birth. Yes, the proud Spaniard's sword is to be seen in yonder
guildhouse, in the glass case affixed to the wall; many other relics
has the good old town, but none prouder than the Spaniard's sword."

After these descriptive passages, he at once passes to the questionings
of his father and mother as to the career of "the other child," much more
difficult to settle in life than his more sober-minded elder brother, who
had, as Dr. Martineau informed me, "quite too much sense" to join in the
wild escapade described by Dr. Knapp in one of his most "purple patches."
Captain Borrow was sadly exercised about his younger son, and exclaimed,
in the discussion about his prospects, "Why, he has neither my hair nor
eyes; and then his countenance! Why, 'tis absolutely swarthy, God
forgive me! I had almost said like that of a gypsy, but I have nothing
to say against that; the boy is not to be blamed for the colour of his
face, nor for his hair and eyes; but, then, his ways and manners!"

Our glimpses of the Grammar School life are meagre, but we can readily
understand that to a lad of Borrow's temperament the routine of a
well-ordered school was naturally distasteful, though he loved to gain
knowledge from any unconventional source open to him. So we find him
studying French and Italian with "one banished priest," the Rev. Thomas
D'Eterville, M.A., of Caen University, who, as Borrow says, "lived in an
old court of the old town," having come to Norwich in 1793. He
advertised his "school in St. Andrew's," and this was situated in
Locket's Yard, now built over by Messrs. Harmer's factory. Later he
resided in the Strangers' Hall, then occupied by priests of the adjoining
Roman Catholic Chapel of St. John, now superseded by the grand church
which towers on the crest of St. Giles's Hill. The Norman priest was
robust, with a slight stoop, but a rapid and vigorous step, "sixty or
thereabouts," when Borrow was his pupil in 1816, according to "Lavengro."
But he was really considerably younger, for when he died at Caen,
February 22nd, 1843, his age was given as seventy-six. In a local
obituary notice he was described as "a well-known and respected
inhabitant of Norwich for upwards of forty years, who retired a few
months ago to end his days in his native country." He made a small
fortune, and there were rumours that he was engaged in the contraband
trade. In a suppressed passage, reproduced by Dr. Knapp in his notes to
"Laveng