Borrow's attitude towards Isopel was curiously complex; he seemed to
find pleasure in playing upon her emotions. At times he appeared as
deliberately brutal to her, as to the gypsy girl Ursula when he
talked with her beneath the hedge. He forced from Isopel a
passionate rebuke that he sought only to vex and irritate "a poor
ignorant girl . . . who can scarcely read or write." He asked her to
marry him, but not until he had convinced her that he was mad. How
much she had become part of his life in the dingle he did not seem to
realise until after she had left him. Isopel Berners was a woman
whose character was almost masculine in its strength; but she was
prepared to subdue her spirit to his, wished to do so even. With her
strength, however, there was wisdom, and she left Borrow and the
dingle, sending him a letter of farewell that was certainly not the
composition of "a poor girl" who could "scarcely read or write." The
story itself is in all probability true; but the letter rings false.
Isopel may have sent Borrow a letter of farewell, but not the one
that appears in The Romany Rye.

Among Borrow's papers Dr Knapp discovered a fragment of manuscript in
which Mr Petulengro is shown deliberating upon the expediency of
emulating King Pharaoh in the number of his wives. Mrs Petulengro
desires "a little pleasant company," and urges her husband to take a
second spouse. He proceeds:-


"Now I am thinking that this here Bess of yours would be just the
kind of person both for my wife and myself. My wife wants something
gorgiko, something genteel. Now Bess is of blood gorgious; if you
doubt it, look at her face, all full of pawno ratter, white blood,
brother; and as for gentility, nobody can make exceptions to Bess's