It was an awful moment; I felt stupefied, but I still contrived to support my dying father.

There was a pause; again my father spoke: I heard him speak of Minden, and of Meredith, the old Minden Serjeant, and then he uttered another name, which at one period of his life was much on his lips, the name of -- --; but this is a solemn moment! There was a deep gasp: I shook, and thought all was over; but I was mistaken--my father moved, and revived for a moment; he supported himself in bed without my assistance.

I make no doubt that for a moment he was perfectly sensible, and it was then that, clasping his hands, he uttered another name clearly, distinctly--it was the name of Christ.

With that name upon his lips the brave old soldier sank back upon my bosom, and, with his hands still clasped, yielded up his soul.
Did Borrow's father ever really fight Big Ben Brain or Bryan in Hyde Park, or is it all a fantasy of the artist's imagining?
We shall never know.

Borrow called his _Lavengro_ 'An Autobiography' at one stage of its inception, although he wished to repudiate the autobiographical nature of his story at another.