that of a Gypsy." As in Scotland and Ireland, so now at Norwich,
Captain Borrow probably let the boy do what he liked. As for Mrs.
Borrow, perhaps she favoured the boy, who took after her in eyes and
complexion, if not also in temperament. Her influence was of an
unconscious kind, strengthening her prenatal influence; unlike her
husband, she had no doubt that "Providence" would take care of the boy.
Borrow, at least, thought her like himself. In a suppressed portion of
the twentieth chapter of "Lavengo" he makes his parents talk together in
the garden, and the mother having a story to tell suggests their going in
because it is growing dark. The father says that a tale of terror is the
better for being told in the dark, and hopes she is not afraid. The
mother scoffs at the mention of fear, and yet, she says, she feels a
thrill as if something were casting a cold shadow on her. She wonders if
this feeling is like the indescribable fear, "which he calls the shadow,"
which sometimes attacks her younger child. "Never mind the child or his
shadow," says the father, and bids her go on. And from what follows the
mother has evidently told the story before to her son. This dialogue may
very well express the contrast between husband and wife and their
attitudes towards their younger son. Borrow very eloquently addresses
his father as "a noble specimen of those strong single-minded Englishmen,
who, without making a parade either of religion or loyalty, feared God
and honoured their king, and were not particularly friendly to the
French," and as a pugilist who almost vanquished the famous Ben Bryan;
but he does not conceal the fact that he was "so little to thee that thou
understoodst me not."

At Norwich Grammar School Borrow had as schoolfellows James Martineau and
James Brooke, afterwards Rajah of Sarawak. The headmaster was one Edward
Valpy, who thrashed Borrow, and there is nothing more to be said. The
boy was fond of study but not of school. "For want of something better
to do," he taught himself some French and Italian, but wished he had a
master. A master was found in a French _emigre_, the Rev. Thomas
D'Eterville, who gave private lessons to Borrow, among others, in French,
Italian and Spanish. His other teachers were an old musket with which he
shot bullfinches, blackbirds and linnets, a fishing rod with which he
haunted the Yare, and the sporting gent, John Thurtell, who taught him to
box and accustomed him