Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration | Page 4

the boy proceeded to read them a bit of "Robinson Crusoe," it was voted that it "beat the rubricals hollow." Next followed the momentous meeting with Ambrose Smith--the Jasper Petulengro of Borrow's pages--and, as the band of gypsies were departing, Jasper, turning round, leered into the little Gorgio's face, held out his hand, and said, "Goodbye, Sap, I daresay we shall meet again; remember we are brothers, two gentle brothers." Gazing after the retreating company, the sap-engro said to himself, "A strange set of people, I wonder who they can be." Such was Borrow's first introduction to the Romany folk.
From July, 1811, to July, 1814, the Borrows led a nomadic life, yet at each tarrying-place Captain Borrow sent his sons to the best school available, and George, in these three years' travelling with the regiment, acquired Lilly's Latin Grammar by heart. A Dereham schoolmaster had assured Captain Borrow that "there is but one good school book in the world--the one I use in my seminary--Lilly's Latin Grammar." There is, it may be added, good evidence that Shakespeare was taught out of this venerable work.
Early in 1813 our interesting family were in Edinburgh, where the Borrow boys were sent to the celebrated High School, and George entered with zest into the faction fights between the Auld and the New Toon. More, and better than this, he picked up just such a wild character as fitted in with his romantic scheme of things. This was David Haggart, son of a gamekeeper and guilty of nearly every crime in the Statute Book under various aliases--John Wilson, John Morrison, John McColgan, David O'Brien, and "The Switcher." Haggart enlisted as a drummer-boy in Captain Borrow's recruiting-party at Leith Races in July, 1813, being then just twelve years old; but soon tiring of discipline and scanty pay, obtained his discharge, soon after embarking on a career of crime which culminated in his well-deserved hanging at Edinburgh in 1821, at the age of twenty.
[Picture: Crown and Angel, St. Stephen's. From Drawing by Mr. H. W. Tuck]
In June, 1814, the West Norfolk Regiment was ordered south; some went by sea, those who preferred by land. Captain Borrow chose the latter, and on July 18th his division entered Norwich, and the Earl of Orford, colonel of the regiment, entertained the officers and their friends at the Maid's Head Hotel. At this time Captain Borrow and his family went to lodge at the Crown and Angel, an ancient hostelry in St. Stephen's Street. From that convenient centre, the recruiting-parties under Captain Borrow were very successful in obtaining men, by beat of drum instead of by ballot, as had previously been the practice. But troubles arose in Ireland, and in August, 1815, the West Norfolks were again on the move. They found themselves at Cork early in September, and marched on to Clonmel.
During their short interval at Norwich, George went to the Grammar School, and his brother studied painting with "Old Crome."
[Picture: The Grammar School]
Captain Borrow commanded a division, and George walked by his side, holding the stirrup-leather of his horse, while John Thomas Borrow, gazetted ensign in May and lieutenant in December, was in his place in the regiment. At Clonmel the Borrows lodged with a handsome athletic man and his wife, who enthusiastically welcomed them. "I have made bold to bring up a bottle of claret," said the Orangeman, ". . . and when your honour and your family have dined, I will make bold too to bring up Mistress Hyne from Londonderry, to introduce to your honour's lady, and then we'll drink to the health of King George, God bless him; to the 'glorious and immortal'--to Boyne water--to your honour's speedy promotion to be Lord-Lieutenant."
Here at Clonmel our hero "read the Latin tongue and the Greek letters with a nice old clergyman, who sat behind a black oaken desk, with a huge Elzevir Flaccus before him." "Here," says Borrow, "I was in the habit of sitting on a large stone, before the roaring fire in the huge open chimney, and entertaining certain of the Protestant young gentlemen of my own age . . . with extraordinary accounts of my own adventures and those of the corps, with an occasional anecdote extracted from the story-books of Hickathrift and Wight Wallace, pretending to be conning the lesson all the while." Borrow calls Hickathrift his countryman; the legend is that Tom Hickathrift ridded the Fenland between Lynn and Wisbech, of a monstrous giant, by slaying him with the axle-tree of his cart. I gave the full story of this Norfolk giant-killer in the Gentleman's Magazine, for January, 1896. The boy's genius for story telling was quite exceptional, and when he was at Norwich Grammar School, as his schoolfellow Dr. Martineau informed me, "He used to gather about him three or four