He is said also to have been considerate towards his mother, the poor, and domestic animals. Probably he and his mother understood one another. When he could not write to her, he got his wife to do so; and from 1849 she lived with them at Oulton. As to the poor, Knapp tells us that he left behind him letters of gratitude or acknowledgment from individuals, churches, and chapels. As to animals, once when he came upon some men beating a horse that had fallen, he gave it ale of sufficient quantity and strength to set it soon upon the road trotting with the rest of its kind, after the men had received a lecture. {210b} It is also related that when a favourite old cat crawled out to die in the hedge he brought it into the house, where he "laid it down in a comfortable spot and watched it till it was dead." His horse, Sidi Habismilk, the Arab, seems to have returned his admiration and esteem. He said himself, in "Wild Wales," after expressing his relief that a boy and dog had not seen a weazel that ran across his path: "I hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose my appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of a hare pursued by greyhounds, and am silly enough to feel disgust and horror at the squeals of a rat in the fangs of a terrier, which one of the sporting tribe once told me were the sweetest sounds in 'natur.'" CHAPTER XXIV--"LAVENGRO" AND "THE ROMANY RYE" Instead of travelling over the world Borrow wrote his autobiography and spent so many years on it that his contempt for the pen had some excuse. I have already said almost all there is to say about these labours. {212} Knapp has shown that they were protracted to include matters relating to Bowring and long posterior to the period covered by the autobiography, and that the magnitude of these additions compelled him to divide the book in two. The first part was "Lavengro," published in 1851, with an ending that is now, and perhaps was then, obviously due to the knife. The sceptical and hostile criticism of "Lavengro" delayed the appearance of the remainder of the autobiography, "The Romany Rye." Borrow had to reply to his critics and explain himself. This he did in the Appendix, and thus changed, the book was finished in 1853 or 1854. Something in Murray's attitude while they were discussing publication mounted Borrow on the high horse, and yet again he fumed because Murray had expressed a private opinion and had revealed his feeling that the book was not likely to make money for anyone. {picture: Cancelled title-page of "Lavengro". (Photographed from the Author's corrected proof copy, by kind permission of Mr. Kyllmann and Mr. Thos. Seccombe.) Photo: W. J. Roberts: page212.jpg}