The Life of George Borrow [8]
Murtagh settled any doubts that Borrow may have had as to his ability to acquire Erse, by teaching it to him in exchange for a pack of cards.
On 23rd December 1815 Ensign John Thomas Borrow was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, he being then in his sixteenth year. In the following January, after only a few months' stay, the West Norfolks were moved on to Templemore. It was here that George learned to ride, and that without a saddle, and had awakened in him that "passion for the equine race" that never left him. {17a}
The nine months spent in Ireland left an indelible mark upon Borrow's imagination. In later life he repeatedly referred to his knowledge of the country, its people, and their language. In overcoming the difficulties of Erse, he had opened up for himself a larger prospect than was to be enjoyed by a traveller whose first word of greeting or enquiry is uttered in a hated tongue.
On 11th May 1816 the West Norfolk Militia was back again at Norwich. Peace was now finally restored to Europe, and every nation was far too impoverished, both as regards men and money, to nourish any schemes of aggression. Napoleon was safe at St Helena, under the eye of that instinctive gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe. The army had completed its work and was being disbanded with all possible speed. The turn of the West Norfolk Militia came on 17th June, when they were formally mustered out for the second time within two years. Three years later their Adjutant was retired upon full-pay--eight shillings a day.
CHAPTER II: MAY 1816-MARCH 1824
For the first time since his marriage, Captain Borrow found himself at liberty to settle down and educate his sons. He had spent much of his life in Norfolk, and he decided to remain there and make Norwich his home. It was a quiet and beautiful old-world city: healthy, picturesque, ancient, and, above all, possessed of a Grammar School, where George could try and gather together the stray threads of education that he had acquired at various times and in various dialects. It was an ideal city for a warrior to take his rest in; but probably what counted most with Captain Borrow was the Grammar School--more than the Norman Cathedral, the grim old Castle that stands guardian-like upon its mound, the fact of its being a garrison town, or even the traditions that surrounded the place. He had two sons who must be appropriately sent out into the world, and Norwich offered facilities for educating both. He accordingly took a small house in Willow Lane, to which access was obtained by a covered passage then called King's, but now Borrow's Court.
During the most nomadic portion of his life, when, with discouraging rapidity, he was moving from place to place, Captain Borrow never for one moment seems to have forgotten his obligations as a father. Whenever he had been quartered in a town for a few months, he had sought out a school to which to send John and George, notably at Huddersfield and Sheffield. Had he known it, these precautions were unnecessary; for he had two sons who were of what may be called the self-educating type: John, by virtue of the quickness of his parts; George, on account of the strangeness of his interests and his thirst for a knowledge of men and the tongues in which they communicate to each other their ideas. It would be impossible for an unconventional linguist, such as George Borrow was by instinct, to remain uneducated, and it was equally impossible to educate him.
Quite unaware of the trend of his younger son's genius, Captain Borrow obtained for him a free-scholarship at the Grammar School, then under the headmastership of the Rev. Edward Valpy, B.D., whose principal claims to fame are his severity, his having flogged the conqueror of the "Flaming Tinman," and his destruction of the School Records of Admission, which dated back to the Sixteenth Century. Among Borrow's contemporaries at the Grammar School were "Rajah" Brooke of Sarawak (for whose achievements he in after life expressed a profound admiration), Sir Archdale Wilson of Delhi, Colonel
On 23rd December 1815 Ensign John Thomas Borrow was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, he being then in his sixteenth year. In the following January, after only a few months' stay, the West Norfolks were moved on to Templemore. It was here that George learned to ride, and that without a saddle, and had awakened in him that "passion for the equine race" that never left him. {17a}
The nine months spent in Ireland left an indelible mark upon Borrow's imagination. In later life he repeatedly referred to his knowledge of the country, its people, and their language. In overcoming the difficulties of Erse, he had opened up for himself a larger prospect than was to be enjoyed by a traveller whose first word of greeting or enquiry is uttered in a hated tongue.
On 11th May 1816 the West Norfolk Militia was back again at Norwich. Peace was now finally restored to Europe, and every nation was far too impoverished, both as regards men and money, to nourish any schemes of aggression. Napoleon was safe at St Helena, under the eye of that instinctive gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe. The army had completed its work and was being disbanded with all possible speed. The turn of the West Norfolk Militia came on 17th June, when they were formally mustered out for the second time within two years. Three years later their Adjutant was retired upon full-pay--eight shillings a day.
CHAPTER II: MAY 1816-MARCH 1824
For the first time since his marriage, Captain Borrow found himself at liberty to settle down and educate his sons. He had spent much of his life in Norfolk, and he decided to remain there and make Norwich his home. It was a quiet and beautiful old-world city: healthy, picturesque, ancient, and, above all, possessed of a Grammar School, where George could try and gather together the stray threads of education that he had acquired at various times and in various dialects. It was an ideal city for a warrior to take his rest in; but probably what counted most with Captain Borrow was the Grammar School--more than the Norman Cathedral, the grim old Castle that stands guardian-like upon its mound, the fact of its being a garrison town, or even the traditions that surrounded the place. He had two sons who must be appropriately sent out into the world, and Norwich offered facilities for educating both. He accordingly took a small house in Willow Lane, to which access was obtained by a covered passage then called King's, but now Borrow's Court.
During the most nomadic portion of his life, when, with discouraging rapidity, he was moving from place to place, Captain Borrow never for one moment seems to have forgotten his obligations as a father. Whenever he had been quartered in a town for a few months, he had sought out a school to which to send John and George, notably at Huddersfield and Sheffield. Had he known it, these precautions were unnecessary; for he had two sons who were of what may be called the self-educating type: John, by virtue of the quickness of his parts; George, on account of the strangeness of his interests and his thirst for a knowledge of men and the tongues in which they communicate to each other their ideas. It would be impossible for an unconventional linguist, such as George Borrow was by instinct, to remain uneducated, and it was equally impossible to educate him.
Quite unaware of the trend of his younger son's genius, Captain Borrow obtained for him a free-scholarship at the Grammar School, then under the headmastership of the Rev. Edward Valpy, B.D., whose principal claims to fame are his severity, his having flogged the conqueror of the "Flaming Tinman," and his destruction of the School Records of Admission, which dated back to the Sixteenth Century. Among Borrow's contemporaries at the Grammar School were "Rajah" Brooke of Sarawak (for whose achievements he in after life expressed a profound admiration), Sir Archdale Wilson of Delhi, Colonel