The sacristy was dustless and spotless; and when the cupboards were opened every inch of embroidery and every ounce of plate were found in their places as described in the inventory. At the sight of the gold and silver and precious stones the Viscount's eyes glittered like glass beads. He would have taken the holy vessels in his fat hands to fondle them had not the Prior sternly repelled him. By way of revenge, as well as to mislead the captain, the Viscount then set himself to depreciate everything. The triptych was not Limoges, and he had his doubts about the rubies. The vestments were falling to pieces. As for the Gran Vasco, who was Gran Vasco, after all? He was a painter whom not one collector in a thousand had ever heard of. Besides, the painting was certainly a copy.
To these remarks the Prior did not pay the smallest heed. When everything had been verified, he kissed with exceeding reverence a reliquary containing the relics of martyrs who had suffered for the Church. Then he replaced this last treasure on its shelf and locked the cupboard. The captain held out his hand for the keys, but the Prior answered:
"After you have signed, Senhor Captain. At noon. Till then your guards are keys enough."
Together with the four monks he quitted the sacristy, leaving the two men to follow. But they lingered. To get out of earshot of the guards the captain drew the Viscount into the chapel, and muttered hurriedly:
"We sign. Then we pack up the stuff and bury it. To-night we send to the Government a report. We tell them how these fellows threatened resistance and tried to win over my soldiers. We tell them how the Abbot is an old miser doting on the gold and silver; that we fear a raid of their sympathizers in force; and that we have thought it wise to bury the treasure. We ask them to send a lock-up van and twenty more men to bring it away. And meanwhile..."
"Yes. Meanwhile..." repeated the Viscount, beaming and chuckling. "Meanwhile... By the way, you see these tiles on the walls?"
Yes, the captain saw them. The walls of the oblong nave were almost entirely clothed withazulejos, or blue-and-white tiles. The multitudinous squares formed large pictures crowded with life-size figures.
"If we could get them down some day from the walls," murmured the Viscount, "I know an Englishman who would pay a thousand pounds for them."
He was interrupted by Brother Cypriano, who demanded in a peremptory tone:
"How much longer are we to wait for your Excellencies?"
They did not return through the kitchen and cloister, but followed Brother Cypriano out of the chapel directly into the paved space. The captain looked haggard, but the Viscount was radiant.
"The keys are here?" he asked. "Good. Then give me a pen."
Forgetting himself in his elation, he began to sign the name of his humble days: but he quickly scratched out the half-written word and substituted his grandiose signature as Visconde de Ponte Quebrada. Then he handed the quill to the morose captain, who slowly subscribed his name.
"There!" cried the Viscount, picking up the great iron keys of the abbey and the small steel keys of the sacristy cupboard. "Now I hope everybody is satisfied. I wish your Reverences a pleasant journey."
The big bell banged noon. In front of the chapel Saint Benedict's heavy-hearted sons were ready to depart. Only Brother Cypriano was absent.
No one stirred. The captain glanced round with new anxiety. But his suspense did not last long. A lighter bell smote through the dull resoundings of the great gong. It was Brother Cypriano ringing the Angelus. With bowed heads the monks repeated the Angelic Salutation. The soldiers and the captain uncovered: and, with an awkward grab at the brim of his sombrero, even the Viscount made a show of following their example.
This last act of faith being ended, the Abbot made a sign, and two of the brethren approached him with a litter. The old man's miraculous tide of vitality was ebbing as fast as it had flowed, and the captain knew that, in the circumstances, the Minister in Lisbon would not approve of this indecent haste. But he had involved himself too deeply with the Viscount to draw back, and it was essential to his plans that the whole monastic garrison should vacate their barracks without delay. Therefore he contented himself with uttering a string of regrets which nobody heeded.
It was a quarter-past twelve when the procession started. The monks went forth two and two, like the Seventy in the gospel. At their head walked the Prior and the Cellarer, who had much to discuss concerning ways and means. The Abbot's litter was borne at first by Father Isidore and Father Antonio. Brother Cypriano and the other lay-monks brought up the rear. They led five pack-mules, whose burdens contained little more than the monks' winter shoes and habits, and a blanket for each one. The Prior had not asked leave to take either the mules or their loads, but the captain had not raised any objection. As for their personal belongings, the fathers and brethren seemed to be almost literally fulfilling the Holy Rule, and to be carrying away almost nothing of their own. Each monk held a small bundle, in which the four volumes of his breviary were the principal item.
They wound down the paved way without looking back. The Viscount grinned and rubbed his hands. Soon the black files were lost to sight in the avenue of camellias, and a few minutes afterwards the strident grinding of iron on iron proclaimed their arrival at the rusty gate.
The captain gave a signal to Carvalho, whose men had been busy saddling their horses, and immediately a detachment twenty strong cantered after the exiles.
"A guard of honor," chuckled the Viscount.
"I am obeying the Minister's instructions," answered the captain dryly.
"Like a good boy. And at the same time you've got rid of half these prying peasants. But come, we haven't sampled the cellar. And I could eat a couple of those fat trout."
The captain flung aside his uncomfortable thoughts and agreed, with an oath, to a carouse. The pair plunged into the cool corridors, to ransack the larder with small success.
Meanwhile the unpitiful sun was beating on the monks' heads and on the Abbot's rude litter. The cruel ball of fire hung in a dome of so hard a blue that it might have been cut from one immense sapphire. The Atlantic chafed in its bed with a simmering sound, and blinded the eyes like molten copper.
Carvalho and his troopers, who had been hanging on the monks' rear, were the first to surrender. Riding forward to the head of the train, Carvalho in person suggested that both drivers and driven should encamp amicably in a neighboring grove of eucalyptus until the fiercest heat had passed. The Prior agreed.
Of all the eucalyptus groves in Portugal, the grove which the travelers entered was one of the oldest and most grandly grown. Just above it a small pine wood offered a deeper and cooler shade, and a rapid brook made the oasis complete. Almost immediately some of the soldiers began to fraternize with the monks, pressing upon them darkbroasbaked from maize and rye, and handing round the wine-skins. The monks, in their turn, offered salt fish, which the soldiers joyfully ate quite raw. After the repast the soldiers flung themselves down full length to sleep upon the pine-needles; and although the monks produced their breviaries and tried to say the Office, ere long most of them succumbed to drowsiness.
Antonio was wide awake. His share of the frail old Abbot's weight had seemed not much more than a feather to his youthful strength. He looked round. The mules and horses were browsing happily in the lush herbage. Carvalho and a corporal were spelling out some papers in low tones. The Cellarer and the Prior were equally engrossed in writing and figuring. Under the densest pine tree Father Isidore and Father Sebastian were keeping vigil over the sleeping Abbot.
The young monk sauntered eastward, following up the course of the stream. He suspected that its dancing waters were those which had flowed through the monastery kitchen, and a few minutes' breasting of the pine-crowded slope proved that he was right. From the top of the knoll he could make out the dazzling white front of the chapel, framed in dark granite, and he could hear the dull boom of the great bell striking two o'clock.
At the foot of the knoll, half hidden in verdure, some dilapidated buildings huddled on the banks of the rivulet. He descended to explore them. The windows of the little house were broken, and weeds choked the garden. There were also two barns, raised on stone pillars to thwart the rats, a byre, a threshing floor, and a little orangery in full blossom. Apparently many years had slipped by since the place was inhabited.
Having satisfied his curiosity Antonio was turning away when a thought struck him. He approached the buildings again and examined them much more closely. Then he took his resolution. With his eyes fixed on the glittering white chapel, which shone down upon him like the Bride of the Lamb, he knelt in the long grass and repeated the Benedictine prayer,Excita Domine. His prayer done, he remained a few minutes in meditation before he sought his brethren.
Regaining the knoll's top and beginning to descend, Antonio found that the scene had changed for the worse. The attitudes of some of his drowsy companions were neither dignified nor picturesque. They were wearing their worst tunics for the journey, and the grey dust from the road did not improve the rusty black of the garments. Their bundles looked untidy and paltry. More disenchanting still, some of the monks who were still awake seemed to have descended from their exaltation and to be sourly grumbling together over their misfortunes; while the faces of the Prior and the Cellarer shewed that they were still deeply debating the community's creature-comforts.
For a moment Antonio's enthusiastic faith was shocked and chilled. Was this cause worthy, after all, of the bitter sacrifice he had resolved to make? But his doubt vanished in an instant in the light of a thought which came to him as if from heaven. He thought of the great flights, the great martyrdoms, and understood that if he could have been a looker-on at them all, he would have seen the jewel of faithful love shining out from a dull alloy. Saint Benedict's flight from Subiaco to Monte Cassino, the martyrdom of Saint Laurence—no doubt even these holy happenings had had their ugly elements, their sordid accompaniments. Their realities did not correspond with the idealized versions of stately altar-pieces, and stained glass, and illuminated parchments, and statuary. More: he reminded himself that, according to human standards, even his divine Master had passed poorly from a mean birth to a base death. He recalled the words of Isaias,Non est species ei, neque decor; et vidimus eum et non erat aspectus et desideravimus eum: "There is no beauty in him nor comeliness; and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness that we should desire him."
Two miles outside Navares a hurrying horseman almost collided with the head of the monks' procession. He turned out to be a courier from Lisbon with an urgent letter for the Prior.
Pleased to be spared the rest of the journey to the monastery, and still better pleased with the broad coin which the Cellarer gave him from the community's scanty purse, the messenger delivered his package and was about to set his horse's head homewards, without inquiring what the monks' exodus might mean, when Carvalho bade him halt.
"Your Reverence," said Carvalho to the Prior none too respectfully, "I have no orders to stop letters, but I have positive orders that your Reverences must not attempt to harangue the people of Navares. And I have further orders that your Reverences must not remain in Navares beyond noon to-morrow. I am to conduct all who wish it to Lisbon, where the Government will settle the matter of the pensions of your Reverences as soon as possible."
He showed the Prior two more sheets from the Viscount's inexhaustible store of papers in support of his announcement. For a moment the Prior lost his self-control.
"Cur!" he said.
Carvalho bowed, with the scornful smile of borrowed power towards fallen greatness, and rode off to dispose his men in two extended files, which could, if necessary, envelop the monks completely. The Prior also went back along the line, briefly telling the news to each pair of monks and bidding them be ready for a council in their lodging at Navares.
As the Cellarer's kinsman, the Navares corn-merchant, lived on the outskirts of the town, the shelter of his house was gained before news of the monks' arrival had reached the townspeople. The corn-merchant was a convinced Liberal, and something of an anti-clerical: but he received the Cellarer's brethren with hearty sympathy and lavish hospitality. He gave up to the Abbot his own room. The beds of clean straw which he caused to be made along the whole length of a newly lime-washed granary were softer than the mattresses at the monastery, and his supper of soup and salt fish and cheese and wine was appetizing and abundant. Perhaps his best deed, however, was his expulsion of Carvalho and the corporal, who coolly walked into the granary so as to listen to the monks' discussions.
"Very well," shouted Carvalho after the Cellarer had convinced him that his precious papers gave him no right to violate a private domicile, "I go: but I forbid their Reverences to hold any kind of assembly."
"Their Reverences," retorted the corn-merchant, who feared man even less than he feared God, "will do as they please so long as they are in my house. As for your Worship, he will kindly walk out of it."
After supper the council began.Veni Creator Spirituswas sung. Then the Prior rose, with the letter from Lisbon in his hand, and said.
"Dear Fathers and Brethren. God help us to bear our many sorrows. The courier has brought bad news.
"For some reason, which the Visconde de Ponte Quebrada could explain, our house was the first to be seized. But before many days have passed the spoilers will possess themselves of all the houses of our Order. We are forbidden to take counsel with any other community of outcast religious, or to establish ourselves in new houses. Without God's help this is the end of the Portuguese Benedictine congregation.
"From man we have nothing to hope. The Government is one of bad faith. In my hand I have the proofs that the earlier laws of this Spring were shams. All the time it was intended to suppress the Orders entirely: but the Government dared not let the people see the thick end of the wedge. They have revealed it at last with fear and trembling. Their Bill was fathered upon one Minister alone, the Senhor Joaquim d'Aguiar. It was arranged that, in the event of public indignation, the other Ministers were to repudiate openly both the Senhor d'Aguiar and his Bill, although, in secret, it was their joint act and deed. Portugal is being governed in a poisonous mist of tricks and lies.
"But why does the Portuguese people suffer God to be robbed and His servants thrown into the highway without crowding to the rescue? Alas, dear Fathers and Brethren, I know the answer. Our poor land is sick of war: but there is a deeper reason why even the most fervent Catholics will not unsheath the sword again in our defense. Dom Miguel deceived them. Just as Dom Pedro has made a sham of Liberalism, so Dom Miguel has made a sham of piety. Dom Miguel raised the cry of 'Throne and Altar.' But he cared only for the Throne. If Saint Michael and all the angels should descend to earth in our defense, the Catholics of Portugal might join their banners: but the Portuguese Catholics will not believe again in any merely human leader. They remember Evora Monte.
"More: in many lands this tyranny and treachery of the Government will be applauded and upheld. Many lands have lent the Emperor Pedro money, and they claim the right to influence him in secret. The Protestants of England will rejoice in our downfall because we are Catholics and monks: the atheists and Jews of France and the Low Countries because we are Christians. The oppression of monks will spread. Spain, France, even Italy, will suffer.Pater dimitte illis; non enim sciunt quid faciunt: 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.'"
The long room was growing dimmer while the Prior was speaking, and when he had finished he could hardly see the features of his auditors. For two or three long minutes silence blended itself with the dusk. The livelier-minded among the monks sat still because they felt that the Prior's words were all too true, while the simpler souls were cowed and hushed by the splintering of their last props of hope.
The Prior, not wishing to impose his bare opinions upon the community, went to the window and read aloud the long and clear letter from Lisbon which a devout layman had made so much haste to despatch. At the end of his reading he called for candles; and, as soon as they were brought, he threw the council open.
No one spoke. All eyes were fixed on Antonio, all ears were waiting for his words. Amidst the prosaic discomforts of their hot march the monks had seen the young priest merely as one more dusty and perspiring exile: but, after the speech of the Prior, they recovered some of the mood in which they had listened to the Abbot's prophecy the night before. The scene had a solemnity of its own. Instead of carved stalls the monks sat on boxes, casks, and heaps of straw: but the few candles, casting vague shadows of black-robed figures upon the death-white walls, filled the mind with bodings of supernatural mystery. One and all gazed upon Antonio's face, fully persuaded that he would speak and ready to obey.
Antonio, becoming conscious of their expectation, flushed and fastened his eyes upon the ground. The Prior, putting into words the general feeling, said gently:
"Father Antonio, be not afraid. What said our Father Saint Benedict in the Holy Rule?Ideo autem omnes ad consilium vocari diximus; quia saepe juniori Dominus revelat quod melius est: 'We have ordained that all be called to Council, because it is often to the youngest that God revealeth what is best.' Speak."
The Prior's words, the intent looks of his brethren, the shadows, the candle-flames, the silence, seemed to Antonio like so many hands, great and small, held out hungrily for his words. Besides, was it not disloyal, mean, unbrotherly, to lock away a secret from his brethren? At this thought the hands came searching and plucking in his very breast. But the heavenly light, which had been burning like a bright lamp within him all day long, once more showed him his duty. He knew that among the monks were old men of enfeebled mind and weakened will, whose worn wits would not be proof against the artful pryings and questionings of spies, and that he had no right to burden them with a secret they could not keep. Yet this was a minor consideration. The supreme fact was that God was saying to him, "Hold thy peace."
Only when the silence had become unbearable did Antonio answer:
"Father Prior, indulge me. If I must speak, I crave leave to speak last."
As affectation and false humility were faults which had long been cast out of the community, the Prior reluctantly took Antonio at his word. Indeed, there was that in the young priest's voice which compelled the acquiescence of all.
"Then let us, Fathers and Brethren," said the Prior at length, "speak in turn. I will begin. But all I shall say is subject to alteration, nay, perhaps to complete reversal, by the council Father Antonio shall give us."
A low murmur of approval rounded off his words.
"My own council," continued the Prior, "would be this. The Father Cellarer knows to a vintem how much money we can find. Let us, for the present, turn our cheek to the smiter and abandon our community life. Let each of us decide where and how he can best live till we have bettered or worsened our case in Lisbon, and let him declare to the Father Cellarer what money he will need. For the present Father Isidoro and Brother Cypriano and I will remain here with our beloved Father Abbot. He believes"—here the Prior's voice trembled—"that God will call his soul away to-morrow; and it is not for us to say 'God forbid.' But be it to-morrow, or next week, or next month, or next year, here we stay, Father Isidoro, Brother Cypriano and I, even though all the horses and men in Portugal be sent to move us. And, when we have laid our beloved Father's remains in the earth, I will join the Father Cellarer in Lisbon. We shall live in the house of the writer of this letter, the Senhor Aureliano Gonçalves de Sousa, the notary, in the Rua Augusta. Let every one of us keep in touch, one with another, at that address until our future is clearly known."
The Cellarer spoke in the same sense. He was followed by the monks in turn. Every one of them, with varying degrees of conviction, repeated the Prior's saving clause about Antonio's coming words, and every one of them endorsed the Prior's counsel.
Father Isidoro and seven other choir-monks added that their refuge would be in a house of their Order on Spanish soil, just across the Guadiana. It appeared that they had been discussing the matter all day, and that they had fixed upon this particular Spanish monastery because it was within two hours' ride of Portugal. Father Sebastian announced that he would take shelter at the Inglezinhos in Lisbon. These English Fathers, he said, could not be suppressed because they were secular priests and British subjects: but they had a cloister and something of community life. Other monks spoke of Vigo, of Santiago de Compostela, of Salamanca, and of a new house in Belgium where there was a strict observance. Two dreamed of Monte Cassino itself, and one surprised the Council by mentioning a Benedictine house in Protestant England, not far from legendary Glastonbury. Some of the oldest Fathers named friends, clerical and lay, in various cities of Portugal, beneath whose roofs they could die quietly if the Prior's and the Cellarer's fight in Lisbon should end in defeat. As for the lay-brethren, they decided to go in a body to Evora, where Brother Lorenzo had claims on the protection of the Archbishop.
It was inevitable that these announcements should generate in the Council an unmonkish excitement. After having been so long persuaded that they would live the rest of their lives and die their due deaths within the same square mile of earth, there was something strangely fascinating in this sudden unrolling of the map of Europe. The solid sorrow of their dispossession was almost hidden for the moment under a whirl and flutter of little arrangements; even as a fatal reef is hidden under the pretty spray of the rollers it has smashed to glittering atoms. The buzz of talk which followed on the more formal speaking was not without the shrill note of schoolboys as they discuss a thousand plans for an approaching holiday.
The Cellarer who, despite his preoccupation with its temporals, was one of the community's most spiritually-minded members, swiftly detected the danger.
"Father Prior," he said loudly, "all have spoken save Father Antonio."
His bright firm voice cut through the dull buzz like an eagle dashing through starlings, scattering them all in flight. Every monk felt the just rebuke, and once more there was silence.
"Father Antonio," said the Prior, quietly and kindly.
Antonio felt that he could not speak from his place by the wall. He rose and advanced with bowed head into the midst of his brethren. The corn-merchant's tiny candles were flickering down into their sockets; and he waited a few moments in the hope that darkness might enveil him before he opened his mouth. But the lights leaped into fuller brightness. He raised his head. Everywhere he saw eyes, eyes—old eyes and young eyes, loving eyes and stern eyes, dull eyes and eager eyes, hopeful eyes and fearful eyes—everywhere eyes, eyes fixed on him, Antonio, alone.
"Father Prior—" he began. But his prepared words were taken away. The eyes went on piercing him until he felt like the holy martyr Sebastian in the midst of the sharp arrows. At last words burst from him.
"My Fathers, my Brethren," he cried. "Forgive me. To-morrow I am going back into the world."
One of the lights went out suddenly, as if Antonio's apostasy had struck it down like a blow. But for five or six seconds no one stirred or spoke. A second candle-flame leaped up and died away. Then, in the dimness, uprose a confused murmuring, sharpened here and there by exclamations of scorn or anger or bitter sorrow. More distinctly than the rest was heard the garrulous contempt of Father Bernardo, whose lapses into the sin of gluttony had so often scandalized the brethren. Father Bernardo's righteous scorn was sincere. He had no vocation to be a saint or a hero himself; but he knew that saints and heroes were necessary, and he despised Antonio for turning his back upon the light.
The Cellarer left his seat and came to Antonio's side. Isidore and Sebastian followed him, and other monks showed signs of doing the same. But before a word could be breathed into his ear, Antonio wrenched himself out of the midst of the increasing group and threw himself on his knees at the Prior's feet.
"For the love of Jesus Christ," he pleaded, in low intense tones, "bid them leave me in peace."
The Prior took one of the remaining candles and looked at Antonio intently. At first a shade of scorn darkened his cheek; for he imagined that he saw in Antonio's eyes no more than the physical anguish of a hunted animal. But he looked more deeply; and he saw more.
"Fathers and Brethren," he commanded. "Let us have order and silence. Father Sebastian shall speak with Father Antonio; and, after him, the Father Cellarer. It is time for Compline."
As everybody knew the almost invariable prayers and psalms of Compline by heart, there was no need for fresh candles, and the community began to recite the office. All had resumed their places save Antonio, who moved slowly away to the obscurest corner, near the granary door. There he stood, blending his prayers and praises with those of his brethren for the last time. He joined in the Confession with deep humility, smiting his breast: and when the Hebdomadarius gave the Absolution, Antonio crossed himself as if Calvary itself were before his eyes. In due time the Psalms, the Hymn, the Little Chapter, andPater Nosterhad been said, and the monks began the proper Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin,Salve Regina. Repeating the pious words, Antonio quietly opened the granary door; and, at the end of the prayerOmnipotens sempiterne Deus, he slipped forth into the soft night.
Across the courtyard a light was burning in the room where the Abbot still lay in unnatural sleep. Antonio drew near and gazed through the glass. The old man's hands were clasped on his breast, and his garment fell into stiff folds like the alabaster draperies of a mitered effigy on a tomb. Antonio breathed towards the frail body the prayer he had heard at the beginning of Compline,Noctem quietam et finem perfectum: "May the Almighty Lord grant him a quiet night and a perfect end."
As he turned away with a bursting heart he came face to face with Father Sebastian, who had seen his stealthy flight. Sebastian, as usual, was drawing his habit closely round his body. There was more than usual of the consumptive glow on his cheek and of the too bright fire in his eyes. The two men faced each other searchingly.
"Father Antonio," asked Sebastian at last, "is this our Lord's work or the devil's?"
"It is our Lord's," returned Antonio in a firm voice. "Take heed that you do not hinder it."
He brushed past and opened the wicket which led into the high road. But, before he passed out, he seized his friend's thin hand in a fierce grip.
"Sebastian," he said, "ask all my brethren to forgive me and to pray for me. Take care of my breviary, if you can. Good-bye."
A sentry challenged him as he strode forth: but Antonio threw him aside. "I am not your prisoner," he said; and the fellow, bemused by wine and by fatigue, fell back without another word.
Hurrying though Navares he contrived to pass the apothecary's shop unobserved by the throng of leading townsmen who were warmly debating the rights and wrongs of the monks' case. Outside the taverns he was less successful; and in one instance, a lewd insult which was flung after him led to bitter rejoinders and a scuffle. A young man, whose pleasant face contrasted oddly with his words, ran after Antonio to say that the monks ought to have been driven out long ago: but, on the other hand, four separate men offered him hospitality, ranging from a pull of wine to a night's lodging.
Thanking friends and forgiving foes, the young priest pressed forward until the last houses of Navares were more than a league behind him. Only then did he sink down to rest. His halting-place was on a more northerly point of the long range of hills on which stood the monastery from which he had been cast into exile. By the stars he knew that exactly twenty-four hours had passed since his reverie on the cork bench, on the flat roof of the cloister.
The airs around him, like the airs of the night before in the monastery garden, were rich with scents of lemon-blossom and honeysuckle. The Atlantic still lay unvexed by wind: but the ocean swell, as it searched the creeks and caves, hummed heavily and wearily, like a great bee mining in the bells of flowers that held no honey.
Antonio slept soundly until sunrise. When he awoke the larks were in full song. He sat up. The carpet of pine-needles around him was curiously patterned with long black stripes—the tree-trunks' shadows cast by the low, strong sun. No wind moved in the wood: but out at sea the weather seemed to have freshened, for the chaunt of the Atlantic was quicker and louder.
The monk knelt down and said his morning prayers. Then, obeying the call of the great waters, he arose and struck along the margin of a maize-field towards the shore. In half an hour he was ankle-deep in fine yellow sand. But the beach fell away too steeply and the undertow sucked too strongly for a plunge, so he turned and plodded northward.
Two miles of toilsome going brought him to a little estuary, about a furlong wide. Along the further bank sprawled a white village with a considerable tower: but none of the villagers appeared to be astir. The out-flowing tide had left a deep pool of clear water. Antonio swiftly stripped and jumped in; and only when the level of the water had so far fallen that further swimming was impossible did he emerge from his bath.
Refreshed and strengthened he turned inland and pushed up-stream until he reached a point to which the salt water never rose. There, in a cold cascade, he washed his under-garments; and while they were drying in the sun he sat under an evergreen oak, wrapped in his coarse habit, and began to recite the Divine Office. Although he had perforce left behind at Navares the bundle which contained three volumes of his breviary, he had brought away in his hand thePars Æstiva, from which he had said the last Compline with his brethren; and, by the time his clothes were dry, he had recited the whole of Matins, Lauds, and Prime.
Having dressed himself Antonio sat down to mature his plans. He decided, first of all, to forswear false pride. Excepting one volume of a breviary and the poor clothes he sat in he was without a possession in the world. It was true that he owned a pair of brawny arms, and he was willing and eager to use them hard from morning to night: but he felt that the prime necessity was to exchange his habit for a layman's dress. It was not fitting that a monk of Saint Benedict should wander about like a mendicant friar. Accordingly, Antonio resolved to enter the village and to seek aid, for the first and last time, from the secular clergy.
He waded the stream above the cascade and descended the northern bank until he reached a lane roughly paved with boulders. The lane wound in and out between low walls: but it led at last to the foot of a mound on which rose a vast oblong church with lime-washed walls and granite quoins. The sacristan, in a very short and skimpy scarlet gown, was in the act of unlocking the doors; and, through his offices, Antonio soon found himself in the ample presence of thepadre-cura.
Thepadre-curareceived his visitor with uncertain approval. He was a hard-headed old man, whose counsels were less eagerly sought by his flock in the confession than in difficult cases of calving, or boat-caulking, or bush-vine pruning. He believed every article of the longest and latest of the creeds implicitly, and lived becomingly: but there was not a tinge of the mystic in his personality. The sight of a monk slightly nettled him. This secular priest felt that a religious must be contemptuous of his common-sense, every-day Christianity, and that he must be tacitly challenging him to a superfine and unpractical piety. Besides, the cura's friends were Liberals, and they had quieted his qualms concerning the new laws against the monasteries by assuring him, as they assured so many others of his class, that the swollen revenues of the suppressed houses would go to augment the wretched stipends of the rural clergy.
Antonio began to explain whence he had come. But the sacristan was already tugging away at the bell-rope, and the cura interrupted.
"You are not a lay-brother?" he demanded. "You are a priest?"
"I am a priest," answered Antonio.
"Then you shall say my Mass," said the cura promptly. "We will talk about your business at breakfast."
"I cannot say your Mass, Father," responded Antonio, flushing sadly. "I was ordained priest only forty-eight hours ago, and yesterday morning we were driven from the abbey. God alone knows when and where my first Mass will be said."
The old cura's heart melted towards the young monk. Unmystical though he was, he recalled the high mood of his own ordination day, the fine happiness of his own first Mass. He laid his rough hand kindly on Antonio's shoulder.
"Come," he said, "if you can't say my Mass, at least you shall serve it."
Antonio served the cura's Mass at a gilded altar, tricked out with gaudy vases of faded crimson paper roses in the very worst taste he had ever seen. But the old priest, despite the nasality of his Latin and the jerkiness of his genuflexions, said Mass with an intensity of recollection which edified the server exceedingly; and the few peasants who knelt on the boarded floor were not behind him in devotion.
The cura's breakfast was enlarged in Antonio's honor. Over and above the inevitable bacalhau, or salted stock-fish, there was a whole hake. It had been caught only half a dozen hours before, and it made a fine show with its head and tail projecting over the ends of a long rough dish, gaily painted with birds and flowers. There was also a piled-up mess of boiled beef and ham sausage, banked on rice and white cabbage and moated round with a broth full of chick-peas. Each breakfaster was also served with a couple of eggs, fried in olive oil; and the meal was rounded off by a basket of late strawberries. To wash down the solids the cura opened three bottles of sharp green wine.
Antonio ate and drank sparingly. During the meal he confined himself to answering his host's innumerable questions, and listening, without resentment, to sly hints about monkish arrogance and luxury: but while the cura was busy with his strawberries, he told simply and shortly the tale of the alien Visconde de Ponte Quebrada. As he ceased speaking he saw that the old man was half won round to the monks' side.
"And now, what are you going to do?" asked the cura.
"For the present," said Antonio, "I am going back into the world. I will be a burden upon none. I am going to work; and, when I have put a little money by, I have a plan of doing something for my Order."
"What can you do for a living?"
"I understand vines and wine. At the abbey I had charge of the vineyard."
"You are making your way to Oporto?"
"Yes. To Oporto."
"Very well. I sell two pipes of green wine every year to a firm there. I will give you a letter. But what about your clothes? You can't go back into the world like this."
"I sought you this morning, Father," said Antonio with a great effort, "for this very reason."
"How much money have you?"
"Not any, Father. Beyond one volume of my breviary and the clothes you see me wearing, I have nothing in this world."
The old man emitted his amazement in a protracted, clucking noise. Then he rose abruptly and commanded:
"Come with me."
In an otherwise empty room at the head of the stairs stood a large clothes-press. As the cura threw open its doors a waft of camphor and lavender filled Antonio's nostrils. Unfolding some linen wrappers the cura took out a suit of black clothes, such as country tailors make for doctors and lawyers and officials.
"I have worn these clothes twice," said the cura, "once at the Bishop's funeral and once at my niece's wedding. Ah, my friend, I was a man in those days, not a shrimp. That was before I had my fever. I could eat a dinner with any man in the diocese; yes, and empty a bottle too. But since I've lost my appetite and come down to skin and bone, what good are these clothes to me? They'd flap about on me like a sack on a scarecrow. Take them, my son, and a good riddance to them."
As the cura had just consumed fully three pounds' weight of bacalhau, hake, beef, vegetables, and dark bread, to say nothing of the strawberries and the eggs, Antonio's gravity was shaken. His host was still so rosy and rotund that the young monk dared not picture him as he must have been before he sank to his shrimp-like and skin-and-bone condition. But it was only for a moment that he found the old man ridiculous. The main thing was that he was relieving Antonio's need with a tact as beautiful as his generosity.
The cura went to the window while Antonio donned the clothes. They fitted him ill, but not intolerably. Indeed, the cura, when he turned round, affirmed that there was not a tailor in Lisbon itself who could have fitted Antonio better. There was a difficulty about a hat, the monk's head being larger than the cura's; and it was finally agreed that a decent hat must be dispensed with until the traveler reached the nearest town, and that an improvisation of straw or grass must meanwhile serve in its stead.
Leading the way to his bedroom the old man unlocked a large coffer of chestnut-wood, and drew up from its depths a tarnished silver snuff-box. Within the snuff-box nestled a tiny leather pouch. The cura shook its contents into his left palm. Altogether there were eleven pieces of English gold, seven whole sovereigns and four halves. Such English pounds,libras esterlinas, and "half-pounds" were almost the sole gold currency in Portugal.
"I am going to lend you five pounds," said the cura. "If you can save enough to repay it while I am alive, so much the better. If you can do nothing till after I am dead, have Masses said for my soul. Here, take it, my son, and God bless you."
So big a lump swelled in Antonio's throat that it was a long time before he could answer. At last he managed to utter his thanks and to declare stoutly that he would accept one pound only, to be repaid within the year. The cura grew angry, but the monk was firm. After much argument the dispute was ended by Antonio's accepting two half-pounds in English gold and a further half-pound in Portuguesetostõesandvintens.*
* The Portuguesereal(pluralreis) is an imaginary coin. Twentyreismake onevintem(pluralvintens) the Portuguese penny. One hundredreis, or fivevintemsmade onetostão(pluraltostões). The large silver piece calledmil reis(1000reis) is nominally worth 4s.5d., but is practically a dollar.
By this time the sun was pouring down floods of fire from the heights of heaven. The cura closed the shutters and insisted that Antonio should rest on his bed till the fiercest heat should be passed. He himself descended to the living-room to say his Office and to indite the letter to the Operto wine-merchants—an unfamiliar and formidable task, which was only achieved after two hours of grunting and groaning and ink-spilling and striding about.
Lying on the straw-stuffed bed, with his head on a hard pillow less than ten inches square, Antonio tried to recall all that had happened since the clink of steel cut short his reverie on the roof of the cloister. But out of forty-eight hours he had slept barely five. Drowsiness crept over him, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke and opened the shutters he knew by the sun that it must be about five o'clock in the afternoon. He hastened downstairs. A smell of salt fish and warmed-up beef and hot oil prepared him for the cura's pressing invitation to stay to dinner, which he gratefully and decisively refused.
At the presbytery door a handsome young peasant, goad in hand, was waiting alongside a pair of bullocks and a cart. The bullocks, fawn-colored, with great soft eyes, had horns a yard long. The cart was of a type unchanged since the days of the Romans. The wheels were simply iron-bound disks of wood cut in one piece from the round trunks of big trees: the cart itself was stuck round with a dozen upright staves, to fence in the load.
Wringing his benefactor's hand for the seventh time and uttering a final word of gratitude, Antonio was about to begin his march when the peasant came forward to help him into the cart. It was vain to protest. The cura, who had never walked three continuous leagues in his life, laughed to scorn the monk's earnest declaration that he preferred to go afoot. The cart, he said, was hired and paid for as far as the nearest town, and he was not going to have a thousand reis thrown away.
There was nothing for it but obedience. The peasant had softened the rigors of the vehicle by flinging in a heap of heather and bracken: and as soon as his passenger was stretched full length on the greenery he made haste to rig up an awning on the poles. This consisted of one of the huge waterproofs, plaited from reeds or grass, in which the Portuguese peasantry walk about on rainy days looking like animated Kaffir huts. The son of Saint Benedict winced at so much pampering: but the cura was not to be withstood.
As the bullocks began to slouch forward Antonio felt some kind of a package being thrust through the bars behind his head, while a rough voice muttered in his ear:
"Adeus! And pray to God for an old sinner!"
The peasant gently plied the goad, and the bullocks quickened their pace to about two miles an hour. Fortunately the road was deserted, and no one met or overtook the chariot. At the first turning Antonio's impulse to leap out and walk was nearly irresistible; but respect for the cura restrained him. Leaning on one elbow he opened his breviary and recited the remainder of the day's Office as far as the end of Vespers. This done, he could tolerate his position no longer. The jolting of the rigid cart over an ill-made and worse mended road, and the skriking of the unoiled axle, he might have endured: but the snail's pace, and, worst of all, the feeling that he was like a fatted beast in the pen on the way to a fair, chafed him beyond bearing. So at sunset he descended, and, giving the driver one of his tostões, declared that he would complete the journey on foot. For five minutes the peasant obstinately insisted on marching with his passenger, cart and bullocks and all, as far as the town: but this the monk, fearful of being led to an inn where he would have to spend more tostões, would not allow. The peasant gave way at last; and, placing in Antonio's hand the packet which the cura had thrust between the bars of the cart, he wished him God-speed, and turned his clumsy beasts and creaking machine back towards the south.
With legs half-paralyzed by the cramping cart and sadly encumbered by his unfamiliar clothes, Antonio's first steps were like those of a drunken man. But he soon got into his stride and reached the town before the shops were closed. The felt sombrero which he bought amidst an increasing crowd of gaping idlers was the cheapest he could find: but it left him less change than he expected out of one of his half-pounds. Outside the shop a brown-eyed, bare-footed boy was waiting to guide the stranger to the inn; but Antonio gave him a vintem and pressed forward on his journey.
About an hour before midnight he reached a moss-grown aqueduct which supplied the water-wheel of a lonely orangery. Climbing the bank from which its clear spring gushed forth, the tired wayfarer sat down on the warm stones and opened the cura's package. It held a bottle of green wine, a loaf of rye bread, and some hunks of cold boiled beef; also, wrapped up in many wrappings, one more English pound.
Tears came into the monk's eyes. Throughout the griefs and partings of the two days just past he had been dry-eyed and calm: but this was beyond bearing. Mechanically holding open in his hand the book which it was too dark to read, he recited Compline, adding a heartfelt supplication for the cura's good estate. Then he ate a little of the dark bread, drank a few cool draughts from the hurrying spring, and lay down to sleep.
Before slumber had fully sealed his eyelids some sudden influence roused Antonio up. As plainly as if an angel's voice had spoken, he knew that in that moment the soul of the Abbot had passed to God. He arose and sank upon his knees, devoutly offering fervent prayers. Then he lay down once more, strangely filled with peace and with a feeling that all was well. He could not sleep; but he lay looking up into the violet heavens as though he half expected to see appearing in their highest heights a new bright star.
June morn after June morn, June eve after June eve, Antonio steadily tramped towards Oporto. He usually rested in some grove or on the seashore from nightfall until dawn, and from about ten in the morning until four in the afternoon: but he was rarely on the march less than twelve hours a day.
Jealously guarding his little hoard he never spent a vintem that he could fairly save. For example, as he approached the mouth of the Mondego, he learned that the ferryman expected a pataco for the passage. A pataco is two vintens: so Antonio made a detour to the east and swam the stream at a lonely spot, pushing his clothes before him on a tiny raft of osiers. The cura's beef and bread and wine fed him for two days, and when they were consumed the monk lived on a tostão a day. His food was mainly dark bread; but he allowed himself, morning and evening, a small goat's-milk cheese and a draught of wine at a roadside tavern, for which he paid one pataco, or sometimes less. Once he caught two trout in a wayside stream, taking them with his hand from a pool as he had learned to do as a boy. A bit of a broken horseshoe and a flint enabled him to kindle a cook's fire in a little hollow.
In the plain to the west of Bussaco a farmer whom he overtook on the road from Coimbra gave him two days' work in his vineyard, for which he paid Antonio five tostões and his board. Again, at Aveiro, a young canon who had surprised the monk conning his breviary in a dim corner of the insignificant cathedral, not only forced upon him a dinner and a night's lodging, but took him next morning aboard a kind of gondola which bore him along a Venetian-looking canal all the way to Ovar. From Ovar Antonio made a forced march of twenty miles; and that night he slept on sand, under pines, close to the mouth of the Douro. At daybreak he turned inland in time to see the first rays of the sun striking the tower of the Clerigos and the piled-up white houses of Oporto.
With the flashing Douro between himself and the city, he took out the cura's unsealed letter to the wine-merchant and read it for the twentieth time. The perusal strengthened his conviction that he could not present it. Throughout three pages the cura enlarged upon his young friend's troubles as an expelled monk: and this was not the light in which Antonio wished the employers of Oporto to regard him.
Descending into Villa Nova de Gaia, he was surprised and delighted to find that he was already among the warehouses and caves of the more famous wine-merchants, and that he did not need to cross the bridge of boats in order to begin his search for employment. But as it was still too early for the magnates to have reached their bureaux, he determined to hear Mass. On a height above him rose a fine domed church, and thither he climbed. Antonio did not know that he was gazing upon the famous Augustinian convent of Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar, whence the Duke of Wellington, helped by monks, had made his wonderful dash across the Douro five-and-thirty years before; nor did he know that less than two years had passed since the gallant Liberal Marquis Sa da Bandeira had held the same spot against heavy Miguelista odds. What engrossed Antonio was the confusion, which showed that this convent was faring little better than his own abbey and that the Augustinians were faring no better than the Benedictines. He waited for Mass in vain.
Dropping down again into Gaia he bought a piece of bread and turned into a tavern for a short rest and a draught of wine. When the tavern-keeper was inquisitive Antonio candidly stated that he had come to Gaia to look for employment. The tavern-keeper shook his head.
"Your Worship has come at the wrong time," he said. And he went on to tell how one of the French soldiers of fortune, who had been hired for the siege, had wantonly destroyed nine thousand pipes of wine in a single warehouse. The port-wine trade, he said, was all at sixes and sevens.
A little daunted, Antonio arose at last and made his way to the first of the warehouses. Like many others which he visited in the course of the day, it was protected by a small representation of the Union Jack, painted correctly in red, white, and blue, and superscribed, "British Property." An English foreman barred Antonio's way to the office with a surly announcement that the manager had not arrived, and that in no case were new hands required. At the second warehouse he was less curtly but no more usefully answered. At the third and fourth he was denied admittance. At the fifth he would have been given a temporary post had he been able to speak English: but the monk could only read and write it. At the eleventh and last he was told that he might apply again in a week's time.
With weary limbs and a wearier heart the wanderer crossed the bridge of boats in the blaze of the June afternoon and toiled up the hill to the cathedral. In the granite cloisters, face to face with some unchurchly azulejos depicting scenes from the Song of Solomon, he sat with closed eyes until the heat was passed. Then he descended one hill and ascended another in search of the great Benedictine monastery. He found the community still in possession: but an inward voice forbade him to make himself known and he turned sadly away.
Many broken windows and a few wrecked houses reminded Antonio of the siege so lately ended; but, on the whole, he was surprised to see so few signs of the strife. The streets were full of bullock-carts, fishwives, and busy people of all sorts, and the river was alive with shipping. Amidst so much activity surely the morrow would find a post for him to fill. He plucked up heart and set about securing a cheap lodging. Happily the first he inspected met his needs. For six tostões a week he hired a narrow room over a cobbler's, with the right to use the cobbler's wife's fire twice a day.
In order that he might pick up the manners and speech of the world, Antonio dined that night in a quay-side eating-house. Throughout the meal he heard little more than a loud conversation between a Norwegian captain and his mate: but while he was lingering at the table, lamenting the wasting of twelve vintens, three or four Portuguese entered and sat down at the table of the departing Norwegians. In audible tones they continued a debate in which they were engaged on the suppression of the religious orders. They were coarsened men, whose language was one-fourth oaths.
As one monstrous slander after another was uttered against his brethren, Antonio's blood began to boil within him. Very little more would have overborne his self-control: but suddenly a black-mustached man with the Lisbon accent, who had taken a minor part in the argument, rapped the table and made himself heard.
"Monks and friars are wastrels and loafers," he began, "but the men who're turning them out are ten times worse. Listen to me. I'll tell your Worships what everybody was talking about in Lisbon the day before yesterday, when I came away."
Through the waiter setting down the newcomers' plates with a noisy rattle, Antonio lost most of the next sentence: but, with a start of surprise, he caught the name of his own abbey.
"It's only a little abbey," continued the man from Lisbon, "and nobody guessed it was so rich. But it seems the monks had got stuff worth a hundred thousand pounds. They had dozens of golden cups all covered over with diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs, and a lot of pictures by the famous Italian painter Raphael.
"Your Worships have heard of our new Viscount, the Viscount of Ponte Quebrada. He comes from Amsterdam, or London, or Frankfort—it doesn't matter which. He's a Jew, or an atheist, or a Protestant—it's all the same thing. The Government has made him a Viscount because he found money last year. For every thirty English pounds he brought, Portugal has to pay back a hundred, and the interest as well. So he's been made a Viscount."
"We're not Miguelistas here," growled one of the company. But the Lisbon man ignored him and went on:
"Somehow the Viscount of Ponte Quebrada got wind of the diamond cups. He went off himself with the troopers, so that he could lay hold of them for himself. I know exactly what happened. My brother employs a man whose cousin was one of the soldiers. When the Viscount demanded possession of the monastery, the monks insisted that he should give receipts for all the pictures and cups. There was a terrible quarrel. Then the Viscount tried to steal the things in the night. But he was caught. The next morning it turned out that the Prior was really a general, and that he had been second in command to the famous Wellington. He threw off his monk's dress before all the soldiers and stood up in full uniform, and offered to fight the Viscount either with swords or pistols. Then the Viscount signed the receipts.
"As soon as the monks had passed out of the gates, the Abbot, who was nearly a hundred years old, dropped down dead from the excitement. When they buried him, at a place called Navares, there was nearly a riot against the Government."
"I tell you, we are not against the Government here," gruffed out the Oporto man with increasing resentment. But the Lisbon man ignored him again.
"The Viscount sent all the soldiers to this place Navares, to put the riot down. Then he pretended to be afraid that the Prior was going to make a dash back for the diamond cups: so he pretended to bury them in the woods, and sent an express to the Government to come with half a regiment and carry the stuff safely to Lisbon. The Government sent fifty more soldiers: but, when the Viscount took them to the place in the woods, all they found was an empty hole."
Even the Oporto Liberal whistled his surprise. Antonio, bending forward unconsciously, strained his ears to catch every word.
"They say," concluded the man from Lisbon, "that no play-actor in the world could have done better than the Viscount. When he saw the empty hole he threw up his hands and began raving like a madman, and tore his hair. But nobody is taken in. He has stormed and raged and threatened: but Lisbon's too hot for him, and he's taken himself off on an English packet."
"And the diamond cups?" demanded two voices at once.
"Don't ask me," chuckled the man from Lisbon. "Ask the Viscount of Ponte Quebrada. After all, what does it matter? Portugal has been robbed a thousand times before, and this is simply the thousand and first. As I've said already, friars and monks are loafers and wastrels; but they're being driven out by knaves and thieves."
"The whole tale's a pack of lies!" roared the Oporto Liberal. And, rising up, he banged the table with his fist until the wine leaped out of the glasses.
The Lisbon man, who had told his tale in bantering, almost jovial tones, sprang up in his turn and blazed out with a brace of lurid oaths. In a moment the whole place was in an uproar and things looked ugly for the Southerner. But just as the first blow was about to be struck Antonio leaped between the combatants.
"Senhores," he cried, "the whole tale is not a pack of lies. I used to work for that old Abbot in the monks' vineyards. It is true that the Viscount of Ponte Quebrada tried to seize the abbey's treasures for himself."
For two or three seconds everybody stared at Antonio in speechless surprise. Then the din of angry voices broke out louder than ever. The tavern-keeper bawled out commands which no one heeded, while threats and curses filled the air. From other tables excited men came hurrying to the fray.
Antonio saw that the odds were a dozen to two: so he gripped the man from Lisbon by the shoulders and half shoved, half swung him to the open door and into the safety of the street. And, in spite of being well cursed and hustled for his pains, he did not relax his hold until they had gained a dim and quiet alley.
When Antonio said good-night and would have turned homeward, the Southerner had the grace and sense to know that a service had been rendered to him. Rather sulkily he grunted:
"Stop. One moment. You meant well. Who are you?"
"My name," answered the monk, "is Francisco Manoel Oliveira da Rocha." It was Antonio's true name, but from long disuse it came haltingly from his lips.
"What are you doing in Oporto?"
"Looking for work," said Antonio. "I only arrived this morning. Perhaps I shall have better luck to-morrow. In Gaia the wine-merchants do not want hands."
"That's all stuff and nonsense!" snorted the man from Lisbon. "They want a man badly at the cellars of Castro and de Mattos."
Antonio explained that he had approached the Senhores Castro and de Mattos and had been turned out.
"Meet me outside their offices at nine to-morrow morning," said the stranger, "and they'll let you in."
Not only the next morning, but also on hundreds of mornings following, Castro's and de Mattos' doors opened to Antonio. Somewhat straitened financially, Senhor Castro, the only surviving partner, was coquetting with a rich English wine-merchant who wished to acquire a direct interest in an Oporto wine-lodge of repute. The negotiations demanded an exact stock-taking, and to this end Antonio was engaged for three months at a wage of four milreis a week.
The hours were long and the work was heavy. Two porters were at his disposal; but Antonio had often to put his own shoulder to the shifting of a cask. As for the brain-work it was harder than the manual. Following Portuguese custom the Castro wines had been reckoned by weight; and it was the young monk's duty to work out difficult sums in weights and measures, transmuting the awkward Portuguese almudes into equally awkward English tuns and hogsheads.
On the last day of July, more than four weeks before anybody expected the work to be finished, Antonio placed a neatly-written summary in his employer's hands. Senhor Castro was delighted. Not only was he able to resume his negotiations a month earlier than he had hoped, but his losses during the siege proved to be less than he had feared. Recalling the strenuous Antonio to his private room he renewed his engagement, and entrusted him with important duties far up the Douro, where the Castro vineyards lay.
Throughout a torrid August, in a profound gorge where the quivering heat abode like fiery vapors in a crater, Antonio labored on, tightening the lax Castro discipline and overhauling the muddled organization. Before the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels the vintage was over, and an unusual quantity of good wine had been pressed with exceptional care. The monk returned to Oporto in a wine-boat, and his voyage was not without excitements. Here swirling through a deep ravine, there spreading over wide shallows, the Douro kept its navigators ever on the alert. Once, at sunrise, a bark which was outstripping Antonio's came to grief. Two hogsheads of wine smashed like egg-shells against a jagged reef of slate, and the chocolate-colored water was empurpled with the spilt blood of the vine.
On reporting himself to Senhor Castro Antonio found his hours shortened, his importance heightened, and his salary raised to twenty-five milreis a month. But he did not abandon his cheap lodging over the cobbler's shop nor did he soften the austerities of his life. By the beginning of October, continued self-denial enabled him to send to the old cura five English pounds in return for the clothes and money which had started the monk on his secular career.
Antonio's were strenuous days. In the cellar and in the counting-house he gave his whole body and mind to his work. Yet he performed every day the Work of God. Soon after the disappearance of his Benedictine brethren from their convent in Oporto, he saw in a poor shop a complete monastic breviary which he bought for a few coppers. Every morning, week-day and Sunday, he heard Mass, and every day he recited the whole of the Divine Office. And over and above all this he found time for perfecting himself in spoken and written English. A swim and a long tramp on a Sunday, followed by a meal in a tavern, were his sole pleasures; and his Sunday evenings were cheerfully sacrificed to the needs of Oporto's poor and illiterate Gallegos, or Spanish porters from Galicia, whose letters to their friends at home were often written by Antonio's pen.
At the Whitsuntide holidays he would tramp off to the shrine of Bom Jesus, or Our Lord of the Mount, on a hill overlooking the primatial city of Braga. There he would eat the penny stews and halfpenny loaves, cooked for the pilgrims in the great hill-side ovens, and after a farthing draught of wine he would lie down to sleep in the open air.
After three years of this kind of life, in which each new week was almost a replica of the week before, Antonio found himself with a hundred English pounds. He had saved it by laying vintem on vintem, milreis on milreis. But he needed two hundred for the execution of his plan. The dreary prospect of three more grinding years, during which his opportunity might vanish away, suddenly dismayed him; and, falling on his knees in the ancient little church of Cedofeita, he desperately challenged heaven to make haste.
Two hours later Senhor Castro summoned the young man to his presence. He said that the quickly-waxing repute of the firm's ports in England had led to a large order for the cellars of the English king. His London partner, he added, was rising to the occasion, and had already chartered a small ship for the transport of the juice. The idea was that no one outside the firm's own staff should handle the wine throughout its voyage from the Castro warehouses to King William's cellars. Senhor Castro concluded by asking Antonio to take entire charge of the affair. Nothing was said about an increase in his salary, but he was to receive a special allowance of four pounds a week for traveling expenses from the moment of dropping anchor in the Thames until he landed again in Oporto.
Antonio thanked his employer warmly; but the secret places of the monk's heart were loud with still warmer thanks to the Lord. He swiftly reckoned that the journey would increase his little hoard by not less than thirty pounds. Besides, he would see England in the full beauty of her famous spring and summer. He would tread the pavements of the greatest city in the world. Best of all he would hear and speak nothing but the English tongue which he had worked so hard to master.
As he walked out of the chief's office and gazed across the familiar river to the blinding whiteness of Oporto, Antonio suddenly realized that his good fortune had not befallen him a day too soon. During his daily, weekly, monthly plodding at a routine of dogged overwork he had not perceived that he was drawing away his reserves of health and courage. But, all in a moment, the unutterable staleness of his duties and surroundings sickened him. He shrank back from the torrid glare into a patch of shade and gasped greedily for air, like a newly-caught fish. Until he recovered self-control it seemed impossible to wait another moment for the waters and fresh breezes of the Atlantic, and for the green meadows and cool glades of England.
Ten mornings later theQueen of the Medway, with Antonio and his precious pipes of port on board, dropped down the Douro on a strong ebb-tide. A gentle wind blew favorably from the south, and before sunset the schooner had lost sight of Monte Luzia, the holy hill which watches over the towers and roofs of Vianna do Castello. As the last lights faded Antonio almost made out through the captain's glasses the mouth of the little river which divides Portugal from Spain. At daybreak the wind freshened and the monk, climbing the ladder with difficulty, peeped out at the arid peaks of Galicia. His next three days were less happy, for the Bay of Biscay was not in one of its softer moods.
Turning round Ushant, theQueen of the Medwayswam as gently as a swan into summer seas. The wind, after veering round to the west, had weakened into the softest of zephyrs, so that the log during the voyage up Channel never showed more than fifty knots a day. But Antonio inwardly gave thanks. At the first sight of Brittany his sea-sickness ceased. He began to eat like a hunter and to sleep like a log. In his portmanteau were English books and a grammar; but, outside the Divine Office, he did not read a word. For nine or ten hours a day he lay full-length on the deck, basking in the temperate sunshine while the immense tranquillity of sky and sea healed his nerves, and the soft air bought back color to his cheeks and light to his eyes.
The snow-white precipices of the English coast, and especially Shakespeare's Cliff, were so unlike anything he had ever seen before that they would have stirred Antonio even if there had been nothing within him of the poet and the student. But as they gave place to the flat beaches of Whitstable and the earth-banks of Sheppey he forgot the white walls in his eagerness to see the wonders they guarded. With the rosy breaking of the sixteenth day of the voyage he was already on the deck scanning the banks of the Thames. The chill landscape looked un-English and reminded him of Dutch pictures.
As day broadened the Thames narrowed. Many ships, great and small, came closer to theQueen of the Medwayas she moved forward with the flowing tide. Suddenly a frigate, pushing seaward against the stream, set the Thames on fire with curiosity. Her flag was flying at half-mast. A minute later the incoming craft had read her signals. King William was dead.
The captain, the mate, and Antonio uncovered; and, rather tardily, the crew did the same. A big East Indiaman, just ahead, began firing signal-guns in an aimless way, while a small collier half-masted a grimy Union Jack of incorrect design. If all the ships' companies were like the crew of theQueen of the Medway, there was much less grief than excitement. Even Antonio, who immediately went below with a troubled face, was selfish in his regrets. Now King William was dead, would the new King take the pipes of port?
Mr. Austin Crowberry, Senhor Castro's London partner, was not at the wharf when theQueen of the Medwaymade fast. But Antonio had no trouble. As the cargo was wholly for the King it was not subject to customs-duties, and the formalities were completed in a few moments. Indeed, one high official of the Excise was so anxious to be obliging that he strove hard to carry Antonio off to dine at a famous tavern.
When Mr. Crowberry arrived at last it was evident that he had been honoring the Castro juices with his active patronage. He recognized Antonio, whom he had seen twice in Gaia, and shook him so warmly by the hand that it was no longer possible to doubt his exhilarated condition. He would have drunk two bottles more in the captain's cabin if Antonio had not schemed to show him an empty cupboard. Very soon he lost his temper and launched into imprudent and disloyal grumblings. The House of Hanover, he said, was a house of spendthrifts and madmen. Who but a madman, he demanded of Antonio point-blank, would go and die on the very eve of filling his cellar with Waterloo port? And who was this chit Victoria? She was a slip of a wench nobody had ever heard of. He wound up by thanking his stars that he had only one child, seeing that the country could not possibly last another ten years.
Like the gorgeous officer of the Excise, Mr. Austin Crowberry tried his best to drag Antonio away to a tavern. But the monk stood firm. Until some officer of the royal household should take the cargo off his hands, not Senhor Castro himself could have induced him to leave theQueen of the Medwayfor a moment. His quarters were narrow, the deck was malodorous: but Antonio stuck to his post.