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Borrow’s giant frame made him stand conspicuous wherever he went, Groome’s slender, slight body gave an impression of great agility; and the walk of the two great pedestrians was equally contrasted. Borrow’s slope over the ground with the loose, long step of a hound I have, on a previous occasion, described; Groome’s walk was springy as a gipsy lad’s, and as noiseless as a cat’s.
And upon all these subjects Groome’s knowledge was like an inexhaustible fountain; or rather it was like a tap, ready to supply any amount of lore when called upon to do so.
Our close friendship dated no further back than 1881—the year in which died the great Romany Rye. Indeed, it was owing to Borrow’s death, coupled with Groome’s interest in that same Romany girl Sinfi Lovell, whom the eloquent Romany preacher “Gipsy Smith” has lately been expiating upon to immense audiences, that I first became acquainted with Groome.
This incident affords an illustration of the width as well as the thoroughness of Groome’s knowledge of Romany matters. I have affirmed in ‘Aylwin’ that Sinfi Lovell—a born linguist who could neither read nor write—was the only gipsy who knew both English and Welsh Romany. Groome was one of the few Englishmen who knew the most interesting of all varieties of the Romany tongue.
H. A. Webster, who, in order to get the work out in time, sat up night after night in Groome’s room, writing articles on Sterne, Voltaire, and other subjects. Webster’s kindness, and afterwards the kindness of Dr.
In 1869 he got prizes for classical literature, Latin prose, Latin elegiacs, and Latin hexameters. But if Dr. Holden exercised much influence over Groome’s taste, the assistant master, Mr. Sanderson, certainly exercised more, for Mr. Sanderson was an enthusiastic student of Romany. The influence of the assistant master was soon seen after Groome went up to Oxford.
But while Borrow was for ever displaying his philology, and seemed always far prouder of it than of his fascinating powers as a writer of romantic adventures, Groome’s philological stores, like all his other intellectual riches, had to be drawn from him by his interlocutor if they were to be recognized at all.
I published instead my poem in which was told the story of Rhona Boswell, which, to my own surprise and Groome’s, had a success, notwithstanding its gipsy subject. Then I brought out my gipsy story, and accepted its success rather ungratefully, remembering how the greatest gipsy scholar in the world had failed in this line.
Sanderson, after Groome had left Ipswich School, used to go and stay at Monk Soham Rectory every summer for fishing; and this tended to focus Groome’s interest in Romany matters. At Göttingen, where he afterwards went, he found himself in a kind of Romany atmosphere, for, owing perhaps to Benfey’s having been a Göttingen man, Romany matters were still somewhat rife there in certain sets.
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