could hardly have
been supposed to be within the power of such a pen, as in this conclusion
to a chapter:

"How one enjoys one's supper at one's inn, after a good day's walk,
provided one has the proud and glorious consciousness of being able to
pay one's reckoning on the morrow!"

Nor is the reader ever allowed to forget that a massive unfeeling
Victorianism is the basis of Borrow's style. Thus he tells the story of
the Treachery of the Long Knives:

"Hengist, wishing to become paramount in Southern Britain, thought that
the easiest way to accomplish his wish would be by destroying the South
British chieftains. Not believing that he should be able to make away
with them by open force, he determined to see what he could do by
treachery. Accordingly he invited the chieftains to a banquet, to be
held near Stonehenge, or the Hanging Stones, on Salisbury Plain. The
unsuspecting chieftains accepted the invitation, and on the appointed day
repaired to the banquet, which was held in a huge tent. Hengist received
them with a smiling countenance, and every appearance of hospitality, and
caused them to sit down to table, placing by the side of every Briton one
of his own people. The banquet commenced and all seemingly was mirth and
hilarity. Now Hengist had commanded his people that, when he should get
up and cry 'nemet eoure saxes,' that is, take your knives, each Saxon
should draw his long sax, or knife, which he wore at his side, and should
plunge it into the throat of his neighbour. The banquet went on, and in
the midst of it, when the unsuspecting Britons were revelling on the good
cheer which had been provided for them, and half-drunken with the mead
and beer which flowed in torrents, uprose Hengist, and with a voice of
thunder uttered the fatal words, 'nemet eoure saxes'; the cry was obeyed,
each Saxon grasped his knife, and struck with it at the throat of his
defenceless neighbour. Almost every blow took effect; only three British
chieftains escaping from the banquet of blood. This infernal carnage the
Welsh have appropriately denominated the treachery of the long knives. It
will be as well to observe that the Saxons derived their name from the
saxes, or long knives, which they wore at their sides, and at the use of
which they were terribly proficient."

Even so, Borrow's personal vitality triumphs, as it does over his many
mistakes, such as Lledach for Clydach, in Welsh orthography. There is
perhaps hardl