tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[22]  It was here, in 1818, that Borrow encountered again Ambrose Petulengro, an event that was to exercise a considerable influence upon his life.  Mr Petulengro had become the head of his tribe, his father and mother having been transported for passing bad money.  He was now a man, with a wife, a child, and also a mother-in-law, who took a violent dislike to the tall, fair-haired gorgio.  Borrow’s life was much broadened by his intercourse with Mr Petulengro.  He was often at the gypsy encampment on Mousehold, a heath just outside Norwich, where, under the tuition of his host, he learned the Romany tongue with such rapidity as to astonish his instructor and earn for him among the gypsies the name of “Lav-engro,” word-fellow or word-master.  He also boxed with the godlike Tawno Chikno, who in turn pronounced him worthy to bear the name “Cooro-mengro,” fist-fellow or fist-master.  He frequently accompanied Mr Petulengro to neighbouring fairs and markets, riding one of the gypsy’s horses.  At other times the two would roam over the gorse-covered Mousehold, discoursing largely about things Romany.

The departure of Mr Petulengro and his retinue from Norwich threw Borrow back once more upon his linguistic studies, his fishing, his shooting, and his smouldering discontent at the constraints of school life.  It was probably an endeavour on Borrow’s part to make himself more like his gypsy friends that prompted him to stain his face with walnut juice, drawing from the Rev. Edward Valpy the question: “Borrow, are you suffering from jaundice, or is it only dirt?”  The gypsies were not the only vagabonds of Borrow’s acquaintance at this period.  There were the Italian peripatetic vendors of weather-glasses, who had their headquarters at Norwich.  In after years he met again more than one of these merchants.  They were always glad to see him and revive old memories of the Norwich days.

About this time he saved a boy from drowning in the Yare. [23]  It may be this act with which he generously credits his brother John when he says—

“I have known him dash from a steep bank into a stream in his full dress, and pull out a man who was drowning; yet there were twenty others bathing in the water, who might have saved him by putting out a hand, without inconvenience to themselves, which, however, they did not do, but stared with stupid surprise at the drowning one’s struggles.” [24]

From the first Borrow had shown a strong distaste for the humdrum routine of school life.  In a thousand ways he was different from his fellows.  He had been accustomed to meet strange and, to him, deeply interesting people.  Now he was bidden adopt a course of life against which his whole nature rebelled.  It was impossible.  He missed the atmosphere of vagabondage that had inspired and stimulated his early boyhood.

The crisis came at last.  There was only one way to avoid the awkward and distasteful destiny that was being forced upon him.  He entered into a conspiracy with three school-fellows, all younger than himself, to make a dash for a life that should offer wider opportunities to their adventurous natures.  The plan was to tramp to Great Yarmouth and there excavate on the seashore caves for their habitation.  From these headquarters they would make foraging expeditions, and live on what they could extract from the surrounding country, either by force or by the terror that they inspired.  One morning the four started on their twenty-mile trudge to the sea; but, when only a few miles out, one of their number became fearful and turned back.

Encouraged by their leader, the others continued on their way.  The father of the other two boys appears to have got wind of the project and posted after them in a chaise.  He came up with them at Acle, about eleven miles from Norwich.  When they were first seen, Borrow was striving to hearten his fellow buccaneers, who were tired and dispirited after their long walk.  The three were unceremoniously bundled into the chaise and returned to their homes and, subsequently, to the wrath of the Rev. Edward Valpy. [25a]

The names of the three confederates were John Dalrymple (whose heart failed him) and Theodosius and Francis Purland, sons of a Norwich chemist.  The Purlands are credited with robbing “the paternal till,” while Dalrymple confined himself to the less compromising duty of “gathering horse-pistols and potatoes.”  If the boys robbed their father’s till, why did they beg?  In the ballad entitled The Wandering Children and the Benevolent Gentleman, Borrow depicts the “eldest child” as begging for charity for these hungry children, who have had “no breakfast, save the haws.”  This does not seem to suggest that the boys were in the possession of money.  Again, it was the father of one of their schoolfellows who was responsible for their capture, according to Dr Knapp, by asking them to dinner whilst he despatched a messenger to the Rev. Edward Valpy.  The story of Borrow’s being “horsed” on Dr Martineau’s back is apocryphal.  Martineau himself denied it. [25b]

There is no record of how Captain Borrow received the news of his younger son’s breach of discipline.  It probably reminded him that the boy was now fifteen and it was time to think about his future.  The old soldier was puzzled.  Not only had his second son shown a great partiality for acquiring Continental tongues, but he had learned Irish, and Captain Borrow seemed to think that by learning the language of Papists and rebels, his son had sullied the family honour.  To his father’s way of thinking, this accomplishment seemed to bar him from most things that were at one and the same time honourable and desirable.

The boy’s own inclinations pointed to the army; but Captain Borrow had apparently seen too much of the army in war time, and the slowness of promotion, to think of it as offering a career suitable to his son, now that there was every prospect of a prolonged peace.  He thought of the church as an alternative; but here again that fatal facility the boy had shown in learning Erse seemed to stand out as a barrier.  “I have observed the poor lad attentively and really I do not see what to make of him,” Captain Borrow is said to have remarked.  What could be expected of a lad who would forsake Greek for Irish, or Latin for the barbarous tongue of homeless vagabonds?  Certainly not a good churchman.  At length it became obvious to the distressed parents that there was only one choice left them—the law.

About this period Borrow fell ill of some nameless and unclassified disease, which defied the wisdom of physicians, who shook their heads gravely by his bedside.  An old woman, however, cured him by a decoction prepared from a bitter root.  The convalescence was slow and laborious; for the boy’s nerves were shattered, and that deep, haunting melancholy, which he first called the “Fear” and afterwards the “Horrors,” descended upon him.

On the 30th of March 1819 Borrow was articled for five years to Simpson & Rackham, solicitors, of Tuck’s Court, St Giles, Norwich.