Suddenly when the clock struck twelve they heard, or thought they heard, a footstep on the path, the wind howled, and the elder sister sprang to the door, locked and bolted it, and then fell in convulsions on the floor.

The superstition, which Borrow seems to have told his mother had a Danish origin, is common enough in Ireland and in Celtic lands.

It could scarcely have been thus rehearsed by two Norfolk children had they not had the blood of a more imaginative race in their veins.

In addition to this we find more than one effective glimpse of Borrow's mother in _Lavengro_.

We have already noted the episode in which she takes the side of her younger boy against her husband, with whom John was the favourite.