sea-board; there is a sight
for you upon the billows! A dozen men-of-war are gliding majestically
out of port, their long buntings streaming from the top-gallant masts,
calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays;
and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the East? A gallant
frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled privateer,
which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose
crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their impudence in an English
hold. Stirring times those, which I love to recall, for they were days
of gallantry and enthusiasm, and were moreover the days of my boyhood."

"Pleasant were those days," and there is a "melancholy pleasure" in
recalling them. The two combine in this autobiography with strange
effect, for they set the man side by side with the child as an invisible
companion haunting him.

Whatever was the change that came over Borrow in the 'forties, and showed
itself in melancholy and unrest, this long-continued contemplation of his
childhood betrayed him into a profound change of tone. Neither Africa
nor the East could have shown him as much mystery as this wide England of
a child ignorant of geography, and it kept hold of him for twice as long
as Spain. It offered him relief and escape, and gladly did he accept
them, and deeply he indulged in them. He found that he had that within
himself as wild as any mountain or maniac-haunted ruin of Spain. For
example, he recalled his schooldays in Ireland, and how one day he set
out to visit his elder brother, the boy lieutenant:

"The distance was rather considerable, yet I hoped to be back by evening
fall, for I was now a shrewd walker, thanks to constant practice. I set
out early, and, directing my course towards the north, I had in less than
two hours accomplished considerably more than half of the journey. The
weather had been propitious: a slight frost had rendered the ground firm
to the tread, and the skies were clear; but now a change came over the
scene, the skies darkened, and a heavy snow-storm came on; the road then
lay straight through a bog, and was bounded by a deep trench on both
sides; I was making the best of my way, keeping as nearly as I could in
the middle of the road, lest, blinded by the snow which was frequently
borne into my eyes by the wind, I might fall into the dyke, when all at
once I heard a shout to windward, and turning my eyes I s