However, the
story of the Huguenot immigration into England is clearly bound up with
Norwich and the adjacent district. And so we may well take the name of
'Perfrement' as conclusive evidence of a French origin, and reject as
utterly untenable the not unnatural suggestion of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
that Borrow's mother was 'of gypsy descent.'[9] She was one of the eight
children of Samuel and Mary Perfrement, all of whom seem to have
devoted their lives to East Anglia.[10] We owe to Dr. Knapp's edition of
_Lavengro_ one exquisite glimpse of Ann's girlhood that is not in any
other issue of the book. Ann's elder sister, curious to know if she was
ever to be married, falls in with the current superstition that she must
wash her linen and 'watch' it drying before the fire between eleven and
twelve at night. Ann Perfrement was ten years old at the time. The two
girls walked over to East Dereham, purchased the necessary garment,
washed it in the pool near the house that may still be seen, and watched
and watched. Suddenly when the clock struck twelve they heard, or
thought they heard, a footstep on the path, the wind howled, and the
elder sister sprang to the door, locked and bolted it, and then fell in
convulsions on the floor. The superstition, which Borrow seems to have
told his mother had a Danish origin, is common enough in Ireland and in
Celtic lands. It could scarcely have been thus rehearsed by two Norfolk
children had they not had the blood of a more imaginative race in their
veins. In addition to this we find more than one effective glimpse of
Borrow's mother in _Lavengro_. We have already noted the episode in
which she takes the side of her younger boy against her husband, with
whom John was the favourite. We meet her again in the following
dialogue, with its pathetic allusions to Dante and to the complaint--a
kind of nervous exhaustion which he called 'the horrors'--that was to
trouble Borrow all his days:

'What ails you, my child?' said a mother to her son, as he lay
on a couch under the influence of the dreadful one; 'what ails
you? you seem afraid!'

_Boy._ And so I am; a dreadful fear is upon me.

_Mother._ But of what? there is no one can harm you; of what
are you apprehensive?

_Boy._ Of nothing that I can express. I know not what I am
afraid of, but afraid I am.

_Mother._ Perhaps you see sights and visions. I knew a lady
once who was continually thinki