from the Man in
Black, the gin-drinking priest, who was then at work undermining the
Protestantism of old England. Isopel stood by him when suffering from
"indescribable horror," and recommended "ale, and let it be strong."
Borrow makes her evidently inclined to marry him; for example, when she
says that if she goes to America she will go alone "unless--unless that
should happen which is not likely," and when he says ". . . If I had the
power I would make you queen of something better than the dingle--Queen
of China. Come, let us have tea," and "'Something less would content
me,' said Belle, sighing, as she rose to prepare our evening meal"--and
when at the postillion's suggestion of a love affair, she buries her face
in her hands. "She would sigh, too," he says, "as I recounted the many
slights and degradations I had received at the hands of ferocious
publishers." In one place Borrow says: "I am, of course, nothing to her,
but she is mistaken in thinking she is nothing to me." Borrow represents
himself as tyrannically imposing himself upon the girl as teacher of
Armenian, enlivening the instruction with the one mild _double entendre_,
of "I decline a mistress." At times they seem on terms of as perfect
good fellowship as ever was, with a touch of post-matrimonial
indifference; but Isopel had fits of weeping and Borrow of listlessness.
Borrow was uncommonly fond of prophetic tragic irony. As he made
Thurtell unconsciously suggest to the reader his own execution, so he
makes Isopel say one day when she is going a journey: "I shall return
once more." Lavengro starts but thinks no more of it.

While she was away he began to think: "I began to think, 'What was likely
to be the profit of my present way of life; the living in dingles, making
pony and donkey shoes, conversing with Gypsy-women under hedges, and
extracting from them their odd secrets?' What was likely to be the
profit of such a kind of life, even should it continue for a length of
time?--a supposition not very probable, for I was earning nothing to
support me, and the funds with which I had entered upon this life were
gradually disappearing. I was living, it is true, not unpleasantly,
enjoying the healthy air of heaven; but, upon the whole, was I not sadly
misspending my time? Surely I was; and, as I looked back, it appeared to
me that I had always been doing so. What had been the profit of the
tongues which I had learned? had they ever assisted me i