roat. Having afterwards assisted the men in getting
the horse upon its feet, he left them, but not before he had given them a
severe lecture on the treatment of dumb animals in general and fallen
horses in particular.

At another time, a favourite old cat that was ill, crawled out of his
house to die in the garden hedge. Borrow no sooner missed the poor
creature than he went in search of it, and brought it indoors in his
arms. He then laid it down in a comfortable spot, and sat and watched it
till it was dead.

Owing to the somewhat eccentric manner in which he passed his latter
days, there were some persons who assumed after his death that in his
declining years he lacked the attention of friends, and the little
comforts and considerations that are due to old age. Yet this was not
so; if the world heard little of him from the time of his final
retirement into rural seclusion, and lost sight of him and believed him
dead, it was his own choosing that they should remain in ignorance. He
had had his day, a longer and fuller one than falls to the lot of most of
the sons of men, and, when the weight of years began to tell upon him, he
chose to live out the little time that was left to him amidst such scenes
as were in harmony with his nature. He died at Oulton on July 26, 1881,
just three weeks after the completion of his seventy-eighth year. His
step-daughter, Mrs. MacOubrey, the Henrietta of "Wild Wales," who had a
sincere affection for him, was his constant attendant during his last
illness, and was with him at the end. He was buried at Brompton
Cemetery, where his body lies beside that of his wife. Not long after
his death, his Oulton home was pulled down. All that now remains to mark
the spot where it once stood are the old summer-house in which he loved
to linger, and the ragged fir-trees that sighed the requiem of his last
hours.

CHAPTER VI: BORROW AND PUGILISM

During the first quarter of the present century pugilism was rampant in
the Eastern Counties of England. A pugilistic encounter was then looked
upon as an affair of national interest, and people came in their
thousands from far and near to witness it. The Norwich neighbourhood was
noted for its prize-fights, and Borrow had the names of all the champions
at his tongue's end. Cobbett, Cribb, Belcher, Tom Spring of Bedford,
Black Richmond, Irish Randall--he was acquainted with the records of them
all, as well as with those of the leading