Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 425, March, 1851

These women are the very devil at driving bargains! The bookseller, to whom Lavengro sent the manuscript, might easily have been persuaded to come down with a cool five-and-twenty for the adventure; but his wife asked the author to tea, and between the relays of butter and toast, buttered the original Sap-engro so effectually, that he accepted the twenty, minus the five. And with this plentiful supply – from which the payment of accounts past due had to be deducted – Lavengro valorously determined to cut the trade of authorship, on the eve of his first success, and follow out his dukkeripen among scenes and sounds which were more congenial to his taste than the crowded streets and busy din of London.

Somehow or other an author always falls upon his feet. If you, dear reader, without any other recommendation than the figure and countenance which nature has bestowed upon you – even though you have never been solicited to join a gipsy encampment, or to participate in the mysteries of thimble-rig – should start upon a pedestrian expedition through these islands, rather shabbily attired, and carrying your bundle on the end of your stick, the odds are that you do not meet at every turn with a beneficent squire of considerable fortune, but eccentric literary habits, to invite you to make his house your home so long as you may please to honour it. This may be a reflection on modern hospitality; however, try the experiment for yourself, and you will find that we are right in our assumption. But, if you are an author, the case is very different – at least it will be different when you print. The mens divinior will have come out in some way which passes human understanding. You may have been standing flattening your nose against an alehouse window, thinking perhaps intently on the means of liquidating your reckoning, when a chariot shall arrest itself at the door; a metaphysical gentleman steps out, for the apparent purpose of regaling himself with a glass of bitters; and in the course of five minutes' conversation, you so gain his heart, that you are whirled off to the mansion-house or the lodge, and forced to submit, for the next fortnight, to a regimen of turtle, venison, and claret. Such are the horrid but unavoidable nuisances of superior mental cultivation. It is no use struggling against the stream – you must perforce submit to it. And accordingly, when you publish, you enter a proper protest against the violence which has been done to your feelings, by removing you from a damp truckle-bed to a couch of eider down; and by forcing down your throat abhorred foreign luxuries, in place of that bread-and-cheese which you patriotically preferred as your nutriment.

No long time elapses before our friend Lavengro encounters his predestined squire. In the interim, however, he visits Stonehenge, and encounters a returned convict, who of course is the son of the applewoman. Shortly afterwards Amphytrion appears, just as Lavengro is sitting down to a buttock of beef and accompaniments in a cheerful inn. The character has been so often drawn, that it is rather difficult to chalk out a new branch of eccentricity for the gentleman who is about to convey the author to his house, in order that he may confide to him the details of his personal history: we are bound, however, to confess that Mr Borrow has managed this very cleverly. The new comer is afflicted with the mania of "touching" – not for any pleasurable sensation conveyed to the sensorium through the medium of the tips of the fingers, but for luck, or as a charm against the influence of the evil eye! For example, his mother being extremely ill, he finds himself irresistibly impelled to climb a large elm-tree and touch the topmost branch, as the means of averting the crisis. He does so, and sustains a severe fall, to the detriment of his nether-man, but is rewarded by finding that his filial piety has saved his mother, for the fever departed the moment that he clutched the gifted twig! Genius has no limits. After this it is not impossible that a gooseberry bush may be found available machinery for adding to the interest of a tale.

The story is told at the Squire's house during a thunder-storm; and another character, a certain Rev. Mr Platitude, is introduced solely, we presume, to lay a foundation for the subsequent appearance of a Roman Jesuit, to whom the said Platitude is in bondage. Having delivered himself of his touching history, the Squire, like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, feels himself considerably easier in his mind, and Lavengro takes his leave. Led by his dukkeripen, he next falls in with a disconsolate tinker, Jack Slingsby by name, whom he finds with his wife and children sitting over an empty mug, "which, when filled, might contain half-a-pint." Lavengro is perfectly orthodox on the subject of malt liquor. He understands, appreciates, and even venerates its virtues; so, like a kind Christian, he orders a double jorum, and requests the woe-begone Jack to insinuate his whiskers therein. Slingsby complies, nothing loath; for grief is notoriously dry: and we are presently informed that he is sore at heart, in consequence of having been beaten off his bent by a rival, ycleped the Flaming Tinman, who travels the country, accompanied by his wife, Grey Moll, and a young woman of more than amazonian proportions. This Ajax having conceived an intense hatred of the pacific Slingsby, has first given him an unmerciful hiding; and, secondly, compelled him to take his Bible-oath that he will immediately vacate the country. Cause enough of sorrow, to be sure, the district being rife in frying-pans, and the kettles, generally speaking, of reasonable antiquity. Having delivered himself of this tale, the soft-hearted Slingsby weeps once more, and refuses to be comforted.

"'Myself.– Take another draught – stout liquor.'

'Tinker.– I can't, young man, my heart's too full, and, what's more, the pitcher is empty.'"

Nature! thou art always the same. Under whatever garb – but we crave pardon. We have already condemned apostrophes.

An idea occurs to Lavengro. What if he were to become the proprietor, by purchasing Slingsby's stock in trade, and the goodwill of the district, and start on his own account as a regenerator of fractured pans? Of course he must be prepared to encounter the opposition of the Flying Tinman; but that was only a contingent hazard; and should it occur, why – our friend flattered himself that he had not looked upon the "terrible Randall" for nothing. In days of old, his sire had encountered Big Ben Brain the Bruiser "in single combat for one hour, at the end of which time the champions shook hands and retired, each having experienced quite enough of the other's prowess;" and the memory of that glorious deed was glowing in the bosom of the son. Free of the forge also was he, as one of Tubal Cain's apprentices; and if not quite an adept in the mysteries of solder, likely enough to become so with the help of a little practice. So Slingsby sold his cart, pony, and apparatus, for the sum of five pounds ten shillings, and our author was metamorphosed into a tinker. The account of his first night encampment is rather picturesque, and we shall insert it here, as a good specimen of Mr Borrow's powers of description.

"How long I continued in that state I am unable to say, but I believe for a considerable time. I was suddenly awakened by the ceasing of the jolting to which I had become accustomed, and of which I was perfectly sensible in my sleep. I started up and looked around me; the moon was still shining, and the face of the heaven was studded with stars. I found myself amidst a maze of bushes of various kinds, but principally hazel and holly, through which was a path or driftway, with grass growing on either side, upon which the pony was already diligently browsing. I conjectured that this place had been one of the haunts of his former master; and, on dismounting and looking about, was strengthened in that opinion by finding a spot under an ash-tree, which, from its burnt and blackened appearance, seemed to have been frequently used as a fire-place. I will take up my quarters here, thought I; it is an excellent spot for me to commence my new profession in; I was quite right to trust myself to the guidance of the pony. Unharnessing the animal without delay, I permitted him to browse at free will on the grass, convinced that he would not wander far from a place to which he was so much attached; I then pitched the little tent close beside the ash-tree to which I have alluded, and conveyed two or three articles into it, and instantly felt that I had commenced housekeeping for the first time in my life. Housekeeping, however, without a fire is a very sorry affair, something like the housekeeping of children in their toy-houses. Of this I was the more sensible from feeling very cold and shivering, owing to my late exposure to the rain, and sleeping in the night air. Collecting, therefore, all the dry sticks and furze I could find, I placed them upon the fire-place, adding certain chips and a billet which I found in the cart, it having apparently been the habit of Slingsby to carry with him a small stock of fuel. Having then struck a spark in a tinder-box, and lighted a match, I set fire to the combustible heap, and was not slow in raising a cheerful blaze. I then drew my cart near the fire, and, seating myself on one of the shafts, hung over the warmth with feelings of intense pleasure and satisfaction. Having continued in this posture for a considerable time, I turned my eyes to the heaven in the direction of a particular star; I, however, could not find the star, nor indeed many of the starry train, the greater number having fled, from which circumstance, and from the appearance of the sky, I concluded that morning was nigh. About this time I again began to feel drowsy; I therefore arose, and having prepared for myself a kind of couch in the tent, I flung myself upon it and went to sleep.

I will not say that I was awakened in the morning by the carolling of birds, as I perhaps might if I were writing a novel. I awoke because, to use vulgar language, I had slept my sleep out – not because the birds were carolling around me in numbers, as they probably had been for hours without my hearing them. I got up and left my tent; the morning was yet more bright than that of the preceding day. Impelled by curiosity, I walked about, endeavouring to ascertain to what place chance, or rather the pony, had brought me. Following the drift-way for some time, amidst bushes and stunted trees, I came to a grove of dark pines, through which it appeared to lead. I tracked it a few hundred yards; but, seeing nothing but trees, and the way being wet and sloughy, owing to the recent rain, I returned on my steps, and, pursuing the path in another direction, came to a sandy road leading over a common, doubtless the one I had traversed the preceding night. My curiosity satisfied, I returned to my little encampment, and on the way beheld a small footpath on the left, winding through the bushes, which had before escaped my observation. Having reached my tent and cart, I breakfasted on some of the provisions which I had purchased the day before, and then proceeded to take a regular account of the stock formerly possessed by Slingsby the tinker, but now become my own by right of lawful purchase.

Besides the pony, the cart, and the tent, I found I was possessed of a mattress stuffed with straw, on which to lie, and a blanket to cover me – the last quite clean, and nearly new. Then there was a frying-pan and a kettle – the first for cooking any food which required cooking, and the second for heating any water which I might wish to heat. I likewise found an earthen tea-pot and two or three cups. Of the first, I should rather say I found the remains, it being broken in three parts, no doubt since it came into my possession, which would have precluded the possibility of my asking anybody to tea for the present, should anybody visit me – even supposing I had tea and sugar, which was not the case. I then overhauled what might more strictly be called the stock in trade. This consisted of various tools, an iron ladle, a chafing-pan and small bellows, sundry pans and kettles – the latter being of tin, with the exception of one which was of copper – all in a state of considerable dilapidation, if I may use the term. Of these first Slingsby had spoken in particular, advising me to mend them as soon as possible, and to endeavour to sell them, in order that I might have the satisfaction of receiving some return upon the outlay which I had made. There was likewise a small quantity of block-tin, sheet-tin, and solder. 'This Slingsby,' said I, 'is certainly a very honest man; he has sold me more than my money's worth; I believe, however, there is something more in the cart.' Thereupon I rummaged the further end of the cart, and, amidst a quantity of straw, I found a small anvil, and bellows of that kind which are used in forges, and two hammers, such as smiths use – one great and the other small."

Here the author remains for a few days tinkering at his kettles, and wholly uninterrupted, until he is surprised by the visit of a young gipsy girl. The scene which follows is sufficiently absurd. The girl wants to get a kettle from him, and patters Rommany, which choice dialect Mr Borrow pretends not to understand. At last, however, he presents her with the culinary implement, and astonishes her by singing a part of that dainty ditty about dukkeripen, hokkeripen, and lachipen, which we have inserted above. He had much better have kept his accomplishments to himself; but we suppose the temptation was irresistible. Indeed, judging from the various instances which are chronicled in this book, it would appear that Lavengro made a regular practice, in his intercourse with every one, to maintain the semblance of considerable ignorance and simplicity, until some opportunity occurred, when he could let off his bottled knowledge with astounding effect. We question the wisdom of this method in any point of view, and under any circumstance. In the present case he paid dear for the untimely exhibition of his lore.

"The girl, who had given a slight start when I began, remained for some time after I had concluded the song, standing motionless as a statue, with the kettle in her hand. At length she came towards me, and stared me full in the face. 'Grey, tall, and talks Rommany,' said she to herself. In her countenance there was an expression which I had not seen before – an expression which struck me as being composed of fear, curiosity, and the deepest hate. It was momentary, however, and was succeeded by one smiling, frank, and open. 'Ha, ha, brother,' said she, 'well, I like you all the better for talking Rommany; it is a sweet language, isn't it? – especially as you sing it. How did you pick it up? But you picked it up on the roads, no doubt? Ha, it was funny in you to pretend not to know it, and you so flush with it all the time; it was not kind in you, however, to frighten the poor person's child so by screaming out; but it was kind in you to give the rikkeni kekaubi to the child of the poor person. She will be grateful to you – she will bring you her little dog to show you – her pretty juggal; the poor person's child will come and see you again; you are not going away to-day, I hope, or to-morrow, pretty brother, grey-haired brother – you are not going away to-morrow, I hope?'

'Nor the next day,' said I; 'only to take a stroll to see if I can sell a kettle. Good-bye, little sister, Rommany sister, dingy sister.'

'Good-bye, tall brother,' said the girl as she departed, singing —

"The Rommany chi," &c.

'There's something about that girl that I don't understand,' said I to myself – 'something mysterious. However, it is nothing to me; she knows not who I am; and if she did, what then?'"

Lavengro, however, was doomed to become the victim of misplaced confidence. The young lady in question was the grand-daughter of Mrs Herne "of the hairy ones," who, as the reader will recollect, abandoned the society of her kin rather than associate with the gorgio, as, we presume, we ought to call Mr Borrow. This old woman, who was resolved to have her revenge should any opportunity occur, was encamped somewhere in the neighbourhood; and in the dusk of the evening Lavengro beheld "a face wild and strange, half-covered with grey hair," glaring at him through a gap in the bushes. It disappeared, and Lavengro went to bed. A day or two afterwards he received a second visit from the gipsy girl, who presented him with a species of bun, prepared, as she said, by her "grandbebee," for the express consumption of the "harko mescro" who had been so liberal of the "kekaubi." His evil dukkeripen induced the author to eat, and, as the reader must have already anticipated, the cake proves to have been poisoned.

Lavengro, in great agony, crawls into his tent, and has just sunk into a kind of heavy swoon, when he is aroused by a violent thump upon the canvass; and, opening his eyes, beholds Mrs Herne and the girl standing without. They have come to gloat over his dying pangs.

It has been our fortune to peruse several of the romances of M. Eugene Sue, and of his followers, as also divers of those interesting and improving fictions which issue, in a serial form, from Holywell Street; but we are not sure that we can recall to our memory any passage culled from these various sources, which is more unnatural, distorted, and purely disgusting, than the conversation between the two females. We give a very small portion of it – for it extends to ten or twelve pages – and what we do quote is, perhaps, the most natural of the whole: —

"'Halloo, sir! are you sleeping? you have taken drows. The gentleman makes no answer. God give me patience!'

'And what if he doesn't, bebee; isn't he poisoned like a hog? Gentleman! indeed; why call him gentleman? if he ever was one he's broke, and is now a tinker – a worker of blue metal!'

'That's his way, child; to-day a tinker, to-morrow something else: and as for being drabbed, I don't know what to say about it.'

'Not drabbed! what do you mean, bebee? But look there, bebee – ha, ha – look at the gentleman's motions.'

'He is sick, child, sure enough. Ho, ho! sir, you have taken drows; what, another throe! writhe, sir, writhe, the hog died by the drow of gipsies; I saw him stretched at evening. That's yourself, sir. There is no hope, sir, no help; you have taken drow. Shall I tell your fortune, sir – your dukkerin? God bless you, young gentleman, much trouble will you have to suffer, and much water to cross; but never mind, pretty gentleman, you shall be fortunate at the end, and those who hate shall take off their hats to you.'

'Hey, bebee!' cried the girl, 'what is this? what do you mean? you have blessed the gorgio!'

'Blessed him! no, sure; what did I say? Oh, I remember; I'm mad. Well, I can't help it; I said what the dukkerin dook told me. Woe's me! he'll get up yet.'

'Nonsense, bebee! look at his motions; he's drabbed, spite of dukkerin.'

'Don't say so, child; he's sick, 'tis true: but don't laugh at dukkerin; only folks do that that know no better; I, for one, will never laugh at the dukkerin dook. Sick again; I wish he was gone.'

'He'll soon be gone, bebee; let's leave him. He's as good as gone; look there – he's dead!'

'No, he's not; he'll get up – I feel it. Can't we hasten him?'

'Hasten him? yes, to be sure; set the dog upon him. Here, Juggal, look in there, my dog.'

The dog made its appearance at the door of the tent, and began to bark and tear up the ground.

'At him, Juggal, at him; he wished to poison, to drab you. Halloo!'

The dog barked violently, and seemed about to spring at my face, but retreated.

'The dog won't fly at him, child; he flashed at the dog with his eye, and scared him. He'll get up.'

'Nonsense, bebee! you make me angry. How should he get up?'

'The dook tells me so; and what's more, I had a dream.'"

But the gentle Leonora – which was the name of the girl – has a strong tendency towards the practical. She would have been an invaluable assistant at the inn of Terracina – which hostelry the dramatic writers of the Surrey side used to select as the scene of their most appalling tragedies; representing the landlord as an unhappy misanthrope, who could never sleep unless he had poniarded his man; and the head-waiter as a merry creature, who wore two brace of stilettoes in his girdle, and lurked at the bottom of the pit, to receive the visitors when the bed tumbled through the trap-door. Miss Leonora, we say, becomes impatient at the exceeding dilatoriness of Lavengro in giving up the ghost, and entreats her bebee, notwithstanding the dukkerin, to finish him at once by poking her stick into his eye! The venerable descendant of the hairy ones attempts to carry this humane advice into effect, but, at the second lounge, the pole of the tent gives way, and she is sent sprawling under the canvass.

At this juncture, the sound of wheels is heard, and the girl has work enough to extricate her bebee, and hurry her off, before a car arrives. It is pulled up by the fallen tent. Lavengro hears a sound of voices; but the language is neither Rommany nor English: it is Welsh.

The Samaritan – who immediately doctors Lavengro with oil, and relieves him from the effect of the poison – is a Methodist preacher, who, in company with his wife, pays an annual visit to certain stations, where his ministry is greatly prized. The portrayment of this family – Peter, and his helpmate Winifred – would have been nearly perfect, had Mr Borrow not chosen to represent the man as haunted by the most horrible and overwhelming remorse for an imaginary sin of childhood. The idea is evidently taken from a melancholy passage in the life of Cowper, who, as every one knows, was, owing to constitutional hypochondria, the victim of hideous delusions. To select such themes wantonly and unnecessarily, argues the worst possible taste. They ought not, on any account, to have been introduced in a work of this kind; and Mr Borrow must not be surprised if very grave objections should be urged against his book, arising from the manner in which he has chosen to treat of so awful and inscrutable a dispensation. It will be no apology to say that the thing actually occurred, and that the writer is merely relating what passed under his own observation. No man is bound to set down and publish everything which he hears or sees. On the contrary, he is bound to use a just discretion, in order that he may not profanely enter on forbidden ground, or cruelly parade confessions and doubts which, surely, were never intended for the public ear.

But, as we have already indicated, we have no belief in the reality of the preacher's story. Even had the main incidents of the episode been true, it is not only improbable, but incredible, that a person, such as the preacher is represented to be, would have confided his history to Lavengro, who had certainly few recommendations as a spiritual adviser. We are thoroughly convinced that our hypothesis is correct, and that Mr Borrow – whose birth-place was Dereham, the town in which Cowper was buried – has been led, through a diseased and vicious taste, to reproduce a picture which no one can contemplate without a shudder. But enough on this painful subject. There is, however, a point of minor morals which we must notice. Is Mr Borrow aware that the conduct of his hero in concealing his knowledge of the Welsh language from the people who had just rescued him from death, so as to induce them to utter their most private thoughts and feelings within his hearing, was, to say the least of it, a very ungrateful return for all their kindness? It would appear not. However, we are tolerably certain that no one who peruses the book will differ from us in this opinion.

The preacher and his wife persuade Lavengro to travel with them as far as the boundary of Wales, where he stops, refusing to set foot on the land of Cadwallader. According to his usual custom, he petrifies them at parting by exhibiting his intimate knowledge of the Welsh language and literature. Just as they are taking leave, Petulengro makes his appearance, emerging from Wales, and Lavengro turns with him. Now, what does the reader think the respectable Jasper had been doing? Neither more nor less than assisting at the interment of Mrs Herne, who had herself anticipated the last tender offices of the executioner! The fraternal pair jog on for a while amicably, Petulengro beguiling the way by a sprightly narrative of blackguardism, until they reach a convenient piece of turf, when he expresses a strong desire to have a turn-up with the rather reluctant Lavengro. As the Rommany code of honour is but little understood, we may as well give Petulengro's reasons for defying his brother to the combat: —