the secretary, and his bold and
unexpected ways gave the Society something to put up with, but he was
always a faithful and enthusiastic servant. He had many reasons for
being grateful to them. He, who was going to get himself imprisoned for
atheism, had already become, as Mr. Cunningham thought, a man "of certain
Christian principle," if "of no very exactly defined denomination of
Christians." He certainly did become an unquestioning wild
missionary--though not merely wild, for he was discreet in his boldness;
he was careful to save the Society money; he made himself respected by
the highest English and Spanish officials in Spain; so that in 1837, for
the first time in the Society's history, an English ambassador made their
cause a national one. He wanted to shout and the Bible Society gave him
something to shout for. He wanted to fight and they gave him something
to fight for. Twenty years afterwards, in writing the Appendix to "The
Romany Rye," he looked back on his travels in Spain as on a campaign:

"It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that Society on his
hat--oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow awakes in his old
bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of
religion and civilisation with the colours of that Society on his hat,
and its weapon in his hand, even the sword of the word of God; how with
that weapon he hewed left and right, making the priests fly before him,
and run away squeaking: 'Vaya! que demonio es este!' Ay, and when he
thinks of the plenty of bible swords which he left behind him, destined
to prove, and which have already proved, pretty calthrops in the heels of
Popery. 'Hallo! Batuschca,' he exclaimed the other night, on reading an
article in a newspaper; 'what do you think of the present doings in
Spain? Your old friend the zingaro, the gitano who rode about Spain, to
say nothing of Galicia, with the Greek Buchini behind him as his squire,
had a hand in bringing them about; there are many brave Spaniards
connected with the present movement who took Bibles from his hands, and
read them and profited by them."

He was as sure in 1839 as in 1857 of the diabolic power and intention of
Popery, that "unrelenting fiend," whose secrets few, he said, knew more
than himself. {128a}

In the gladness of his now fully exerted powers of body and mind,
travelling in wild country and observing and conflicting with men, he
adopted not merely the unctuous