ne-eyed beggar into
his master's private room, and installed him in an armchair "like a
justice of the peace." At another time, when invited to Mr. Simpson's
house, he electrified a learned archdeacon and the company generally by
maintaining that his favourite Ab Gwilym was a better poet than Ovid, and
that many of the classic writers were greatly over-valued. Borrow often
distinguished himself later on by his blunt way of expressing his
opinions, and the habit seems to have grown upon him early in life.

A sense of duty towards those who were responsible for his upbringing,
does not seem to have been a strong point with George Borrow. He
disliked the profession to which he was apprenticed, and it is evident
that his mind was as absent from his duties as was his heart. He was
always dreaming of sagas and sea-rovers, battles and bards. Shut up in
his dull and dusty desk, he would

"catch in sudden gleams
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all (his) boyish dreams."

No one will deny that "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,"
for have we not all thought such thoughts, and dreamt our dreams? But
they are not as a rule conducive to the attainment of a mastery of the
details and subtleties of law.

One day an old countryman from the coast brought George a book of Danish
ballads, left at his coast-line cottage by a crew of shipwrecked Danes.
Once possessed of this work, he could not rest satisfied until he had
mastered the Danish language in order that he might unearth its
historical and legendary treasures. "The Danes, the Danes!" he exclaims
to himself, as he holds the priceless volume in his hands. "And was I at
last to become acquainted, and in so singular a manner, with the speech
of a people which had, as far back as I could remember, exercised the
strongest influence over my imagination. For the book was a book of
ballads, about the deeds of knights and champions, and men of huge
stature; ballads which from time immemorial had been sung in the North,
and which some two centuries before the time of which I am speaking, had
been collected by one Anders Vedel, who lived with a certain Tycho Brahe,
and assisted him in making observations upon the heavenly bodies, at a
place called Uranias Castle on the little island of Hveen, in the
Cattegat."

No, Borrow was never meant to be a lawyer; but no calling that was
possible to him