to touch the objects along his path in order to save himself from the
evil chance. He never conquered the superstition. In walking
through Richmond Park he would step out of his way constantly to
touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with seemed to
observe it." {61a}


The chance meeting with Jack Slingsby (in fear of his life from the
Flaming Tinman, and bound by oath not to continue on the same beat)
gave Borrow the idea of buying out Slingsby, beat, plant, pony and
all. "A tinker is his own master, a scholar is not," {61b} he
remarks, and then proceeds to draw tears and moans from the
dispirited Slingsby and his family by a description of the joys of
tinkering, "the happiest life under heaven . . . pitching your tent
under the pleasant hedge-row, listening to the song of the feathered
tribes, collecting all the leaky kettles in the neighbourhood,
soldering and joining, earning your honest bread by the wholesome
sweat of your brow." {62a}

By the expenditure of five pounds ten shillings, plus the cost of a
smock-frock and some provisions, George Borrow, linguist, editor and
translator, became a travelling tinker. With his dauntless little
pony, Ambrol, he set out, a tinkering Ulysses, indifferent to what
direction he took, allowing the pony to go whither he felt inclined.
At first he experienced some apprehension at passing the night with
only a tent or the stars as a roof. Rain fell to mar the opening day
of the adventure, but the pony, with unerring instinct, led his new
master to one of Slingsby's usual camping grounds.

In the morning Borrow fell to examining what it was beyond the pony