owledge of smithing that
enabled him to acquire the tinkering craft, he became a sort of
Petulengro himself. A few days after pitching his tent in Mumper's
Dingle, near Willenhall, as he slept against an ash tree, a voice seemed
to cry in his ear Danger! Danger! and he awoke to see Leonora, a pretty
gypsy girl of thirteen, wearing a handsome necklace of corals and gold.
She offered him a _manricli_, or cake, saying "Eat, pretty brother,
grey-haired brother." After some demur, he ate part of it; it was
poisoned, and he fell into a swoon. Soon he heard the voice of the
malicious old hag Mrs. Herne, who, gloating over her enemy, told him he
had taken _drows_, as, however he began to move they set their _juggal_
(dog) at him; but the animal, fled from the flash of the tinker's eye,
and Mrs. Herne realised that he would live--the _dook_ (spirit of
divination) told her so. The arrival of the Welsh preacher Peter
Williams, and his wife Winifred, in their cart put the gypsy witch-wife
and her daughter to flight. The Welshman administered some oil, which,
after two hours of suspense, and with the help of an opiate, saved the
life of Lavengro. During this companionship Borrow found that Williams
suffered excruciating spiritual terrors from the conviction that he had
committed the sin against the Holy Ghost--_pechod Ysprydd Glan_!

Borrow left his Welsh friends to join no less a personage than Jasper
Petulengro, "one of the clibberty-clabber," quoted Peter from a Welsh
poet; Borrow's pal had a wondrous story to tell of Mrs. Herne, of the
"drows," who had "been her own hinjiri," _i.e._ hanged herself. The girl
Leonora told Jasper that she had tracked Borrow and found him, alive and
well, 'discussing religion with a Methody, and that when she told the old
woman, Mrs. Herne said it was all up with her, and she must take a long
journey. In March, 1911, died Isaac Herne, of the same family, son of
beautiful Sinfi; he was known as "King of the Gypsies," and to the last
would tell of his meetings and talks with the "Romany Rye." Unlike his
clanswoman, who was buried "like a Roman woman of the old blood," he was
buried in gorgious fashion--in the graveyard of Manston Church, near
Leeds.

Borrow soon parted from Jasper, and settled himself in the beautiful
Mumper's Dingle, where he had the historic fight with the "Flaming
Tinman," getting the victory by using his "Long Melford," on the advice
of that towering and handsome female