SPAIN": THE CHARACTERS

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.'

"'Yo