They were of all countries.  Under the name of Comprachicos fraternized English, French, Castilians, Germans, Italians.  A unity of idea, a unity of superstition, the pursuit of the same calling, make such fusions.  In this fraternity of vagabonds, those of the Mediterranean seaboard represented the East, those of the Atlantic seaboard the West.  Many Basques conversed with many Irishmen.  The Basque and the Irishman understand each other—­they speak the old Punic jargon; add to this the intimate relations of Catholic Ireland with Catholic Spain—­relations such that they terminated by bringing to the gallows in London one almost King of Ireland, the Celtic Lord de Brany; from which resulted the conquest of the county of Leitrim.

The Comprachicos were rather a fellowship than a tribe; rather a residuum than a fellowship.  It was all the riffraff of the universe, having for their trade a crime.  It was a sort of harlequin people, all composed of rags.  To recruit a man was to sew on a tatter.

To wander was the Comprachicos’ law of existence—­to appear and disappear.  What is barely tolerated cannot take root.  Even in the kingdoms where their business supplied the courts, and, on occasions, served as an auxiliary to the royal power, they were now and then suddenly ill-treated.  Kings made use of their art, and sent the artists to the galleys.  These inconsistencies belong to the ebb and flow of royal caprice.  “For such is our pleasure.”

A rolling stone and a roving trade gather no moss.  The Comprachicos were poor.  They might have said what the lean and ragged witch observed, when she saw them setting fire to the stake, “Le jeu n’en vaut pas la chandelle.”  It is possible, nay probable (their chiefs remaining unknown), that the wholesale contractors in the trade were rich.  After the lapse of two centuries, it would be difficult to throw any light on this point.

It was, as we have said, a fellowship.  It had its laws, its oaths, its formulae—­it had almost its cabala.  Any one nowadays wishing to know all about the Comprachicos need only go into Biscaya or Galicia; there were many Basques among them, and it is in those mountains that one hears their history.  To this day the Comprachicos are spoken of at Oyarzun, at Urbistondo, at Leso, at Astigarraga. Aguardate nino, que voy a llamar al Comprachicos—­Take care, child, or I’ll call the Comprachicos—­is the cry with which mothers frighten their children in that country.

The Comprachicos, like the Zigeuner and the Gipsies, had appointed places for periodical meetings.  From time to time their leaders conferred together.  In the seventeenth century they had four principal points of rendezvous:  one in Spain—­the pass of Pancorbo; one in Germany—­the glade called the Wicked Woman, near Diekirsch, where there are two enigmatic bas-reliefs, representing a woman with a head and a man without one; one in France—­the hill where was the colossal statue of Massue-la-Promesse in the old sacred wood of Borvo Tomona, near Bourbonne les Bains; one in England—­behind the garden wall of William Challoner, Squire of Gisborough in Cleveland, Yorkshire, behind the square tower and the great wing which is entered by an arched door.