“They are very likely Comprachicos.”  Such was the first idea of the sheriff, of the bailiff, of the constable.  Hence arrest and inquiry.  People simply unfortunate, reduced to wander and to beg, were seized with a terror of being taken for Comprachicos although they were nothing of the kind.  But the weak have grave misgivings of possible errors in justice.  Besides, these vagabond families are very easily scared.  The accusation against the Comprachicos was that they traded in other people’s children.  But the promiscuousness caused by poverty and indigence is such that at times it might have been difficult for a father and mother to prove a child their own.

How came you by this child? how were they to prove that they held it from God?  The child became a peril—­they got rid of it.  To fly unencumbered was easier; the parents resolved to lose it—­now in a wood, now on a strand, now down a well.

Children were found drowned in cisterns.

Let us add that, in imitation of England, all Europe henceforth hunted down the Comprachicos.  The impulse of pursuit was given.  There is nothing like belling the cat.  From this time forward the desire to seize them made rivalry and emulation among the police of all countries, and the alguazil was not less keenly watchful than the constable.

One could still read, twenty-three years ago, on a stone of the gate of Otero, an untranslatable inscription—­the words of the code outraging propriety.  In it, however, the shade of difference which existed between the buyers and the stealers of children is very strongly marked.  Here is part of the inscription in somewhat rough Castillan, Aqui quedan las orejas de los Comprachicos, y las bolsas de los robaninos, mientras que se van ellos al trabajo de mar.  You see the confiscation of ears, etc., did not prevent the owners going to the galleys.  Whence followed a general rout among all vagabonds.  They started frightened; they arrived trembling.  On every shore in Europe their furtive advent was watched.  Impossible for such a band to embark with a child, since to disembark with one was dangerous.

To lose the child was much simpler of accomplishment.

And this child, of whom we have caught a glimpse in the shadow of the solitudes of Portland, by whom had he been cast away?

To all appearance by Comprachicos.

CHAPTER V.

THE TREE OF HUMAN INVENTION.

It might be about seven o’clock in the evening.  The wind was now diminishing—­a sign, however, of a violent recurrence impending.  The child was on the table-land at the extreme south point of Portland.

Portland is a peninsula; but the child did not know what a peninsula is, and was ignorant even of the name of Portland.  He knew but one thing, which is, that one can walk until one drops down.  An idea is a guide; he had no idea.  They had brought him there and left him there. They and there—­these two enigmas represented his doom. They were humankind. There was the universe.  For him in all creation there was absolutely no other basis to rest on but the little piece of ground where he placed his heel, ground hard and cold to his naked feet.  In the great twilight world, open on all sides, what was there for the child?  Nothing.