Attends fair with gypsies; last view of
Belle; sees horse.

65th day [Wednesday, July 27]. Gypsies return from fair.

66th to 67th day [Thursday, July 28, to Friday, July 29]. No Belle.

68th day [Saturday, July 30]. Belle's letter; Borrow sleeps soundly.

69th day [Sunday, July 31]. Landlord in luck; horse at public-house;
Petulengro lends Borrow 50 pounds.

70th day [Monday, August 1]. Buys horse.

71st day [Tuesday, August 2]. Leaves dingle; rescues old man's ass; puts
up at small inn on the North Road.

72nd day [Wednesday, August 3]. Reaches posting house [Swan Hotel,
Stafford].

So far as we have proceeded the accuracy of this calculation depends upon
two dates only. Can we verify it by establishing the truth of any of the
events recorded by Borrow? In reply to my enquiry whether the
_Wolverhampton Chronicle _contains any reference to a thunderstorm
occurring on July 18, Mr. J. Elliot, the city librarian replied by
sending me the following extract from that paper for Wednesday, July 20,
1825:

'On Monday afternoon [_i.e._, July 18] three men who were mowing in a
field at the Limes, near Seabridge, in this county, took shelter
under the hedge from a violent thunderstorm. They had not been long
there before one of them was struck with the electric fluid, causing
his immediate death. The other two men were a short distance from
the ill-fated man above mentioned, and were stunned about an hour,
but not injured further.'

Again, Borrow mentions attending a horse and cattle fair, in company with
the gypsies, on the morning of the day when, looking backward toward the
dingle, he saw Isopel Berners for the last time 'standing at the mouth,
{0g} the beams of the morning sun shining full on her noble face and
figure.' It seems probable that this fair, which took the party about
two hours to reach, was the Tamworth horse and cattle fair held on July
26.

Again, Borrow tells us that 'a young moon gave a feeble light,' as he
mounted the coach to Amesbury, and on May 24 the moon _was _in its first
quarter. {0h} The planet Jupiter, too, he could have seen after 10 p.m.
on June 3, but his reference to the position of Ursus Major on the
evening of his talk with Ursula is less satisfactory. 'On arriving at
the mouth of the dingle, which fronted the east, I perceived,' says
Borrow, 'that Charles's Wain was nearly opposite to it high above in the
heavens, by which I knew that t