[21a] “It is probable, that had I been launched about this time into some agreeable career, that of arms, for example, for which, being the son of a soldier, I had, as was natural, a sort of penchant, I might have thought nothing more of the acquisition of tongues of any kind; but, having nothing to do, I followed the only course suited to my genius which appeared open to me.”—Lavengro, page 89.
[21b] The Rev. Thomas D’Eterville, M.A., “Poor Old Detterville,” as the Grammar School boys called him, of Caen University, who arrived at Norwich in 1793. He acquired a small fortune by teaching languages. There were rumours that he was engaged in the contraband trade, an occupation more likely to bring fortune than teaching languages.
[21c] Letter from “A School-fellow of Lavengro” in The Britannia, 26th April 1851.
[22] It was here, in 1827, that he saw the world’s greatest trotter, Marshland Shales, and in common with other lovers of horses lifted his hat to salute “the wondrous horse, the fast trotter, the best in mother England.” In Lavengro Borrow antedated this event by some nine years.
[23] Manuscript autobiographical notes supplied by Borrow to Mr John Longe, 1862.
[24] Lavengro, page 134.
[25a] This account is taken from a letter by “A Schoolfellow of Lavengro” in The Britannia, 26th April 1851.
[25b] In a letter to Borrow, dated 15th October 1862, John Longe, J.P., of Spixworth Park, Norwich, in acknowledging some biographical particulars that Borrow had sent him for inclusion in Burton’s Antiquities of the Royal School of Norwich, wrote:—
“You have omitted an important and characteristic anecdote of your early days (fifteen years of age). When at school you, with Theodosius and Francis W. Purland, absented yourself from home and school and took up your abode in a certain ‘Robber’s Cave’ at Acle, where you resided three days, and once more returned to your homes.”
[26] According to the original manuscript of Lavengro, it appears that Roger Kerrison, a Norwich friend of Borrow’s, strongly advised the law as “an excellent profession . . . for those who never intend to follow it.”—Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp, i., 66.