_obscure_
individual (one of the foremost writers of the day), and added that he
was immensely liked by everybody. Whereupon Borrow repeated at least
twelve times, 'Immensely liked! As if a man could be immensely liked!'
quite insultingly. To make a diversion (I was very patient with him as
he was in trouble) I said I had just come home from the Lyell's and had
heard . . . But there was no time to say what I had heard! Mr. Borrow
asked: 'Is that old Lyle I met here once, the man who stands at the door
(of some den or other) and _bets_?' I explained who Sir Charles was (of
course he knew very well), but he went on and on, till I said gravely: 'I
don't think you meet those sort of people here, Mr. Borrow--we don't
associate with Blacklegs, exactly.'"

A cantankerous man, and as little fitted for Miss Cobbe as Miss Cobbe for
him.

{picture: Francis Power Cobbe. (Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs.
Miller, Taylor and Holmes.): page313.jpg}

There is not one pleasant story of Borrow in a drawing-room. His great
and stately stature, his bright "very black" or "soft brown" eyes, thick
white hair, and smooth oval face, his "loud rich voice" that could be
menacing with nervousness when he was roused, his "bold heroic air,"
{313} ever encased in black raiment to complete the likeness to a
"colossal clergyman," never seemed to go with any kind of furniture, wall-
paper, or indoor company where there were strangers who might pester him.
His physical vigour endured, though when nearing sixty he is said to have
lamented that he was childless, saying mournfully: "I shall soon not be
able to knock a man down, and I have no son to do it for me." {314a} No
record remains of his knocking any man down. But, at seventy, he could
have walked off with E. J. Trelawny, Shelley's friend, under his arm, and
was not averse to putting up his "dukes" to a tramp if necessary. {314b}
At Ascot in 1872 he intervened when two or three hundred soldiers from
Windsor were going to wreck a Gypsy camp for some affront. Amid the
cursing and screaming and brandishing of belts and tent-rods appeared "an
arbiter, a white-haired brown-eyed calm Colossus, speaking Romany
fluently, and drinking deep draughts of ale--in a quarter of an hour
Tommy Atkins and Anselo Stanley were sworn friends over a loving quart."
{314c} But this is told by Hindes Groome, who said in one place that he
met Borrow once, and in another three times. At seventy, he would