water, so she left her party with her blessing, and this
_gillie_ to cheer their hearts:

"In all kinds of weather
Have we lived together;
But now we are parted,
I goes broken hearted.
Ye are no longer Rommany.
To gain a bad brother,
Ye have lost a good mother."

[Picture: Tuck's Court, St. Giles]

[Picture: Portrait of John Crome. By Michael W. Sharpe]

About three years later, Lavengro and Jasper had that conversation on
Mousehold, in which this classic passage occurs:--

"Life is sweet, brother."

"Do you think so?"

"Think so! 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?"

"I would wish to die--"

"You talk like a gorgio--which is the same as talking like a
fool--were you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die
indeed! A Rommany Chal would wish to live for ever!"

"In sickness, Jasper?"

"There's the sun and stars, brother."

"In blindness, Jasper?"

"There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I
would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put
on the gloves; and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is
to be alive, brother!"

Borrow's school era was closed appropriately, says Dr. Knapp, by the
mysterious distemper already referred to, which would, he thought, end
his life; but as he recovered a career had to be decided upon, and,
apparently on the advice of his friend Roger Kerrison, the law was
chosen. So on Monday, March 30th, 1819, George Borrow was articled for a
term of five years to the highly respectable firm of Simpson & Rackham,
whose offices were in Tuck's Court, St. Giles's, still occupied by
solicitors in the persons of Messrs. Leathes Prior & Son. "So," says
Borrow, "I sat behind a desk many hours in the day, ostensibly engaged in
transcribing documents of various kinds. The scene of my labours was a
strange old house, occupying one side of a long and narrow court, into
which, however, the greater number of the windows looked not, but into an
extensive garden, filled with fruit trees, in the rear of a large
handsome house, belonging to a highly respectable gentleman." This was
William Simpson, Town Clerk of Norwich from 1826 till his death, in 1834,