The Bible in Spain. Volume 2 of 2. Borrow George
of soldiers. At the dead of night, we were aroused from our sleep by a cry that the “factious” were not far off. A messenger had arrived from the alcalde of the village where we had previously intended staying, who stated that a party of Carlists had just surprised that place, and were searching for an English spy, whom they supposed to be at the inn. The officer commanding the soldiers, upon hearing this, not deeming his own situation a safe one, instantly drew off his men, falling back on a stronger party stationed in a fortified village near at hand. As for ourselves, we saddled our horses and continued our way in the dark. Had the Carlists succeeded in apprehending me, I should instantly have been shot, and my body cast on the rocks to feed the vultures and wolves. But “it was not so written,” said Antonio, who, like many of his countrymen, was a fatalist. The next night we had another singular escape: we had arrived near the entrance of a horrible pass called “El puerto de la puente de las tablas,” or the pass of the bridge of planks, which wound through a black and frightful mountain, on the farther side of which was the town of Oñas, where we meant to tarry for the night. The sun had set about a quarter of an hour. Suddenly a man, with his face covered with blood, rushed out of the pass. “Turn back, sir,” he said, “in the name of God; there are murderers in that pass; they have just robbed me of my mule, and all I possess, and I have hardly escaped with life from their hands!” I scarcely know why, but I made him no answer, and proceeded; indeed I was so weary and unwell that I cared not what became of me. We entered; the rocks rose perpendicularly, right and left, entirely intercepting the scanty twilight, so that the darkness of the grave, or rather the blackness of the valley of the shadow of death, reigned around us, and we knew not where we went, but trusted to the instinct of the horses, who moved on with their heads close to the ground. The only sound which we heard was the plash of a stream, which tumbled down the pass. I expected every moment to feel a knife at my throat, but “it was not so written.” We threaded the pass without meeting a human being, and within three-quarters of an hour after the time we entered it, we found ourselves within the posada of the town of Oñas, which was filled with troops and armed peasants expecting an attack from the grand Carlist army, which was near at hand.
Well, we reached Burgos in safety; 32 we reached Valladolid in safety; we passed the Guadarrama in safety; and were at length safely housed in Madrid. People said we had been very lucky; Antonio said, “It was so written;” but I say, Glory be to the Lord for His mercies vouchsafed to us.
CHAPTER XXXVI
State of Affairs at Madrid – The New Ministry – Pope of Rome – The Bookseller of Toledo – Sword-blades – Houses of Toledo – The Forlorn Gypsy – Proceedings at Madrid – Another Servant.
During my journey in the northern provinces of Spain, which occupied a considerable portion of the year 1837, I had accomplished but a slight portion of what I proposed to myself to effect in the outset. Insignificant are the results of man’s labours compared with the swelling ideas of his presumption; something, however, had been effected by the journey which I had just concluded. The New Testament of Christ was now enjoying a quiet sale in the principal towns of the north, and I had secured the friendly interest and co-operation of the booksellers of those parts, particularly of him the most considerable of them all, old Rey of Compostella. I had, moreover, disposed of a considerable number of Testaments with my own hands, to private individuals, entirely of the lower classes, namely, muleteers, carmen, contrabandistas, etc., so that upon the whole I had abundant cause for gratitude and thanksgiving.
I did not find our affairs in a very prosperous state at Madrid, few copies having been sold in the booksellers’ shops; yet what could be rationally expected during these latter times? Don Carlos, with a large army, had been at the gates; plunder and massacre had been expected; so that people were too much occupied in forming plans to secure their lives and property to give much attention to reading of any description.
The enemy, however, had now retired to his strongholds in Alava and Guipuzcoa. I hoped that brighter days were dawning, and that the work, under my own superintendence, would, with God’s blessing, prosper in the capital of Spain. How far the result corresponded with my expectations will be seen in the sequel.
During my absence in the north, a total change of ministers had occurred. The liberal party had been ousted from the cabinet, and in their place had entered individuals attached to the moderado or court party: unfortunately, however, for my prospects, they consisted of persons with whom I had no acquaintance whatever, and with whom my former friends, Galiano and Isturitz, had little or no influence. These gentlemen were now regularly laid on the shelf, and their political career appeared to be terminated for ever. 33
From the present ministry I could expect but little; they consisted of men the greater part of whom had been either courtiers or employés of the deceased King Ferdinand, who were friends to absolutism, and by no means inclined to do or to favour anything calculated to give offence to the court of Rome, which they were anxious to conciliate, hoping that eventually it might be induced to recognize the young queen, not as the constitutional but as the absolute Queen Isabella the Second.
Such was the party which continued in power throughout the remainder of my sojourn in Spain, and which persecuted me less from rancour and malice than from policy. It was not until the conclusion of the war of the succession that it lost the ascendency, when it sank to the ground with its patroness the queen-mother, before the dictatorship of Espartero.
The first step which I took after my return to Madrid, towards circulating the Scriptures, was a very bold one. It was neither more nor less than the establishment of a shop for the sale of Testaments. This shop was situated in the Calle del Principe, a respectable and well-frequented street in the neighbourhood of the Square of Cervantes. I furnished it handsomely with glass cases and chandeliers, and procured an acute Gallegan of the name of Pepe Calzado, to superintend the business, who gave me weekly a faithful account of the copies sold.
“How strangely times alter,” said I, the second day subsequent to the opening of my establishment, as I stood on the opposite side of the street, leaning against the wall with folded arms, surveying my shop, on the windows of which were painted in large yellow characters, Despacho de la Sociedad Bíblica y Estrangera; 34 “how strangely times alter! Here have I been during the last eight months running about old Popish Spain, distributing Testaments, as agent of what the Papists call an heretical society, and have neither been stoned nor burnt; and here am I now in the capital, doing that which one would think were enough to cause all the dead inquisitors and officials buried within the circuit of the walls to rise from their graves and cry abomination; and yet no one interferes with me. Pope of Rome! Pope of Rome! look to thyself. That shop may be closed; but oh! what a sign of the times, that it has been permitted to exist for one day. It appears to me, my Father, that the days of your sway are numbered in Spain; that you will not be permitted much longer to plunder her, to scoff at her, and to scourge her with scorpions, as in bygone periods. See I not the hand on the wall? See I not in yonder letters a ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin’? Look to thyself, Batuschca.”
And I remained for two hours, leaning against the wall, staring at the shop.
A short time after the establishment of the despacho at Madrid, I once more mounted the saddle, and, attended by Antonio, rode over to Toledo, for the purpose of circulating the Scriptures, sending beforehand by a muleteer a cargo of one hundred Testaments. I instantly addressed myself to the principal bookseller of the place, whom, from the circumstance of his living in a town so abounding with canons, priests, and ex-friars as Toledo, I expected to find a Carlist, or a servil at least. I was never more mistaken in my life: on entering the shop, which was very large and commodious, I beheld a stout athletic man, dressed in a kind of cavalry uniform, with a helmet on his head, and an immense sabre in his hand. This was the bookseller himself, who, I soon found, was an officer in the national cavalry. Upon learning who I was, he shook me heartily by the hand, and said that nothing would give him greater pleasure than taking charge of the books, which he would endeavour to circulate to the utmost of his ability.
“Will not your doing so bring you into odium
There is still a fairly frequented high-road from Santander to Burgos, inasmuch as the railway from Santander to Madrid takes a more westerly route through Palencia, the actual junction with the main line from Irun being at Venta de Baños, a new creation of the railway not even mentioned in the guidebooks a few years ago, and now one of the most important stations in Spain.
Yet in railway matters Spain has still some progress to make. From Santander to Burgos
See Introduction.
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