and the
tops of the tall nettles, agitated by the gusts from the mountain
hollows, were beating in their faces, for enthusiasm is never scoffed at
by the noble, simple-minded, genuine Welsh, whatever treatment it may
receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, selfish Saxon."

Unless we count the inn at Cemmaes, where he took vengeance on the
suspicious people by using his note-book in an obvious manner, "now
skewing at an object, now leering at an individual," he was only once
thoroughly put out, and that was at Beth Gelert by a Scotchman: which
suggests a great deal of amiability, on one side, considering that
Borrow's Welsh was book-Welsh, execrably pronounced.

He filled four books with notes, says Knapp, who has printed from them
some parts which Borrow did not use, including the Orange words of
"Croppies lie down," and Borrow's translation of "the best ghost story in
the world," by Lope de Vega. The book founded on these Welsh notes was
advertised in 1857, but not published until 1862.

In the September after his Welsh holiday, 1855, Borrow took his wife and
daughter to the Isle of Man, deposited them at Douglas, and travelled
over the island for seven weeks, with intervals at Douglas. He took
notes that make ninety-six quarto pages in Knapp's copy. He was to have
founded a book on them, entitled, "Wanderings in Quest of Manx
Literature." Knapp quotes an introduction which was written. This and
the notes show him collecting in manuscript or _viva voce_ the _carvals_
or carols then in circulation among the Manx; and he had the good fortune
to receive two volumes of them as gifts. Some he translated during his
visit. He went about questioning people concerning the carvals and a
Manx poet, named George Killey. He read a Manx prayer-book to the poet's
daughter at Kirk Onchan, and asked her a score of questions. He
convinced one woman that he was "of the old Manx." Finding a Manxman who
spoke French and thought it the better language, he made the statement
that "Manx or something like it was spoken in France more than a thousand
years before French." He copied Runic inscriptions, and took down
several fairy tales and a Manx version of the story of "Finn McCoyle" and
the Scotch giant. He went to visit a descendant of the ballad hero,
Mollie Charane. When he wished to know the size of some old skeletons he
inquired if the bones were as large as those of modern ones. As he met
people to compliment him on his