The Life of George Borrow | Page 7

recruits to fill up the gaps. War broke out again the following
year (18th May 1803), and the Great Terror assumed a phase so critical
as to subdue almost entirely all thought of party strife. On 5th July Ann
Borrow gave birth to a second son, in the house of her father. At the
time Captain Borrow was hunting for recruits in other parts of Norfolk,
in order to send them to Colchester, where the regiment was stationed.
In due course the child was christened George Henry {7a} at the church
of East Dereham, and, within a few weeks of his birth, he received his
first experience of the vicissitudes of a soldier's life, by accompanying
his father, mother, and brother to Colchester to rejoin the regiment. The
whole infancy of George Borrow was spent in the same trailing
restlessness. Napoleon was alive and at large, and the West Norfolks
seemed doomed eternally to march and countermarch in the threatened
area, Sussex, Kent, Essex.
No efforts appear to have been made to steal the younger brother,
although "people were in the habit of standing still to look at me, ay,
more than at my brother." {7b} Unlike John in about everything that
one child could be unlike another, George was a gloomy, introspective
creature who considerably puzzled his parents. He compares himself to
"a deep, dark lagoon, shaded by black pines, cypresses and yews," {7c}
beside which he once paused to contemplate "a beautiful stream . . .
sparkling in the sunshine, and . . . tumbling merrily into cascades," {7d}
which he likened to his brother.
Slow of comprehension, almost dull-witted, shy of society, sometimes
bursting into tears when spoken to, George became "a lover of nooks
and retired corners," {7e} where he would sit for hours at a time a prey
to "a peculiar heaviness . . . and at times . . . a strange sensation of fear,
which occasionally amounted to horror," {7f} for which there was no
apparent cause. In time he grew to be as much disliked as his brother
was admired. On one occasion an old Jew pedlar, attracted by the latent
intelligence in the smouldering eyes of the silent child, who ignored his
questions and continued tracing in the dust with his fingers curious
lines, pronounced him "a prophet's child." This carried to the mother's
heart a quiet comfort; and reawakened in her hope for the future of her
second son.

The early childhood of George Borrow was spent in stirring times.
Without, there was the menace of Napoleon's invasion; within, every
effort was being made to meet and repel it. Dumouriez was preparing
his great scheme of defence; Captain Thomas Borrow was doing his
utmost to collect and drill men to help in carrying it into effect.
Sometimes the family were in lodgings; but more frequently in
barracks, for reasons of economy. Once, at least, they lived under
canvas.
The strange and puzzling child continued to impress his parents in a
manner well-calculated to alarm them. One day, with a cry of delight,
he seized a viper that, "like a line of golden light," was moving across
the lane in which he was playing. Whilst making no effort to harm the
child, who held and regarded it with awe and admiration, the reptile
showed its displeasure towards John, his brother, by hissing and raising
its head as if to strike. This happened when George was between two
and three years of age. At about the same period he ate largely of some
poisonous berries, which resulted in "strong convulsions," lasting for
several hours. He seems to have been a source of constant anxiety to
his parents, who were utterly unable to understand the strange and
gloomy child who had been vouchsafed to them by the inscrutable
decree of providence.
In the middle of the year 1809 the regiment returned from Essex to
Norfolk, marching first to Norwich and thence to other towns in the
county. Captain Borrow and his family took up their quarters once
more at Dereham. George was now six years old, acutely observant of
the things that interested him, but reluctant to proceed with studies
which, in his eyes, seemed to have nothing to recommend them. Books
possessed no attraction for him, although he knew his alphabet and
could even read imperfectly. The acquirement of book-learning he
found a dull and dolorous business, to which he was driven only by the
threats or entreaties of his parents, who showed some concern lest he
should become an "arrant dunce."
The intelligence that the old Jew pedlar had discovered still lay
dormant, as if unwilling to manifest itself. The boy loved best "to look
upon the heavens, and to bask in the rays of the sun, or to sit beneath
hedgerows