In such scenes, naturally, Borrow placed nothing common and nothing mean. He must have a madman among the ruins, or by a pool a peasant woman sitting, who has been mad ever since her child was drowned there, or a mule and a stallion fighting with hoofs and teeth. The clergy, in their ugly shovel hats and long cloaks, glared at him askance as he passed by their whispering groups in Salamanca: at the English College in Valladolid, he thought of “those pale, smiling, half-foreign priests who, like stealthy grimalkins, traversed green England in all directions” under the persecution of Elizabeth. If he painted an archbishop plainly dressed in black cassock and silken cap, stooping, feeble, pale and emaciated, he set upon his finger a superb amethyst of a dazzling lustre—Borrow never saw a finer, except one belonging to an acquaintance of his own, a Tartar Khan.

The day after his interview with the archbishop he had a visit from Benedict Mol. This man is proved to have existed by a letter from Rey Romero to Borrow mentioning “The German of the Treasure.” {181} “True, every word of it!” says Knapp: “Remember our artist never created; he painted from models.” Because he existed, therefore every word of Borrow’s concerning him is true. As Borrow made him, “He is a bulky old man, somewhat above the middle height, and with white hair and ruddy features; his eyes were large and blue, and, whenever he fixed them on anyone’s countenance, were full of an expression of great eagerness, as if he were expecting the communication of some important tidings. He was dressed commonly enough, in a jacket and trousers of coarse cloth of a russet colour; on his head was an immense sombrero, the brim of which had been much cut and mutilated, so as in some places to resemble the jags or denticles of a saw.”

And thus, at Madrid in 1836, he told his story on the first meeting, as men had to do when they were interrogated by Borrow:

“Upon my asking him who he was, the following conversation ensued between us:

“‘I am a Swiss of Lucerne, Benedict Mol by name, once a soldier in the Walloon Guard, and now a soap-boiler, para servir usted.’

“‘You speak the language of Spain very imperfectly,’ said I; ‘how long have you been in the country?’

“‘Forty-five years,’ replied Benedict. ‘But when the guard was broken up I went to Minorca, where I lost the Spanish language without acquiring the Catalan.’

“‘You have been a soldier of the King of Spain,’ said I; ‘how did you like the service?’

“‘Not so well but that I should have been glad to leave it forty years ago; the pay was bad, and the treatment worse. I will now speak Swiss to you; for, if I am not much mistaken, you are a German man, and understand the speech of Lucerne. I should soon have deserted from the service of Spain, as I did from that of the Pope, whose soldier I was in my early youth before I came here; but I had married a woman of Minorca, by whom I had two children: it was this that detained me in these parts so long. Before, however, I left Minorca, my wife died; and as for my children, one went east, the other west, and I know not what became of them. I intend shortly to return to Lucerne, and live there like a duke.’

“‘Have you then realized a large capital in Spain?’ said I, glancing at his hat and the rest of his apparel.

“‘Not a cuart, not a cuart; these two wash-balls are all that I possess.’

“‘Perhaps you are the son of good parents, and have lands and money in your own country wherewith to support yourself.’

“‘Not a heller, not a heller. My father was hangman of Lucerne, and when he died, his body was seized to pay his debts.’

“‘Then doubtless,’ said I, ‘you intend to ply your trade of soap-boiling at Lucerne. You are quite right, my friend; I know of no occupation more honourable or useful.’

“‘I have no thoughts of plying my trade at Lucerne,’ replied Benedict. ‘And now, as I see you are a German man, Lieber Herr, and as I like your countenance and your manner of speaking, I will tell you in confidence that I know very little of my trade, and have already been turned out of several fabriques as an evil workman; the two wash-balls that I carry in my pocket are not of my own making. In kurtzen, I know little more of soap-boiling than I do of tailoring, horse-farriery, or shoe-making, all of which I have practised.’

“‘Then I know not how you can hope to live like a hertzog in your native canton, unless you expect that the men of Lucerne, in consideration of your services to the Pope and to the King of Spain, will maintain you in splendour at the public expense.’

“‘Lieber Herr,’ said Benedict, ‘the men of Lucerne are by no means fond of maintaining the soldiers of the Pope and the King of Spain at their own expense; many of the guard who have returned thither beg their bread in the streets: but when I go, it shall be in a coach drawn by six mules with a treasure, a mighty schatz which lies in the church of St. James of Compostella, in Galicia.’

“‘I hope you do not intend to rob the church,’ said I. ‘If you do, however, I believe you will be disappointed. Mendizabal and the Liberals have been beforehand with you. I am informed that at present no other treasure is to be found in the cathedrals of Spain than a few paltry ornaments and plated utensils.’

“‘My good German Herr,’ said Benedict, ‘it is no church schatz; and no person living, save myself, knows of its existence. Nearly thirty years ago, amongst the sick soldiers who were brought to Madrid, was one of my comrades of the Walloon Guard, who had accompanied the French to Portugal; he was very sick, and shortly died. Before, however, he breathed his last, he sent for me, and upon his death-bed told me that himself and two other soldiers, both of whom had since been killed, had buried in a certain church in Compostella a great booty which they had made in Portugal; it consisted of gold moidores and of a packet of huge diamonds from the Brazils: the whole was contained in a large copper kettle. I listened with greedy ears, and from that moment, I may say, I have known no rest, neither by day nor night, thinking of the schatz. It is very easy to find, for the dying man was so exact in his description of the place where it lies, that were I once at Compostella I should have no difficulty in putting my hand upon it. Several times I have been on the point of setting out on the journey, but something has always happened to stop me. When my wife died, I left Minorca with a determination to go to St. James; but on reaching Madrid, I fell into the hands of a Basque woman, who persuaded me to live with her, which I have done for several years. She is a great hax, {184} and says that if I desert her she will breathe a spell which shall cling to me for ever. Dem Got sey dank, she is now in the hospital, and daily expected to die. This is my history, Lieber Herr.’”

Notice that Borrow continues:

“I have been the more careful in relating the above conversation, as I shall have frequent occasion to mention the Swiss in the course of these journals.”

Benedict Mol had the faculty of re-appearance. In the next year at Compostella the moonlight fell on his grey locks and weatherbeaten face and Borrow recognised him. “Och,” said the man, “mein Gott, es ist der Herr!” (it is that gentleman). “Och, what good fortune, that the Herr is the first person I meet in Compostella.” Even Borrow could scarcely believe his eyes. Benedict had come to dig for the treasure, and in the meantime proposed to live at the best hotel and pay his score when the digging was done. Borrow gave him a dollar, which he paid to a witch for telling him where exactly the treasure lay. A third time, to his own satisfaction and Borrow’s astonishment, he re-appeared at Oviedo. He had, in fact, followed Borrow to Corunna, having been despitefully used at Compostella, met highwaymen on the road, and suffered hunger so that he slaughtered a stray kid and devoured it raw. From Oviedo he trod in Borrow’s footsteps, which was “a great comfort in his horrible journeys.” “A strange life has he led,” said Borrow’s Greek servant, “and a strange death he will die—it is written on his countenance.” He re-appeared a fourth time at Madrid, in light green coat and pantaloons that were almost new, and a glossy Andalusian hat “of immense altitude of cone,” and leaning not on a ragged staff but “a huge bamboo rattan, surmounted by the grim head of either a bear or lion, curiously cut out of pewter.” He had been wandering after Borrow in misery that almost sent him mad:

“Oh, the horror of wandering about the savage hills and wide plains of Spain without money and without hope! Sometimes I became desperate, when I found myself amongst rocks and barrancos, perhaps after having tasted no food from sunrise to sunset, and then I would raise my staff towards the sky and shake it, crying, Lieber herr Gott, ach lieber herr Gott, you must help me now or never. If you tarry, I am lost. You must help me now, now! And once when I was raving in this manner, methought I heard a voice—nay, I am sure I heard it—sounding from the hollow of a rock, clear and strong; and it cried, ‘Der schatz, der schatz, it is not yet dug up. To Madrid, to Madrid! The way to the schatz is through Madrid.’”

But now he had met people who supported him with an eye to the treasure. Borrow tried to persuade him to circulate the Gospel instead of risking failure and the anger of his clients. Luckily Benedict went on to Compostella:

“He went, and I never saw him more. What I heard, however, was extraordinary enough. It appeared that the government had listened to his tale, and had been so struck with Benedict’s exaggerated description of the buried treasure, that they imagined that, by a little trouble and outlay, gold and diamonds might be dug up at St. James sufficient to enrich themselves and to pay off the national debt of Spain. The Swiss returned to Compostella ‘like a duke,’ to use his own words. The affair, which had at first been kept a profound secret, was speedily divulged. It was, indeed, resolved that the investigation, which involved consequences of so much importance, should take place in a manner the most public and imposing. A solemn festival was drawing nigh, and it was deemed expedient that the search should take place upon that day. The day arrived. All the bells in Compostella pealed. The whole populace thronged from their houses; a thousand troops were drawn up in a square; the expectation of all was wound up to the highest pitch. A procession directed its course to the church of San Roque. At its head were the captain-general and the Swiss, brandishing in his hand the magic rattan; close behind walked the meiga, the Gallegan witch-wife, by whom the treasure-seeker had been originally guided in the search; numerous masons brought up the rear, bearing implements to break up the ground. The procession enters the church; they pass through it in solemn march; they find themselves in a vaulted passage. The Swiss looks around. ‘Dig here,’ said he suddenly. ‘Yes, dig here,’ said the meiga. The masons labour; the floor is broken up—a horrible and fetid odour arises. . .

“Enough, no treasure was found, and my warning to the unfortunate Swiss turned out but too prophetic. He was forthwith seized and flung into the horrid prison of St. James, amidst the execrations of thousands, who would have gladly torn him limb from limb.

“The affair did not terminate here. The political opponents of the government did not allow so favourable an opportunity to escape for launching the shafts of ridicule. The Moderados were taunted in the cortes for their avarice and credulity, whilst the Liberal press wafted on its wings through Spain the story of the treasure-hunt at St. James.

“‘After all, it was a trampa {187} of Don Jorge’s,’ said one of my enemies. ‘That fellow is at the bottom of half the picardias which happen in Spain.’

“Eager to learn the fate of the Swiss, I wrote to my old friend Rey Romero, at Compostella. In his answer he states: ‘I saw the Swiss in prison, to which place he sent for me, craving my assistance, for the sake of the friendship which I bore to you. But how could I help him? He was speedily after removed from St. James, I know not whither. It is said that he disappeared on the road.’

“Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Where in the whole cycle of romance shall we find anything more wild, grotesque, and sad than the easily authenticated history of Benedict Mol, the treasure-digger of St. James?”

Knapp, by the way, prints this very letter from Rey Romero. It was his son who saw Benedict in prison, and he simply says that he does not know what has become of him.

As Dr. Knapp says, Borrow painted from a model. That is to say, he did like everybody else. Of course he did not invent. Why should a man with such a life invent for the purpose of only five books? But there is no such thing as invention (in the popular sense), except in the making of bad nonsense rhymes or novels. A writer composes out of his experience, inward, outward and histrionic, or along the protracted lines of his experience. Borrow felt that adventures and unusual scenes were his due, and when they were not forthcoming he revived an old one or revised the present in the weird light of the past. Is this invention?

Pictures like that of Benedict Mol are not made out of nothing by Borrow or anybody else. Nor are they copies. The man who could merely copy nature would never have the eyes to see such beauties as Benedict Mol. It must be noticed how effective is the re-appearance, the intermingling of such a man with “ordinary life,” and then finally the suggestion of one of Borrow’s enemies that he was put up to it by Don Jorge—“That fellow is at the bottom of half the picardias which happen in Spain.” What glory for Don Jorge. The story would have been entertaining enough as a mere isolated short story: thus scattered, it is twice as effective as if it were a mere fiction, whether labelled “a true story” or introduced by an ingenious variation of the same. It is one of Borrow’s triumphs never to let us escape from the spell of actuality into a languid acquiescence in what is “only pretending.” The form never becomes a fiction, even to the same extent as that of Turgenev’s “Sportsman’s Sketches”; for Borrow is always faithful to the form of a book of travel in Spain during the ’thirties. In “Don Quixote” and “Gil Blas,” the lesser narratives are as a rule introduced without much attempt at probability, but as mere diversions. They are never such in “The Bible in Spain,” though they are in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.” The Gypsy hag of Badajoz, who proposed to poison all the BusnÉ in Madrid, and then away with the London Caloro to the land of the Moor—his Greek servant Antonio, even though he begins with “Je vais vous raconter mon histoire du commencement jusqu’iÇi.”—the Italian whom he had met as a boy and who now regretted leaving England, the toasted cheese and bread, the Suffolk ale, the roaring song and merry jests of the labourers,—and Antonio again, telling him “the history of the young man of the inn,”—these story-tellers are not merely consummate variations upon those of the “Decameron” and “Gil Blas.” The book never ceases to be a book of travel by an agent of the Bible Society. It is to its very great advantage that it was not written all of a piece with one conscious aim. The roughness, the merely accurate irrelevant detail here and there, the mention of his journal, and the references to well-known and substantial people, win from us an openness and simplicity of reception which ensure a success for it beyond that of most fictions. I cannot refuse complete belief in the gigantic Jew, Abarbanel, for example, when Borrow has said: “I had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge featured and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes.” I do not feel bound to believe that he had met the Italian of Corunna twenty years before at Norwich, though to a man with his memory for faces such re-appearances are likely to happen many times as often as to an ordinary man. But I feel no doubt about Judah Lib, who spoke to him at Gibraltar: he was “about to exclaim, ‘I know you not,’ when one or two lineaments struck him, and he cried, though somewhat hesitatingly, ‘surely this is Judah Lib.’” He continues: “It was in a steamer in the Baltic in the year ’34, if I mistake not.” That he had this strong memory is certain; but that he knew it, and was proud of it, and likely to exaggerate it, is almost equally certain.

It was natural that such a knight should have squires of high degree, as Francisco the Basque and the two Antonios, Gypsy and Greek. Antonio the Greek left Borrow to serve a count as cook, but the count attacked him with a rapier, whereupon he gave notice in the following manner:

“Suddenly I took a large casserole from the fire in which various eggs were frying; this I held out at arm’s length, peering at it along my arm as if I were curiously inspecting it—my right foot advanced, and the other thrown back as far as possible. All stood still, imagining, doubtless, that I was about to perform some grand operation; and so I was: for suddenly the sinister leg advancing, with one rapid coup de pied I sent the casserole and its contents flying over my head, so that they struck the wall far behind me. This was to let them know that I had broken my staff and had shaken the dust off my feet. So casting upon the count the peculiar glance of the Sceirote cooks when they feel themselves insulted, and extending my mouth on either side nearly as far as the ears, I took down my haversack and departed, singing as I went the song of the ancient Demos, who, when dying, asked for his supper, and water wherewith to lave his hands:

‘Ο ηλιος εβασιλενε, κι ο Δημος διαταζει.
Συρτε, παιδια, μου, ’σ το νερον ψωμι να φατ' αποψε.

And in this manner, mon maÎtre, I left the house of the Count of ---.”

The morning after Francisco died, when Borrow was lying in bed ruminating on his loss, he heard someone cleaning boots and singing in an unknown tongue, so he rang the bell. Antonio appeared. He had, he said, engaged himself to the Prime Minister at a high salary, but on hearing of Borrow’s loss, he “told the Duke, though it was late at night, that he would not suit me; and here I am.” Again he left Borrow. When he returned it was in obedience to a dream, in which he saw his master ride on a black horse up to his inn—yet this was immediately after Borrow’s landing on his third visit to Spain, of which “only two individuals in Madrid were aware.” This Greek was acquainted with all the cutthroats in Galicia; he could tell a story like Sterne, and in every way was a servant who deserved no less a master than Monsieur Georges.

Francisco has already sufficiently adorned these pages. As for the other Antonio, the Gypsy, he guided Borrow through the worst of Spain on his way to Madrid. This he offered to do in such terms that Borrow’s hint at the possible danger of accepting it falls flat. He was as mysterious as Borrow himself, and being asked why he was taking this particular road, he answered: “It is an affair of Egypt, brother, and I shall not acquaint you with it; peradventure it relates to a horse or an ass, or peradventure it relates to a mule or a macho; it does not relate to yourself, therefore I advise you not to inquire about it—Dosta. . . .” He carried a loadstone in his bosom and swallowed some of the dust of it, and it served both for passport and for prayers. When he had to leave Borrow he sold him a savage and vicious she ass, recommending her for the same reason as he bought her, because “a savage and vicious beast has generally four excellent legs.”