ts
re-erection. He copied this stone on 13th September 1855, noting in his
diary that Henrietta sketched the church while he copied and translated
the inscription which ran as follows--_Thorleifr Nitki raised this Cross
to Fiak, son of his brother's son_, the date being 1084 or 1194 A.D.

CHAPTER XXVIII

OULTON BROAD AND YARMOUTH

George Borrow wandered far and wide, but he always retraced his
footsteps to East Anglia, of which he was so justly proud. From his
marriage in 1840 until his death in 1881 he lived twenty-seven years at
Oulton or at Yarmouth. 'It is on sand alone that the sea strikes its
true music,' Borrow once remarked, 'Norfolk sand'--and it was in the
waves and on the sands of the Norfolk coast that Borrow spent the
happiest hours of his restless life. Oulton Cottage is only about two
miles from Lowestoft, and so, walking or driving, these places were
quite near one another. But both are in Suffolk. Was it because
Yarmouth--ten miles distant--is in Norfolk that it was always selected
for seaside residence? I suspect that the careful Mrs. Borrow found a
wider selection of 'apartments' at a moderate price. In any case the sea
air of Yarmouth was good for his wife, and the sea bathing was good for
him, and so we find that husband and wife had seven separate residences
at Yarmouth during the years of Oulton life.[185] But Oulton was ever to
be Borrow's headquarters, even though between 1860 and 1874 he had a
house in London. Borrow was thirty-seven years of age when he settled
down at Oulton.

[Illustration: _Copyright of Mrs. Simms Reeve_

A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PORTRAIT OF GEORGE BORROW

Taken in the garden of Mrs. Simms Reeve of Norwich in 1848. This is the
only photograph of George Borrow extant, although two paintings of him
exist, one by Henry Wyndham Phillips, which forms the frontispiece of
this volume, taken in 1843, and an earlier portrait by his brother John,
which will be found facing page 32]

He was, he tells us in _The Romany Rye_, 'in tolerably easy
circumstances and willing to take some rest after a life of labour.'
Their home was a cottage on the Broad, for the Hall, which was also Mrs.
Borrow's property, was let on lease to a farmer.[186] The cottage,
however, was an extremely pleasant residence with a lawn running down to
the river. A more substantial house has been built on this site since
Borrow's day. The summer-house is generally assumed to be the same, but
has certainly