He is a
type. He is the charlatan, holy and massive and not perfectly
self-convincing. When Borrow's money was running low and he asked the
publisher to pay for some contributions to a magazine, now deceased:
"'Sir,' said the publisher, 'what do you want the money for?'
"'Merely to live on,' I replied; 'it is very difficult to live in this
town without money.'
"'How much money did you bring with you to town?' demanded the publisher.
"'Some twenty or thirty pounds,' I replied.
"'And you have spent it already?'
"'No,' said I, 'not entirely; but it is fast disappearing.'
"'Sir,' said the publisher, 'I believe you to be extravagant; yes, sir,
extravagant!'
"'On what grounds do you suppose me to be so?'
"'Sir,' said the publisher, 'you eat meat.'
"'Yes,' said I, 'I eat meat sometimes; what should I eat?'
"'Bread, sir,' said the publisher; 'bread and cheese.'
"'So I do, sir, when I am disposed to indulge; but I cannot often afford
it--it is very expensive to dine on bread and cheese, especially when one
is fond of cheese, as I am. My last bread and cheese dinner cost me
fourteen pence. There is drink, sir; with bread and cheese one must
drink porter, sir.'
"'Then, sir, eat bread--bread alone. As good men as yourself have eaten
bread alone; they have been glad to get it, sir. If with bread and
cheese you must drink porter, sir, with bread alone you can, perhaps,
drink water, sir.'
"However, I got paid at last for my writings in the review, not, it is
true, in the current coin of the realm, but in certain bills; there were
two of them, one payable at twelve, and the other at eighteen months
after date."
The incident serves to diversify the narrative, and may be taken from his
own London experiences, while the particular merriment of the rhyme is
Borrow's; but it is not of the essence of the book, and fits only
indifferently into the mysterious "Arabian Nights" London, the city of
the gallant Ardry and the old apple-woman who called him "dear" and
called Moll Flanders "blessed Mary Flanders." Sir Richard will not
mysteriously re-appear, nor will Captain and Mrs. Borrow. I should say,
in fact, that characters of this class have scarcely at all the power of
motion. What is more, they take us not only a little way out of Borrow's
world sometimes, but away from Borrow himself.
Apart from these characters, the men and women of "Lavengro" and "The
Romany Rye" are all in harmony with one another, with Borrow, and with
Borrow's world. Jasper Petulengro and his wife, his sister Ursula, the
gigantic Tawno Chikno, the witch Mrs. Herne, and the evil sprite Leonora,
Thurtell, the fighting men, the Irish outlaw Jerry Grant, who was
suspected of raising a storm by "something Irish and supernatural" to win
a fight, Murtagh, that wicked innocent, the old apple-woman, Blazing
Bosville, Isopel Berners, the jockey who drove one hundred and ten miles
in eleven hours to see "the only friend he ever had in the world," John
Thurtell, and say, "God Almighty bless you, Jack!" before the drop fell,
the old gentleman who had learned "Sergeant Broughton's guard" and
knocked out the bullying coachman, the Welsh preacher and his wife, the
Arcadian old bee-keeper, the rat-catcher--all these and their companions
are woven into one piece by the genius of their creator, Borrow. I can
imagine them all greeting him together as the Gypsies did, and much as
the jockey did afterwards:
"Here the Gipsy gemman see,
With his Roman jib and his rome and dree--
Rome and dree, rum and dry
Rally round the Rommany Rye."
He waves his wand and they disappear. He made them as Jerry Grant made
the storm and beat Sergeant Bagg. In "Lavengro" he actually does raise
such a storm, though Knapp affected to discover it in a newspaper of the
period. Sampson and Martin are fighting at North Walsham, and a storm
comes on:
"There's wind and dust, a crash, rain and hail; is it possible to fight
amidst such a commotion? Yes! the fight goes on; again the boy strikes
the man full on the brow, but it is no use striking that man, his frame
is of adamant. 'Boy, thy strength is beginning to give way, thou art
becoming confused'; the man now goes to work, amidst rain and hail. 'Boy,
thou wilt not hold out ten minutes longer against rain, hail, and the
blows of such an antagonist.'
"And now the storm was at its height; the black thundercloud had broken
into many, which assumed the wildest shapes and the strangest colours,
some of them unspeakably glorious; the rain poured in a deluge, and more
than one water-spout was seen at no great distance: an immense rabble is
hurrying in one direction; a multitude of men of all ranks, peers and
yokels, prize-fighters and Jews, and the last came to plunder, and are
now plundering amidst that wild confusion of hail and rain, men and
horses, carts and carriages. But all hurry in one direction, through mud
and mire; there's a town only three miles distant which is soon reached,
and soon filled, it will not contain one-third of that mighty rabble; but
there's another town farther on--the good old city is farther on, only
twelve miles; what's that! who'll stay here? onward to the old town.
"Hurry skurry, a mixed multitude of men and horses, carts and carriages,
all in the direction of the old town; and, in the midst of all that mad
throng, at a moment when the rain gushes were coming down with particular
fury, and the artillery of the sky was pealing as I had never heard it
peal before, I felt some one seize me by the arm--I turned round and
beheld Mr. Petulengro.
"'I can't hear you, Mr. Petulengro,' said I; for the thunder drowned the
words which he appeared to be uttering.
"'Dearginni,' I heard Mr. Petulengro say, 'it thundereth. I was asking,
brother, whether you believe in dukkeripens?'
"'I do not, Mr. Petulengro; but this is strange weather to be asking me
whether I believe in fortunes.'
"'Grondinni,' said Mr. Petulengro, 'it haileth. I believe in
dukkeripens, brother.'
"'And who has more right,' said I, 'seeing that you live by them? But
this tempest is truly horrible.'
"'Dearginni, grondinni ta villaminni! It thundereth, it haileth, and
also flameth,' said Mr. Petulengro. 'Look up there, brother!'
"I looked up. Connected with this tempest there was one feature to which
I have already alluded--the wonderful colours of the clouds. Some were
of vivid green; others of the brightest orange; others as black as pitch.
The Gypsy's finger was pointed to a particular part of the sky.
"'What do you see there, brother?'
"'A strange kind of cloud.'
"'What does it look like, brother?'
"'Something like a stream of blood.'
"'That cloud foreshoweth a bloody dukkeripen.'
"'A bloody fortune!' said I. 'And whom may it betide?'
"'Who knows?' said the Gypsy.
"Down the way, dashing and splashing, and scattering man, horse, and cart
to the left and right, came an open barouche, drawn by four smoking
steeds, with postillions in scarlet jackets, and leather skull-caps. Two
forms were conspicuous in it; that of the successful bruiser, and of his
friend and backer, the sporting gentleman of my acquaintance.
"'His!' said the Gypsy, pointing to the latter, whose stern features wore
a smile of triumph, as, probably recognizing me in the crowd, he nodded
in the direction of where I stood, as the barouche hurried by.
"There went the barouche, dashing through the rain gushes', and in it one
whose boast it was that he was equal to 'either fortune.' Many have
heard of that man--many may be desirous of knowing yet more of him. I
have nothing to do with that man's after life--he fulfilled his
dukkeripen. 'A bad, violent man!' Softly, friend; when thou wouldst
speak harshly of the dead, remember that thou hast not yet fulfilled thy
own dukkeripen!"
As Borrow fits these pugilists into the texture of his autobiography, so
he does men who appear not once but a dozen times. Take Jasper
Petulengro out of the books and he does not amount to much. In them he
is a figure of most masculine beauty, a king, a trickster, and thief, but
simple, good with his fists, loving life, manly sport and fair play. He
and Borrow meet and shake hands as "brothers" when they are little boys.
They meet again, by chance, as big boys, and Jasper says: "Your blood
beat when mine was near, as mine always does at the coming of a brother;
and we became brothers in that lane." Jasper laughs at the Sapengro and
Lavengro and horse-witch because he lacks two things, "mother sense and
gentle Rommany," and he has something to do with teaching Borrow the
Gypsy tongue and Gypsy ways, and the "mother sense" of shifting for
himself. The Gypsies approve him also as "a pure fist master." In
return he teaches Mrs. Chikno's child to say his prayers in Rommany. They
were willing--all but Mrs. Herne--that he should marry Mr. Petulengro's
sister, Ursula. It is always by chance that they meet, and chance is
very favourable. They meet at significant times, as when Borrow has been
troubled by the preacher and the state of his own soul, or when he is
sick of London and hack-writing and poverty. In fact, the Gypsies, and
his "brother" Jasper in particular, returning and returning, are the
motive of the book. They connect Borrow with what is strange, with what
is simple, and with what is free. The very last words of "The Romany
Rye," spoken as he is walking eastward, are "I shouldn't wonder if Mr.
Petulengro and Tawno Chikno came originally from India. I think I'll go
there." They are not a device. The re-appearances of these wandering
men are for the most part only pleasantly unexpected. Their mystery is
the mystery of nature and life. They keep their language and their tents
against the mass of civilization and length of time. They are foreigners
but as native as the birds. It is Borrow's triumph to make them as
romantic as their reputation while yet satisfying Gypsy students as to
his facts.
Jasper is almost like a second self, a kind of more simple, atavistic
self, to Borrow, as in that characteristic picture, where he is drawing
near to Wales with his friends, the Welsh preacher and his wife. A brook
is the border and they point it out. There is a horseman entering it:
"he stops in the middle of it as if to water his steed." They ask
Lavengro if he will come with them into Wales. They persuade him:
"'I will not go with you,' said I. 'Dost thou see that man in the ford?'
"'Who is staring at us so, and whose horse has not yet done drinking? Of
course I see him.'
"'I shall turn back with him. God bless you!'
"'Go back with him not,' said Peter, 'he is one of those whom I like not,
one of the clibberty-clabber, as Master Ellis Wyn observes--turn not with
that man.'
"'Go not back with him,' said Winifred. 'If thou goest with that man,
thou wilt soon forget all our profitable counsels; come with us.'
"'I cannot; I have much to say to him. Kosko Divous, Mr. Petulengro.'
"'Kosko Divvus, Pal,' said Mr. Petulengro, riding through the water; 'are
you turning back?'
"I turned back with Mr. Petulengro."
At another time Jasper twists about like a weasel bewitching a bird, and
in so doing puts 50 pounds unnoticed into Lavengro's pocket. Lavengro is
indignant at the pleasantry. But Jasper insists; the money is for him to
buy a certain horse; if he will not take the money and buy the horse
there will be a quarrel. He has made the money by fair fighting in the
ring, has nowhere to put it, and seriously thinks that it were best
invested in this fine horse, which accordingly Borrow purchases and takes
across England, and sells at Horncastle Fair for 150 pounds. The next
scene shows Tawno Chikno at his best. Borrow has been trotting the horse
and racing it against a cob, amid a company that put him "wonderfully in
mind of the ancient horse-races of the heathen north," so that he almost
thought himself Gunnar of Lithend. But Tawno was the man to try the
horse at a jump, said Jasper. Tawno weighed sixteen stone, and the owner
thought him more likely to break the horse's back. Jasper became very
much excited, and offered to forfeit a handful of guineas if harm was
done.
"'Here's the man. Here's the horse-leaper of the world. . . .' Tawno,
at a bound, leaped into the saddle, where he really looked like Gunnar of
Hlitharend, save and except that the complexion of Gunnar was florid,
whereas that of Tawno was of nearly Mulatto darkness; and that all
Tawno's features were cast in the Grecian model, whereas Gunnar had a
snub nose. 'There's a leaping-bar behind the house,' said the landlord.
'Leaping-bar!' said Mr. Petulengro, scornfully. 'Do you think my black
pal ever rides at a leaping bar? No more than at a windle-straw. Leap
over that meadow wall, Tawno.' Just past the house, in the direction in
which I had been trotting, was a wall about four feet high, beyond which
was a small meadow. Tawno rode the horse gently up to the wall,
permitted him to look over, then backed him for about ten yards, and
pressing his calves against the horse's sides, he loosed the rein, and
the horse launching forward, took the leap in gallant style. 'Well done,
man and horse!' said Mr. Petulengro; 'now come back, Tawno.' The leap
from the side of the meadow was, however, somewhat higher; and the horse,
when pushed at it, at first turned away; whereupon Tawno backed him to a
greater distance, pushed the horse to a full gallop, giving a wild cry;
whereupon the horse again took the wall, slightly grazing one of his legs
against it. 'A near thing,' said the landlord, 'but a good leap. Now,
no more leaping, so long as I have control over the animal.'"
A very different beautiful scene is where Mrs. Petulengro braids Isopel's
fair hair in Gypsy fashion, half against her will, and Lavengro looks on,
showing Isopel at a glance his disapproval of the fashion, while
Petulengro admires it. If it is not too much to quote, I will do so,
because it is the clearest and most detailed picture of more than one
figure in the whole of the autobiography. Mr. and Mrs. Petulengro have
come to visit Isopel, and Lavengro has fetched her to his tent, where
they are awaiting her:
"So Belle and I advanced towards our guests. As we drew nigh Mr.
Petulengro took off his hat and made a profound obeisance to Belle,
whilst Mrs. Petulengro rose from her stool and made a profound curtsey.
Belle, who had flung her hair back over her shoulders, returned their
salutations by bending her head, and after slightly glancing at Mr.
Petulengro, fixed her large blue eyes full upon his wife. Both these
females were very handsome--but how unlike! Belle fair, with blue eyes
and flaxen hair; Mrs. Petulengro with olive complexion, eyes black, and
hair dark--as dark could be. Belle, in demeanour calm and proud; the
Gypsy graceful, but full of movement and agitation. And then how
different were those two in stature! The head of the Romany rawnie
scarcely ascended to the breast of Isopel Berners. I could see that Mrs.
Petulengro gazed on Belle with unmixed admiration: so did her husband.
'Well,' said the latter, 'one thing I will say, which is, that there is
only one on earth worthy to stand up in front of this she, and that is
the beauty of the world, as far as man flesh is concerned, Tawno Chikno;
what a pity he did not come down! . . .'
"Mrs. Petulengro says: 'You are very beautiful, madam, though you are not
dressed as I could wish to see you, and your hair is hanging down in sad
confusion; allow me to assist you in arranging your hair, madam; I will
dress it for you in our fashion; I would fain see how your hair would
look in our poor Gypsy fashion; pray allow me, madam?' and she took Belle
by the hand.
"'I really can do no such thing,' said Belle, withdrawing her hand; 'I
thank you for coming to see me, but . . .'
"'Do allow me to officiate upon your hair, madam,' said Mrs. Petulengro;
'I should esteem your allowing me a great mark of condescension. You are
very beautiful, madam, and I think you doubly so, because you are so
fair; I have a great esteem for persons with fair complexions and hair; I
have a less regard for people with dark hair and complexions, madam.'
"'Then why did you turn off the lord, and take up with me?' said Mr.
Petulengro; 'that same lord was fair enough all about him.'
"'People do when they are young and silly what they sometimes repent of
when they are of riper years and understandings. I sometimes think that
had I not been something of a simpleton, I might at this time be a great
court lady. Now, madam,' said she, again taking Belle by the hand, 'do
oblige me by allowing me to plait your hair a little?'
"'I have really a good mind to be angry with you,' said Belle, giving
Mrs. Petulengro a peculiar glance.
"'Do allow her to arrange your hair,' said I, 'she means no harm, and
wishes to do you honour; do oblige her and me too, for I should like to
see how your hair would look dressed in her fashion.'
"'You hear what the young rye says?' said Mrs. Petulengro. 'I am sure
you will oblige the young rye, if not myself. Many people would be
willing to oblige the young rye, if he would but ask them; but he is not
in the habit of asking favours. He has a nose of his own, which he keeps
tolerably exalted; he does not think small-beer of himself, madam; and
all the time I have been with him, I never heard him ask a favour before;
therefore, madam, I am sure you will oblige him.' . . ."
The men talk together, Jasper telling about the passing of the
"old-fashioned good-tempered constables," the advent of railways, and the
spoiling of road life.
". . . 'Now, madam,' said Mrs. Petulengro, 'I have braided your hair in
our fashion: you look very beautiful, madam; more beautiful, if possible,
than before.' Belle now rose, and came forward with her tire-woman. Mr.
Petulengro was loud in his applause, but I said nothing, for I did not
think Belle was improved in appearance by having submitted to the
ministry of Mrs. Petulengro's hand. Nature never intended Belle to
appear as a Gypsy; she had made her too proud and serious. A more proper
part for her was that of a heroine, a queenly heroine,--that of Theresa
of Hungary, for example; or, better still, that of Brynhilda the
Valkyrie, the beloved of Sigurd, the serpent-killer, who incurred the
curse of Odin, because, in the tumult of spears, she sided with the young
king, and doomed the old warrior to die, to whom Odin had promised
victory.
"Belle looked at me for a moment in silence; then turning to Mrs.
Petulengro, she said, 'You have had your will with me; are you
satisfied?' 'Quite so, madam,' said Mrs. Petulengro, 'and I hope you
will be so too, as soon as you have looked in the glass.' 'I have looked
in one already,' said Belle,' and the glass does not flatter.' . . ."
Here it is easy to notice how the uncolloquial and even ugly English does
not destroy the illusion of the scene, but entirely subserves it and
makes these two or three pages fine painter's work for richness and still
drama.
I have not forgotten the Man in Black, though I gladly would. Not that I
am any more in sympathy with his theology than Borrow's, if it is more
interesting and venerable. But in this priest, Borrow's method, always
instinctively intense if not exaggerated, falls to caricature. I have no
objection to caricature; when it is of a logical or incidental kind I
enjoy it, even in "The Romany Rye"; I enjoy, for example, the snoring
Wordsworthian, without any prejudice against Wordsworth. "The Catholic
Times" as late as 1900 was still angry with Borrow's "crass anti-Catholic
bigotry." I should have expected them to laugh consumedly at a priest, a
parson and a publican who deserve places in the same gallery with wicked
earls and noble savages of popular fiction. It may be true that this
"creation of Borrow's most studied hatred" is, as Mr. Seccombe says,
{242} "a triumph of complex characterisation." He is "a joyous liver and
an unscrupulous libertine, sceptical as Voltaire, as atheistic as a
German professor, as practical as a Jew banker, as subtle as a Jesuit, he
has as many ways of converting the folks among whom he is thrown as
Panurge had of eating the corn in ear. For the simple and
credulous--crosses and beads; for the hard-hearted and venal--material
considerations; for the cultured and educated--a fine tissue of epigrams
and anthropology; for the ladies--flattery and badinage. A spiritual
ancestor of Anatole France's marvellous full-length figure of Jerome
Coignard, Borrow's conception takes us back first to Rabelais and
secondly to the seventeenth-century conviction of the profound
Machiavellism of Jesuitry."
But in "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" he is an intruder with a design of
turning these books into tracts. He is treated far more elaborately than
any other character except the author's, and with a massive man's
striving after subtlety. Moreover, Borrow has made it impossible to
ignore him or to cut him out, by interlacing him with every other
character in these two books. With sad persistency and naive ingenuity
he brings it about that every one shall see, or have seen in the past,
this terrible priest. Borrow's natural way of dealing with such a man
would be that of the converted pugilist who, on hearing of an atheist in
the vicinity, wanted to go and "knock the beggar down for Jesus' sake";
and a variation upon this would have been delightful and in harmony with
the rest of the book. But clever as the priest is, Borrow himself is
stronger, honester and cleverer, too. Of course, the priest leads him to
some good things. Above all, he leads to the incident of the
half-converted publican, who is being ruined by sherry and Popery. Borrow
pursuades him to take ale, which gives him the courage to give up
thoughts of conversion, and to turn on his enemies and re-establish
himself, to make a good business, become a churchwarden, and teach boxing
to the brewer's sons, because it is "a fine manly English art and a great
defence against Popery." It is at least a greater defence than Borrow's
pen, or deserves to be.