第62章

By the way, I counsel you, brother, not to go there, as Ibelieve you often do - it is a dangerous place.They robbed a gentleman and ill-treated him, but his brother, who was an escribano, was soon upon their trail, and had them arrested;but he wanted someone to identify them, and it chanced that they had stopped to drink water at my stall, just as they did now.This the escribano heard of, and forthwith had me away to the prison to confront me with them.I knew them well enough, but I had learnt in my travels when to close my eyes and when to open them; so I told the escribano that I could not say that I had ever seen them before.He was in a great rage and threatened to imprison me; I told him he might and that I cared not.Vaya, I was not going to expose myself to the resentment of those three and to that of their friends; I live too near the Hay Market for that.Good day, my young masters.- Murcian oranges, as you see; the genuine dragon's blood.Water sweet and cold.Those two boys are the children of Gabiria, comptroller of the queen's household, and the richest man in Madrid; they are nice boys, and buy much fruit.It is said their father loves them more than all his possessions.The old woman who is lying beneath yon tree is the Tia Lucilla; she has committed murders, and as she owes me money, I hope one day to see her executed.This man was of the Walloon guard; - Senor Don Benito Mol, how do you do?"This last named personage instantly engrossed my attention; he was a bulky old man, somewhat above the middle height, with white hair and ruddy features; his eyes were large and blue, and whenever he fixed them on any one'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.He returned the salutation of the orange-man, and bowing to me, forthwith produced two scented wash-balls which he offered for sale in a rough dissonant jargon, intended for Spanish, but which seemed more like the Valencian or Catalan.

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, at your service.""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; Ishould 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 those parts so long; before, however, I left Minorca, my wife died, and as for my children, one went east, the other west, and Iknow 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.