East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical AssociationsRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical Associations
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
East Anglia (England)
dilapidated condition, with everything around it more or less untidy—that
was where George Borrow lived and worked in his way for many a long day.
The step-daughter and her husband reside there now—very ancient people,
who are to be seen driving about Lowestoft in a little wicker car, drawn
by an amiable and active donkey, an aged dog guarding the cottage during
their temporary absence. The female, an ancient one, who did for the
house, lives in the little cottage which the tourist will have already
observed, and the interior of which presented, when I peeped in, a far
greater idea of comfort than did Oulton Cottage, the residence of the
late George Borrow. The picture one gets is rather a melancholy one.
‘He was a funny-tempered man’—that seems to have been the idea of the few
people around. Latterly he kept no company, and no one came to see him.
All who did call on him, however, tell me that he was well dressed, but
that all the interior of the house was dirty. Well, that was to be
expected of a man who loved to live with the gipsies, and patter to them
in Romany of Egyptian lore, for it could not have been want of means.
Borrow must have made a good deal of money by his books, and I have heard
his landed property estimated at five hundred per year. The house looked
like the residence of a miser who would not lay out a penny in keeping up
appearances or in repairs. It must be remembered, however, that the
grand old man had long become bowed with age; that for some years before
his death he was scarcely able to move himself without help; that the
grasshopper, as it were, had become a burden. In summer time such a
residence, in good repair and well furnished, would be perfectly
charming. The house contains a sitting-room on each side of the
entrance-hall. Behind is the kitchen, and above are four bedrooms and
two attics—none of them large, I own, but at any rate capable of being
made very cosy. On your right, in a little niche in the cliff, is a
small stable. Lower down is a large summer-house, then full of books
(amongst them, I believe, there were a hundred lexicons), where their
learned proprietor loved to write. Farther down the lawn you come to the
lake, where Borrow could enjoy his morning bath without fear of being
disturbed, and where any amount of fish can be got. Just previous to my
last visit to the spot a pike of more than twenty pounds’ weight—I am
afraid to say how many pounds more, lest the reader should think I was
exaggerating—had been caught. For a real angler or sportsman such a
house as that in which George Borrow spent the latter years of his long
life must have been a perfect paradise. The world is utterly away from
you, and, what is better still, in such a spot the world has no chance of
finding you out. Approaching by road, you see no sign of the house till
you are in it, so completely is it hidden in the nook of trees in which
it stands. Only to the water is it open. It would be really beautiful
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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