Part 1 (2/2)
Borrow's corps was levied anew, and his eldest son, John, became one of its officers. Before the regiment saw service, however, the escaped lion was again caged. But it was not disbanded, and, being in a thoroughly efficient state, was ordered to Ireland, where local trouble was feared.
The autumn of 1815 saw the Borrows sail from Harwich. After a voyage of eight days, during which a terrific storm was encountered and the transports nearly foundered, the military force of eight hundred men was landed on the Irish coast. After a lengthy stay at Clonmel, where, as in Edinburgh, George was sent to school, the corps moved their quarters to Templemore.
During the following year, Captain Borrow returned to Norfolk, and settled down with his family in a small house which is still standing in Willow Lane, Norwich. George was at once entered as a pupil at King Edward's Grammar School, then conducted by Dr. Valpy, and remained a scholar there till 1818, when he attained his fifteenth year. As a schoolboy he appears to have been an apter pupil of Defoe than of the reverend headmaster of the Norwich academy. Dr. James Martineau, who was one of his schoolfellows, has related how Borrow once persuaded several of his companions to rob their father's tills, and run away to join the smugglers of the East Anglian coast. For this escapade he was awarded due punishment, which he received hoisted on the back of the future celebrated Unitarian divine. Miss Frances Cobbe, who knew both Borrow and Dr. Martineau in after years, says in her Autobiography, ”The early connection between the two old men as I knew them was irresistibly comic to my mind. When I asked Mr. Borrow once to come andmeet some friends at our house, he accepted our invitation as usual, but, on finding that Dr.
Martineau was to be of the party, hastily withdrew his acceptance on a transparent excuse, nor did he ever after attend our little a.s.semblies without first ascertaining that Dr. Martineau would not be present.”
On another occasion, George-probably in emulation of the East Anglian Iceni-dyed his face with walnut juice, causing Dr. Valpy to inquire whether he was ”suffering from jaundice, or if it was only dirt.” Dr.
Jessop, who was afterwards headmaster of the school, says that there was a tradition that Borrow was indolent and even stupid. There is little doubt that he was a dreamy youth, much given to introspective thought and wild imaginings; but, in spite of these drawbacks in the dominie's eyes, he was a very human boy, fond of outdoor life and sports. Some of his pursuits, however-such as his liking for philological studies, and for the company of gipsies and horsey men generally-might well trouble his father, who was a steady-going old gentleman of strictly conventional methods and ideas. George stood in considerable awe of him, and always felt ill at ease in his presence. No doubt the old soldier frequently remonstrated with him for his indulgence in idle pleasures and lax ideas of duty. As a lad, he probably found it hard to justify himself in his father's eyes, but there is a pa.s.sage in ”Lavengro,” written five-and-twenty years later, which clearly expresses his views:
”I have heard talk of the pleasures of idleness, yet it is my own firm belief that no one ever yet took pleasure in it. Mere idleness is the most disagreeable state of existence, and both mind and body are continually making efforts to escape from it. It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness.
There are many tasks and occupations which a man is unwilling to perform, but let no one think that he is therefore in love with idleness; he turns to something which is more agreeable to his inclination, and doubtless more suited to his nature, but he is not in love with idleness. A boy may play the truant from school because he dislikes his books and study; but, depend upon it, he intends doing something the while-to go fis.h.i.+ng, or perhaps to take a walk; and who knows but that from such excursions both his mind and body may derive more benefit than from books and school?”
Contemporary with Borrow at Norwich Grammar School were several lads whose names were afterwards written in large and s.h.i.+ning letters on the scroll of fame. Amongst these were James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Archdale Wilson, and, as has already been said, Dr. James Martineau.
The old city has always borne itself with dignity during the pa.s.sage of events that have gone to make up its history, as though conscious of its ability to send forth into the world sons who would do honour to her record and old foundations and traditions. From that old school they have gone out into every walk of life, carrying with them over land and sea, into court and pulpit, to bench and bar, hallowed memories of days spent within its walls. Not ten years before Borrow's name was entered on its roll, its most brilliant star had set at Trafalgar, where Nelson found amidst the hailing death that poured upon the decks of the battered _Victory_ the pa.s.sport to immortal fame and glory.
CHAPTER III: THE LAWYER'S CLERK
When, at the end of his fifteenth year, George Borrow completed his term of study at the Norwich Grammar School, his parents had considerable difficulty in determining upon a profession for their erratic son. In the solution of this problem he, himself, could help them but little towards a satisfactory conclusion. His strange disposition and tastes were a source of continual astonishment and mystification to the old people. What, they asked themselves, could be done with a lad whose only decided bent was in the direction of philological studies, who at an early age had attained a knowledge of Erse, and whose great pleasure it was to converse in Romany with the gipsies whom he met at the fair-ground on Norwich Castle Hill? His father was anxious that he should enter the Church; but George's unsettled disposition was an effectual bar against his taking such a step, for he would never have been able to apply himself with sufficient attention to the necessary routine course of college study.
In the midst of the warm controversy that the question excited he fell ill, and firmly believed that he was going to die. His near approach to dissolution found him quite resigned. A listless willingness to let life go, grew upon him during the dreary days of helpless inactivity.
”Death,” he said, ”appeared to him little else than a pleasant sleep, and he wished for sleep.” But a long life was before him, and, after spending weeks upon his bed, his strength came back to him, and with it the still unsolved problem of a suitable vocation. It was at last decided that he should enter upon a legal career.
There is little doubt that the legal profession was one for which Borrow was the least adapted, and of this he was well aware. When, however, in 1819, the time arrived for him to be articled to Messrs. Simpson and Rackham of Tuck's Court, St. Giles, he apparently offered no objection, and his recollections of the years when he was tied to a lawyer's desk were always pleasant to him in after-life.
But these pleasant recollections had little to do with the duties of his calling-they arose rather from the fact that his work was easy, and so intermittent as to give him ample opportunity for indulging in his day-dreams. Who can doubt the personal basis of that pa.s.sage in ”Lavengro” in which he says: ”Yes, very pleasant times were those, when within the womb of a lofty desk, behind which I sat for some hours every day, transcribing (when I imagined eyes were upon me) doc.u.ments of every description in every possible hand. Blackstone kept company with Ab Gwilym-the polished English lawyer of the last century, who wrote long and prosy chapters on the rights of things-with a certain wild Welshman, who some four hundred years before that time indited immortal cowydds or odes to the wives of Cambrian chieftains-more particularly to one Morfydd, the wife of a certain hunch-backed dignitary called by the poet facetiously Bwa Bach-generally terminating with the modest request of a little private parlance beneath the greenwood bough, with no other witness than the eos, or nightingale; a request which, if the poet may be believed, rather a doubtful point, was seldom, very seldom, denied. And by what strange chance had Gwilym and Blackstone, two personages so exceedingly different, been thus brought together? From what the reader already knows of me, he may be quite prepared to find me reading the former; but what could have induced me to take up Blackstone, or rather law?”
Yes, there was little in Borrow's nature that was in common with that of the followers of the legal profession. What food for his wild imagination could he find in the prosy records and dry-as-dust doc.u.ments of a lawyer's office? They contained words that to him, as to many of his master's clients, were without meaning: his thoughts wandered beyond their mazy entanglements into a realm where the law that restrained was that of Nature alone, and whose only order was planned by the spirit that sent forth shadows and dreams. He had been too much of a rover, had seen too many strange sights in his young life, to be able to satisfy his cravings for knowledge in musty law tomes and dusty deeds. His curiosity had been aroused by many things he had seen in his early travels, he had had glimpses into so many wide fields of interest that led his mind astray. But none of these seemed to the steady-going old Militia captain to show a practical opening for his second son, whom, therefore, we find copying legal doc.u.ments in a ”strange old house occupying one side of a long and narrow court,” instead of going a-viking with the Norseman or roving with the wild Welsh bard.
Borrow has left us a striking picture of the head of the firm of Simpson and Rackham; a picture drawn with that wealth of detail and uncompromising truthfulness which would have made the worthy gentleman tremble had he known at the time what a keen observer he was receiving beneath his roof. ”A more respectable-looking individual was never seen,” writes his erstwhile pupil; ”he really looked what he was, a gentleman of the law-there was nothing of the pettifogger about him: somewhat under middle size, and somewhat rotund in person, he was always dressed in a full suit of black, never worn long enough to become threadbare. His face was rubicund, and not without keenness; but the most remarkable thing about him was his head, which was bald, and shone like polished ivory, nothing more white, smooth and l.u.s.trous. Some people have said that he wore false calves, probably because his black silk stockings never exhibited a wrinkle; they might as well have said that he waddled because his shoes creaked, for these last, which were always without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of a different hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. I cannot say that I ever saw him walk fast.”
And then follows a little glimpse into the provincial life of the old Norfolk capital that shows how little change there has been in the aims and habits of a certain portion of the middle cla.s.s since the first quarter of the century. ”He had a handsome practice, and might have died a very rich man, much richer than he did, had he not been in the habit of giving rather expensive dinners to certain great people, who gave him nothing in return, except their company.”
This worthy old gentleman must have been sorely puzzled as to what he should make of the tall, spare, serious-looking lad who was placed under his charge. He confessed to the old captain that the latter's son was ”a very extraordinary youth, a most remarkable youth, indeed;” and we can well believe him. On one occasion, Borrow showed a one-eyed beggar into his master's private room, and installed him in an armchair ”like a justice of the peace.” At another time, when invited to Mr. Simpson's house, he electrified a learned archdeacon and the company generally by maintaining that his favourite Ab Gwilym was a better poet than Ovid, and that many of the cla.s.sic writers were greatly over-valued. Borrow often distinguished himself later on by his blunt way of expressing his opinions, and the habit seems to have grown upon him early in life.
A sense of duty towards those who were responsible for his upbringing, does not seem to have been a strong point with George Borrow. He disliked the profession to which he was apprenticed, and it is evident that his mind was as absent from his duties as was his heart. He was always dreaming of sagas and sea-rovers, battles and bards. Shut up in his dull and dusty desk, he would
”catch in sudden gleams The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, And islands that were the Hesperides Of all (his) boyish dreams.”
No one will deny that ”the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,”
for have we not all thought such thoughts, and dreamt our dreams? But they are not as a rule conducive to the attainment of a mastery of the details and subtleties of law.
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