The Romany Rye. Borrow George
preaches; Borrow bathes; meets the dairyman’s daughter.
21st day [Monday, June 13]. Uneventful.
22nd day [Tuesday, June 14]. Peter promises to tell his tale.
23rd to 24th day [Wednesday, June 15, to Thursday, June 16]. Uneventful.
25th day [Friday, June 17]. Peter tells his tale.
26th day [Saturday, June 18]. Peter tranquillized.
27th day [Sunday, June 19]. Peter preaches.
28th day [Monday, June 20]. Borrow talks of departing.
29th day [Tuesday, June 21]. Accompanies preacher and wife to Welsh border; meets Mr. Petulengro; returns with him; parts near the Silent Woman; settles in Mumper’s Dingle.
30th to 32nd day [Wednesday, June 22, to Friday, June 24]. Practises making horse-shoes.
33rd day [Saturday, June 25]. Succeeds (after four days); at evening the horrors.
34th day [Sunday, June 26]. Better; reads Welsh Bible.
35th day [Monday, June 27]. Uneventful.
36th day [Tuesday, June 28]. Fight with Flaming Tinman; meets Isopel Berners, who remains in dingle.
37th day [Wednesday, June 29]. Visits public-house (landlord says fight took place day before); meets Man in Black; gives Belle her first Armenian lesson; Man in Black visits dingle.
38th to 40th day [Thursday, June 30, to Saturday, July 2]. Uneventful.
41st day [Sunday, July 3]. Landlord tells Borrow of approaching cock-fight.
42nd to 43rd day [Monday, July 4, to Tuesday, July 5]. Uneventful.
44th day [Wednesday, July 6]. The cock-fight.
45th to 47th day [Thursday, July 7, to Saturday, July 9]. Uneventful.
48th to 50th day [Sunday, July 10, to Tuesday, July 12]. Landlord’s loss of cock-fight generally known.
51st day [Wednesday, July 13]. Landlord proposes fight between Borrow and Belle.
52nd to 53rd day [Thursday, July 14, to Friday, July 15]. On one of these days Man in Black probably visits dingle.
54th to 55th day [Saturday, July 16, to Sunday, July 17]. Uneventful.
56th day [Monday, July 18]. Thunderstorm; postillion’s chaise overturned.
[End of ‘Lavengro.’]
Note.—The last twenty dates are thus arrived at. There are two references to the lapse of a fortnight since June 29, which was the date of Borrow’s first visit to the public-house, and of Belle’s first Armenian lesson. ‘In about a fortnight Belle had hung up 100 Haikan numerals on the hake of her memory;’ while the landlord, on the occasion when he suggests a fight between Borrow and Belle, complains that Hunter calls him an old fool, whereas a fortnight ago it was he who called Hunter a fool. The date, then, of this last visit of Borrow’s to the public-house must have been on or about July 13. The defeat of the landlord’s game-cocks has been noised abroad for the past three days (July 10, 11, 12), and since the landlord had referred ten days before to the fact that the fight was about to come off on the following Wednesday, it must have occurred on July 6. ‘One day’—not necessarily the 14th or 15th, but this date is unimportant—the Man in Black revisits the dingle, and then follow three uneventful days, on the last evening of which is the great thunderstorm (July 18). Henceforward the daily record is plain and straightforward, and definitely fixed by the mention of the Sunday on which Borrow and the gypsies attend the church of M—.
[Beginning of ‘Romany Rye.’]
57th day [Tuesday, July 19]. Makes linchpin; postillion departs; evening, Man in Black.
58th day [Wednesday, July 20]. Arrival of gypsies; Belle goes on short journey.
59th day [Thursday, July 21]. Gypsies feast at Ursula’s wedding.
60th to 61st day [Friday, July 22, to Saturday, July 23]. Uneventful.
62nd day [Sunday, July 24]. Afternoon church at M—; talk with Ursula under hedge; Belle returns at night.
63rd day [Monday, July 25]. Landlord in despair; evening, gypsies prepare for fair.
64th day [Tuesday, July 26]. Attends fair with gypsies; last view of Belle; sees horse.
65th day [Wednesday, July 27]. Gypsies return from fair.
66th to 67th day [Thursday, July 28, to Friday, July 29]. No Belle.
68th day [Saturday, July 30]. Belle’s letter; Borrow sleeps soundly.
69th day [Sunday, July 31]. Landlord in luck; horse at public-house; Petulengro lends Borrow £50.
70th day [Monday, August 1]. Buys horse.
71st day [Tuesday, August 2]. Leaves dingle; rescues old man’s ass; puts up at small inn on the North Road.
72nd day [Wednesday, August 3]. Reaches posting house [Swan Hotel, Stafford].
So far as we have proceeded the accuracy of this calculation depends upon two dates only. Can we verify it by establishing the truth of any of the events recorded by Borrow? In reply to my enquiry whether the Wolverhampton Chronicle contains any reference to a thunderstorm occurring on July 18, Mr. J. Elliot, the city librarian replied by sending me the following extract from that paper for Wednesday, July 20, 1825:
‘On Monday afternoon [i.e., July 18] three men who were mowing in a field at the Limes, near Seabridge, in this county, took shelter under the hedge from a violent thunderstorm. They had not been long there before one of them was struck with the electric fluid, causing his immediate death. The other two men were a short distance from the ill-fated man above mentioned, and were stunned about an hour, but not injured further.’
Again, Borrow mentions attending a horse and cattle fair, in company with the gypsies, on the morning of the day when, looking backward toward the dingle, he saw Isopel Berners for the last time ‘standing at the mouth, [0g] the beams of the morning sun shining full on her noble face and figure.’ It seems probable that this fair, which took the party about two hours to reach, was the Tamworth horse and cattle fair held on July 26.
Again, Borrow tells us that ‘a young moon gave a feeble light,’ as he mounted the coach to Amesbury, and on May 24 the moon was in its first quarter. [0h] The planet Jupiter, too, he could have seen after 10 p.m. on June 3, but his reference to the position of Ursus Major on the evening of his talk with Ursula is less satisfactory. ‘On arriving at the mouth of the dingle, which fronted the east, I perceived,’ says Borrow, ‘that Charles’s Wain was nearly opposite to it high above in the heavens, by which I knew that the night was tolerably well advanced.’ But on July 24, as I learn, Charles’s Wain was in the N.W., and at midnight or 1 a.m. lay nearly due north, and as low down in the sky as it could be. This, however, is perhaps to consider too closely. Indeed, the general accuracy of this part of Borrow’s story renders it probable that it was expanded from a brief diary kept at the time.
It will be seen that the dates thus arrived at differ from those of Borrow’s biographer. According to Professor Knapp, [0i] Borrow visits Greenwich Fair on May 12, 1825, writes ‘Joseph Sell’ May 13 to 18, and disposes of the MS. on the 20th; leaves London on the 22nd, reaches Amesbury on the 23rd; leaves Salisbury May 26, and meets author (man who touches) May 30. On May 31 he buys Slingsby’s pony, is in dingle June 1, visited by Leonora on the 5th, and drugged by Mrs. Herne on the 8th. He passes Sunday, June 12, and the following week with Peter Williams and his wife, on the 21st he sees them to the border, turns back with Petulengro and settles in Mumpers’ Dingle. His fight with the Flaming Tinman, Professor Knapp tells us, must have occurred about the end of June. The Professor’s chronology, however, seems to me derived from a calculation—not in itself over-exact [0j]—based upon the erroneous idea that the fair took place on May 12. [0k] This is traceable