The village of Oulton, too, gave him many chances of intercourse with the gipsies. Within five minutes’ walk of his home there is a spot where they frequently assembled, and where a few of them may sometimes be seen even at the present day. The writer has reason to know that the gipsies looked upon Borrow with no small amount of curiosity, for they were unaccustomed to meet with _gorgios_ of his position who took so keen an interest in their sayings and doings. As a rule, they are exceedingly suspicious of the approaches of any one outside the Romany pale; and it must not be assumed that he was popular with them because he usually succeeded in extracting from them the information he required. There was something about Borrow that made it hard to evade his questioning; he had such a masterful way with him, and his keen eyes fixed upon a man as though they would pierce him through and read his most secret thoughts. He himself attributes his success with the gipsies to his knowledge of the Romany tongue and customs, while they firmly believed that he had gipsy blood in his veins. “He has known them,” he says, writing of himself as the author of “The Zincali,” “for upwards of twenty years in various countries, and they never injured a hair of his head or deprived him of a shred of his raiment; but he is not deceived as to the motive of their forbearance: they thought him a _Rom_, and on this supposition they hurt him not, their love of ‘the blood’ being their most distinguishing characteristic.” This error on their part served his purpose well, as it enabled him to obtain from them a great deal of curious knowledge that would never have come into his possession had it been known he was one of the despised _gorgios_. He was known amongst them as the Romany Rye; but that is a name by which, even at the present day, they distinguished any stranger who can “rokkra Romany” to the extent of a dozen words.