Captain Borrow rejoined his regiment at Norman Cross, leaving his family to follow a few days later. At the time the country round Peterborough was under water owing to the recent heavy rains, and at one portion of the journey the whole party had to embark in a species of punt, which was towed by horses “up to the knees in water, and, on coming to blind pools and ‘greedy depths,’ were not unfrequently swimming.” { 11b} But they were all old campaigners and accepted such adventures as incidents of a soldier’s life.
At Norman Cross George made the acquaintance of an old snake-catcher and herbalist, a circumstance which, insignificant in itself, was to exercise a considerable influence over his whole life. Frequently this curious pair were to be seen tramping the countryside together; a tall, quaint figure with fur cap and gaiters carrying a leathern bag of wriggling venom, and an eager child with eyes that now burned with interest and intelligence—and the talk of the two was the lore of the viper. When the snake-catcher passed out of the life of his young disciple, he left behind him as a present a tame and fangless viper, which George often carried with him on his walks. It was this well-meaning and inoffensive viper that turned aside the wrath of Gypsy Smith, { 12a} and awakened in his heart a superstitious awe and veneration for the child, the _Sap-engro_, who might be a goblin, but who certainly would make a most admirable “clergyman and God Almighty,” who read from a book that contained the kind of prayers particularly to his taste—perhaps the greatest encomium ever bestowed upon the immortal _Robinson Crusoe_. Thus it came about that George Borrow was proclaimed brother to the gypsy’s son Ambrose, { 12b} who as Jasper Petulengro figures so largely in _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_, and is credited with that exquisitely phrased pagan glorification of mere existence:
“Life is sweet, brother . . . There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise the wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?” { 13a}
The Borrows were nomads, permitted by God and the king to tarry not over long in any one place. In the following July (1811) the West Norfolks proceeded to Colchester _via_ Norfolk, after fifteen months of prison duty and straw-plait destroying. { 13b} Captain Borrow betook himself to East Dereham again to seek for likely recruits. In the meantime George made his first acquaintance with that universal specific for success in life, for correctness of conduct, for soundness of principles—Lilly’s Latin Grammar, which to learn by heart was to acquire a virtue that defied evil. The good old pedagogue who advocated Lilly’s Latin Grammar as a remedy for all ills, would have traced George Borrow’s eventual success in life entirely to the fact that within three years of the date that the solemn exhortation was pronounced the boy had learned Lilly by heart, although without in the least degree comprehending him.