l, that
was to be expected of a man who loved to live with the gipsies, and
patter to them in Romany of Egyptian lore, for it could not have been
want of means. Borrow must have made a good deal of money by his books,
and I have heard his landed property estimated at five hundred per year.
The house looked like the residence of a miser who would not lay out a
penny in keeping up appearances or in repairs. It must be remembered,
however, that the grand old man had long become bowed with age; that for
some years before his death he was scarcely able to move himself without
help; that the grasshopper, as it were, had become a burden. In summer
time such a residence, in good repair and well furnished, would be
perfectly charming. The house contains a sitting-room on each side of
the entrance-hall. Behind is the kitchen, and above are four bedrooms
and two attics--none of them large, I own, but at any rate capable of
being made very cosy. On your right, in a little niche in the cliff, is
a small stable. Lower down is a large summer-house, then full of books
(amongst them, I believe, there were a hundred lexicons), where their
learned proprietor loved to write. Farther down the lawn you come to the
lake, where Borrow could enjoy his morning bath without fear of being
disturbed, and where any amount of fish can be got. Just previous to my
last visit to the spot a pike of more than twenty pounds' weight--I am
afraid to say how many pounds more, lest the reader should think I was
exaggerating--had been caught. For a real angler or sportsman such a
house as that in which George Borrow spent the latter years of his long
life must have been a perfect paradise. The world is utterly away from
you, and, what is better still, in such a spot the world has no chance of
finding you out. Approaching by road, you see no sign of the house till
you are in it, so completely is it hidden in the nook of trees in which
it stands. Only to the water is it open. It would be really beautiful
to live there in the summer, and have a gondola to row into Beccles or
Lowestoft or Bungay when you wanted to be gay.

One good anecdote I heard of George Borrow the last time I was in the
neighbourhood, which is worth repeating. My informant was an Independent
minister, at that time supplying the pulpit at Lowestoft, and staying at
Oulton Hall, then inhabited by a worthy Dissenting tenant. One night a
meeting of the Bible Society was held at Mutfo