he became
rather inaccessible; but an East Englishman always had a better chance of
successfully approaching him than any one not so fortunate as to have
been born within the compass of East Anglia. Mr. Theodore Watts
discovered this when Borrow and he were the guests of Dr. Hake at
Roehampton.

"When I went on to tell him," writes Mr. Watts, "that I once used to
drive a genuine Shales mare, a descendant of that same famous Norfolk
trotter who could trot fabulous miles an hour, to whom he, with the
Norfolk farmers, raised his hat in reverence at the Norwich horse fair;
and when I promised to show him a portrait of this same East Anglian mare
with myself behind her in a dogcart--an East Anglian dogcart; when I
praised the stinging saltness of the sea-water of Yarmouth, Lowestoft,
and Cromer, the quality of which makes it the best, the most delightful
of all sea-water to swim in; when I told him that the only English river
in which you could see reflected the rainbow he loved was 'the glassy
Ouse' of East Anglia, and the only place in England where you could see
it reflected in the wet sand was the Norfolk coast; and when I told him a
good many things showing that I was in very truth not only an Englishman
but an East Englishman, my conquest of the 'walking lord of gipsy lore'
was complete, and from that moment we became friends."

"It is on sand alone," said Borrow, "that the sea strikes its true
music--Norfolk sand."

"The best of the sea's lutes," chimed in the artful Watts, "is made by
the sands of Cromer."

CHAPTER II: EARLY DAYS

The eighteenth century had almost run its course when the exigencies of
England's conflict with the French brought Thomas Borrow, a stalwart
Cornishman, into East Anglia, on recruiting service. For several years
the worthy West-countryman had served his king in the rank and file of
the British army before he was appointed sergeant-major of the newly
raised body of West Norfolk Militia. The headquarters of this regiment
was East Dereham, a pleasant little country town situated about sixteen
miles from the Norfolk capital.

Thomas Borrow came of a good Cornish family, and explanation of his
having attained nothing better than non-commissioned rank is to be found
in the fact that he preferred to enter the army as a private
soldier--some say that he ran away from home in order to enlist. That
his duties as a sergeant-major were performed in a creditable and
satisfactory man