The victor fled from the scene of his prowess, and enlisted as a private soldier in the Coldstream Guards.

This was in 1783, and in 1792 he was transferred to the West Norfolk Militia; hence his appearance at East Dereham, where, now a serjeant, his occupations for many a year were recruiting and drilling.[5] It is recorded that at a theatrical performance at East Dereham he first saw, presumably on the stage of the county-hall, his future wife--Ann Perfrement.

She was, it seems, engaged in a minor part in a travelling company, not, we may assume, altogether with the sanction of her father, who, in spite of his inheritance of French blood, doubtless shared the then very strong English prejudice against the stage.

However, Ann was one of eight children, and had, as we shall find in after years, no inconsiderable strength of character, and so may well at twenty years of age have decided upon a career for herself.

In any case we need not press too hard the Cornish and French origin of George Borrow to explain his wandering tendencies, nor need we wonder at the suggestion of Nathaniel Hawthorne, that he was 'supposed to be of gypsy descent by the mother's side.' You have only to think of the father, whose work carried him from time to time to every corner of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of the mother with her reminiscence of life in a travelling theatrical company, to explain in no small measure the glorious vagabondage of George Borrow.
Behold then Thomas Borrow and Ann Perfrement as man and wife, he being thirty-five years of age, she twenty-one.