The Romany Rye: A Sequel to 'Lavengro'Borrow, George
General
The Romany Rye: A Sequel to 'Lavengro'
Borrow, George
Adventure stories; England -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction
'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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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