Chapter 5: Borrowed Scenes

“It cannot be done. People really would not stand it. I know because

I have tried.”--Extract from an unpublished paper upon George Borrow and his writings.

Yes, I tried and my experience may interest other people. You must imagine, then, that I am soaked in George Borrow, especially in his Lavengro and his Romany Rye, that I have modelled both my thoughts, my speech and my style very carefully upon those of the master, and that finally I set forth one summer day actually to lead the life of which I had read. Behold me, then, upon the country road which leads from the railway-station to the Sussex village of Swinehurst.

As I walked, I entertained myself by recollections of the founders of Sussex, of Cerdic that mighty sea-rover, and of Ella his son, said by the bard to be taller by the length of a spear-head than the tallest of his fellows. I mentioned the matter twice to peasants whom I met upon the road. One, a tallish man with a freckled face, sidled past me and ran swiftly towards the station. The other, a smaller and older man, stood entranced while I recited to him that passage of the Saxon Chronicle which begins, “Then came Leija with longships forty-four, and the fyrd went out against him.” I was pointing out to him that the Chronicle had been written partly by the monks of Saint Albans and afterwards by those of Peterborough, but the fellow sprang suddenly over a gate and disappeared.

The village of Swinehurst is a straggling line of half-timbered houses of the early English pattern. One of these houses stood, as I observed, somewhat taller than the rest, and seeing by its appearance and by the sign which hung before it that it was the village inn, I approached it, for indeed I had not broken my fast since I had left London. A stoutish man, five foot eight perhaps in height, with black coat and trousers of a greyish shade, stood outside, and to him I talked in the fashion of the master.

“Why a rose and why a crown?” I asked as I pointed upwards.

He looked at me in a strange manner. The man’s whole appearance was strange. “Why not?” he answered, and shrank a little backwards.

“The sign of a king,” said I.

“Surely,” said he. “What else should we understand from a crown?”

“And which king?” I asked.

“You will excuse me,” said he, and tried to pass.

“Which king?” I repeated.

“How should I know?” he asked.

“You should know by the rose,” said I, “which is the symbol of that Tudor- ap-Tudor, who, coming from the mountains of Wales, yet seated his posterity upon the English throne. Tudor,” I continued, getting between the stranger and the door of the inn, through which he appeared to be desirous of passing, “was of the same blood as Owen Glendower, the famous chieftain, who is by no means to be confused with Owen Gwynedd, the father of Madoc of the Sea, of whom the bard made the famous cnylyn, which runs in the Welsh as follows:--”

I was about to repeat the famous stanza of Dafydd-ap-Gwilyn when the man, who had looked very fixedly and strangely at me as I spoke, pushed past me and entered the inn. “Truly,” said I aloud, “it is surely Swinehurst to which I have come, since the same means the grove of the hogs.” So saying I followed the fellow into the bar parlour, where I perceived him seated in a corner with a large chair in front of him. Four persons of various degrees were drinking beer at a central table, whilst a small man of active build, in a black, shiny suit, which seemed to have seen much service, stood before the empty fireplace. Him I took to be the landlord, and I asked him what I should have for my dinner.

He smiled, and said that he could not tell.

“But surely, my friend,” said I, “you can tell me what is ready?”

“Even that I cannot do,” he answered; “but I doubt not that the landlord can inform us.” On this he rang the bell, and a fellow answered, to whom I put the same question.

“What would you have?” he asked.

I thought of the master, and I ordered a cold leg of pork to be washed down with tea and beer.

“Did you say tea and beer?” asked the landlord.

“I did.”

“For twenty-five years have I been in business,” said the landlord, “and never before have I been asked for tea and beer.”

“The gentleman is joking,” said the man with the shining coat.

“Or else--” said the elderly man in the corner.

“Or what, sir?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said he--”nothing.” There was something very strange in this man in the corner--him to whom I had spoken of Dafydd-ap-Gwilyn.

“Then you are joking,” said the landlord.

I asked him if he had read the works of my master, George Borrow. He said that he had not. I told him that in those five volumes he would not, from cover to cover, find one trace of any sort of a joke. He would also find that my master drank tea and beer together. Now it happens that about tea I have read nothing either in the sagas or in the bardic cnylynions, but, whilst the landlord had departed to prepare my meal, I recited to the company those Icelandic stanzas which praise the beer of Gunnar, the long-haired son of Harold the Bear. Then, lest the language should be unknown to some of them, I recited my own translation, ending with the line--

If the beer be small, then let the mug be large.

I then asked the company whether they went to church or to chapel. The question surprised them, and especially the strange man in the corner, upon whom I now fixed my eye. I had read his secret, and as I looked at him he tried to shrink behind the clock-case.

“The church or the chapel?” I asked him.

“The church,” he gasped.

“Which church?” I asked.

He shrank farther behind the clock. “I have never been so questioned,” he cried.

I showed him that I knew his secret, “Rome was not built in a day,” said I.

“He! He!” he cried. Then, as I turned away, he put his head from behind the clock-case and tapped his forehead with his forefinger. So also did the man with the shiny coat, who stood before the empty fireplace.

Having eaten the cold leg of pork--where is there a better dish, save only boiled mutton with capers?--and having drunk both the tea and the beer, I told the company that such a meal had been called “to box Harry” by the master, who had observed it to be in great favour with commercial gentlemen out of Liverpool. With this information and a stanza or two from Lopez de Vega I left the Inn of the Rose and Crown behind me, having first paid my reckoning. At the door the landlord asked me for my name and address.

“And why?” I asked.

“Lest there should be inquiry for you,” said the landlord.

“But why should they inquire for me?”

“Ah, who knows?” said the landlord, musing. And so I left him at the door of the Inn of the Rose and Crown, whence came, I observed, a great tumult of laughter. “Assuredly,” thought I, “Rome was not built in a day.”

Having walked down the main street of Swinehurst, which, as I have observed, consists of half-timbered buildings in the ancient style, I came out upon the country road, and proceeded to look for those wayside adventures, which are, according to the master, as thick as blackberries for those who seek them upon an English highway. I had already received some boxing lessons before leaving London, so it seemed to me that if I should chance to meet some traveller whose size and age seemed such as to encourage the venture I would ask him to strip off his coat and settle any differences which we could find in the old English fashion. I waited, therefore, by a stile for any one who should chance to pass, and it was while I stood there that the screaming horror came upon me, even as it came upon the master in the dingle. I gripped the bar of the stile, which was of good British oak. Oh, who can tell the terrors of the screaming horror! That was what I thought as I grasped the oaken bar of the stile. Was it the beer--or was it the tea? Or was it that the landlord was right and that other, the man with the black, shiny coat, he who had answered the sign of the strange man in the corner? But the master drank tea with beer. Yes, but the master also had the screaming horror. All this I thought as I grasped the bar of British oak, which was the top of the stile. For half an hour the horror was upon me. Then it passed, and I was left feeling very weak and still grasping the oaken bar.

I had not moved from the stile, where I had been seized by the screaming horror, when I heard the sound of steps behind me, and turning round I perceived that a pathway led across the field upon the farther side of the stile. A woman was coming towards me along this pathway, and it was evident to me that she was one of those gipsy Rias, of whom the master has said so much. Looking beyond her, I could see the smoke of a fire from a small dingle, which showed where her tribe were camping. The woman herself was of a moderate height, neither tall nor short, with a face which was much sunburned and freckled. I must confess that she was not beautiful, but I do not think that anyone, save the master, has found very beautiful women walking about upon the high-roads of England. Such as she was I must make the best of her, and well I knew how to address her, for many times had I admired the mixture of politeness and audacity which should be used in such a case. Therefore, when the woman had come to the stile, I held out my hand and helped her over.

“What says the Spanish poet Calderon?” said I. “I doubt not that you have read the couplet which has been thus Englished:

Oh, maiden, may I humbly pray

That I may help you on your way.”

The woman blushed, but said nothing.

“Where,” I asked, “are the Romany chals and the Romany chis?”

She turned her head away and was silent.

“Though I am a gorgio,” said I, “I know something of the Romany lil,” and to prove it I sang the stanza--

Coliko, coliko saulo wer

Apopli to the farming ker

Will wel and mang him mullo,

Will wel and mang his truppo.

The girl laughed, but said nothing. It appeared to me from her appearance that she might be one of those who make a living at telling fortunes or “dukkering,” as the master calls it, at racecourses and other gatherings of the sort.

“Do you dukker?” I asked.

She slapped me on the arm. “Well, you are a pot of ginger!” said she.

I was pleased at the slap, for it put me in mind of the peerless Belle. “You can use Long Melford,” said I, an expression which, with the master, meant fighting.

“Get along with your sauce!” said she, and struck me again.

“You are a very fine young woman,” said I, “and remind me of Grunelda, the daughter of Hjalmar, who stole the golden bowl from the King of the Islands.”

She seemed annoyed at this. “You keep a civil tongue, young man,” said she.

“I meant no harm, Belle. I was but comparing you to one of whom the saga says her eyes were like the shine of sun upon icebergs.”

This seemed to please her, for she smiled. “My name ain’t Belle,” she said at last.