ed of walking, mounted a coach, "tipped the
blunt" to the driver, and alighted at Amesbury, near Stonehenge, whence
he began a ramble which became a perfect Iliad of strange happenings.
His health improved, his spirits rose, as he tramped on, his journeyings
varying from twenty to twenty-five miles a day. On the fifth day of his
tramp he met at an inn the mysterious stranger who "touched," as Borrow
himself did, against the evil eye; Dr. Johnson was an habitual toucher,
and even Macaulay owned to a kindred feeling. While a guest of the
"touching" gentleman, Borrow was introduced to the Rev. Mr. Platitude, a
notable character in his literary portrait gallery--"he did not go to
college a gentleman; he went an ass and returned a prig," writes Borrow
fiercely. No biographer, so far as I know, has identified Platitude, but
Mr. Donne evidently knew him, for he calls Borrow's account a "gross and
unfair caricature." I believe I have identified "the rascally Unitarian
minister who went over to the High Church," with the Rev. Theophilus
Browne, Fellow and Tutor of Peterhouse, Cambridge, who quitted the Church
for conscience sake, obtained an appointment at the York Unitarian
College, and was minister at the Octagon Chapel in 1809, but was paid to
resign the following year. He died at Bath in May, 1835. The historian
of the Octagon applies Milton's line to him:

"New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large."

Arriving at Tamworth, Borrow entered a cottage inn, and, as was his
custom, called "House!" as loud as he could. Whilst drinking his beer he
cheered the heart of the sorrowful Jack Slingsby by buying his whole
tinker's stock-in-trade--beat, plant, pony, and all--concluding that "a
tinker is his own master, a scholar is not." Poor Slingsby had been
driven off the road by the great Flaming Tinman, "Black Jack," whose clan
name was Anselo Herne, who, thrusting a Bible into Slingsby's mouth,
forced him to swear his Bible oath that he would surrender his beat.
Here was a truly picturesque situation after Borrow's own taste, and, no
doubt with a joyful heart, he paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for
his tinker's outfit, bought a wagoner's frock from the landlady, and felt
ready enough to encounter the dreaded "Black Jack."

[Picture: A quaint corner in Borrow's House. By C. M. Nichols, R.E.]

Borrow avers that he fled from London "from fear of consumption," that he
must do something or go mad, so, having a kn