with the Bible Society, who had been recommended to give him work where
he could use his knowledge of languages. As he was at Norwich, the
distance was a hundred and twelve miles, and as he was poor he walked. He
spent fivepence-halfpenny on a pint of ale, half-pint of milk, a roll of
bread and two apples during the journey, which took him twenty-seven
hours. He reached the Society's office early in the morning and waited
for the secretary. When the secretary arrived he hoped that Borrow had
slept well on his journey. Borrow said that, as far as he knew, he had
not slept, because he had walked. The secretary's surprise can be
imagined from this alone, or if not, from what followed. For Borrow went
on talking, and told the man, among other things, that he was stolen by
Gypsies when he was a boy--had passed several years with them, but had at
last been recognised at a fair in Norfolk, and brought home to his family
by an uncle. It was not to be expected that Borrow would conceal from
the public "several years" of this kind. Nevertheless, in none of his
books has he so much as hinted at a period of adoption with Gypsies when
he was a boy. Nor has that massive sleuth-hound, Dr. Knapp, discovered
any traces of such an adoption. If there is any foundation for the story
except Borrow's wish to please the secretary, it is the escapade of his
fourteenth or fifteenth year--when he and three other boys from Norwich
Grammar School played truant, intending to make caves to dwell in among
the sandhills twenty miles away on the coast, but were recognised on the
road, deceitfully detained by a benevolent gentleman and within a few
days brought back, Borrow himself being horsed on the back of James
Martineau, according to the picturesque legend, for such a thrashing that
he had to lie in bed a fortnight and must bear the marks of it while he
was flesh and blood. Borrow celebrated this escapade by a ballad in
dialogue called "The Wandering Children and the Benevolent Gentleman. An
Idyll of the Roads." {13a} There may have been another escapade of the
same kind, for Dr Knapp {13b} prints an account of how Borrow, at the age