The counting began. To the blindfolded man it had an uncanny sound; for nine-tenths of the onlookers were chanting the numbers with Luiz in a subdued, expectant sing-song. But he kept his senses about him. During the few moments while Luiz was turning him round and pushing him about, Antonio had bent his whole mind to the business of smashing the jug. Not that he expected or even wished to smash it. On the contrary, he had come forward determined to fail. But it was part of his nature to do with all his wits and might whatever he took in hand.
Luiz bawled out twenty before Antonio made his first stroke. He did not touch the jug; but neither did he thwack the vacant air, for he distinctly felt the rebound of the pole's tip from the rope. He moved a pace to the right and struck again; but the pole encountered nothing. Meanwhile he knew that he had come near to victory, because the sing-song of the spectators had suddenly grown sharper and more excited. He went back half a step and swept the space above him with a curving stroke as Luiz reached sixty-three.
So uproarious a shout arose that Antonio did not hear the jug break, and he thought for a half a second that, in fulfilment of his prophecy to poor José, he had made himself the supreme fool of the evening. But, a twinkling later, the broken pieces crashed loudly at his feet, and, in the same moment, he knew that the intolerable counting had ceased. Somebody rushed forward to loosen the bandage; and, as it fell from his eyes, he saw Margarida standing with a beaming face among the young women.
Before he could greet her, a general stampede whirled Margarida out of sight. The younger guests were rushing to take up positions for a new sport in which all could join. Emilio explained to Antonio that it was to be a game of rounders, played with a clay pot instead of a ball. This little pot, such as could be bought any fair-day for a vintem, had no handle. It was of red clay, baked thin and brittle. The players stood round in an extended circle.
Donna Perpetua, as the hostess, led off by throwing the pot to Emilio; but, as soon as he had caught it, she resumed her place among the matrons. Emilio, after taking aim fixedly at Joaquina Carneiro, who was close at hand on his right, turned suddenly on his heel and tossed the clay to Rosalina Saldanha, a graceful blonde who was far away on his left. These ruses and pretenses were the salt of the game. The bowl flew spinning through the air in less than two seconds: but Rosalina was on the alert, and she caught it with her two slender hands amidst applause.
Clouds from the south-west were mounting higher, but the moon still shone brilliantly. Under the trees a lazy guitarist went on strumming his thin, moonlight music, as crisp as hoar-frost and tinkling like icicles. Whenever the pot was flung high, fifty bright eyes saw, up above it, the planets and the stars; but the players were too young and too happy to moralize. In their unstudied attitudes they made up a picture full of rhythmic grace.
Four times the pot hurtled its way to José; and four times he caught it before it touched the ground. At the fourth catch, he turned it like lightning to Emilio; and Emilio spun it slowly and gracefully into the hands of Margarida.
Margarida paused, clasping the red clay in fingers which were less slender than Rosalina Saldanha's, but whiter. Every eye was fixed upon her. She knew that she ought to toss the bowl to one of her brothers, or to a young woman, or to one of the older men. But an irresistible impulse moved her another way; and, with glowing cheeks and radiant eyes, she sent it curving across the space which separated her from Antonio.
Had it dashed like a stone from the catapult-hand of José or flashed like a meteor from the palm of Emilio the monk could have caught the pot. But Margarida's action took him unawares. What was he to do? When the pot was in his hand, how was he to treat her public act of favor? If he should—
His thinking was over in a flash; but it was too late. He plunged at the pot clumsily and missed his catch. The pot struck the hard floor and broke into a hundred pieces.
As a rule the smashing of the pot was the signal for a burst of mocking merriment. But instead of a light-hearted uproar there was an awe-struck silence. Everybody seemed to recoil from a sinister omen. Two more pots stood on a log, in readiness for the second and third rounds of the game; but no one stirred a step to fetch them. Antonio's gaze involuntarily followed the general movement and rested on the face of Margarida. The glow was gone from her cheeks, the light from her eyes. Very pale, she turned away.
A weak gust of wind rattled two or three dead leaves across the threshing-floor and a few cold drops fell from the darkening sky.
"The lamps are lighted in the barn," cried the voice of Senhor Jorge. "Come in, all of you, before the rain."
Senhor Jorge's lamps were not as bright as full moons. Their smoky flames lit up the vast barn so feebly that candles had to be set at the elbows of the knitters and stitchers and spinners. The spattering of the rain against the dusty windows made a dreariful sound.
There were games that could be played in a barn every bit as gay as the games of the open air. But the merry-makers had lost their good spirits, and nobody gave a lead towards recovering them. One by one the maids and youths sat down on full sacks or empty barrels, or squatted on the ground. When all were seated Donna Perpetua very politely begged José to tune his mandolin and to sing a fado, or love-song.
For the sake of the young people, Antonio felt glad. More than once he had heard José singing folk-songs which would have brought smiles to the faces of the most austere; and he took it for granted that José would break out with one of these rollicking lays. José, however, succumbed to the surrounding depression. Having tuned his mandolin, which was unusually large and sonorous, he began playing a doleful prelude.
Had his mind been free to enjoy it, Antonio would have found the music brimful of charm. The descending minor scale was occasionally, but not always, used in ascending passages, and the monk could not doubt that José had received some tradition of tonality which urban ears would have rejected with ignorant scorn. As José played on, it seemed that he changed the scale more often than the key. At last he subsided into a more familiar gamut and began to sing in slow and mournful tones:
"O! fountain weeping softly,Thou canst not weep for ever:But the full fountains of my tearsShall be congealed never.
"O! weep, my eyes, and weep, my heart,Bereaved and forsaken;Weep as the holy Virgin weptThe night her Son was taken.
"Alas! the sadness of my life.Alas! my life of sadness;Would I had wings to fly with thee,O Swallow, Bird of Gladness!
"O Eagle! flying up so high,Upon thy strong wings fleet me;O Eagle! lift me to that skyWhere she prepares to greet me."
José ceased singing, but went on playing. Although a printed page of music meant no more than so many black lines and dots and rings to his untutored mind, he was a musician to his finger-tips, and he could expound to others in tones many an emotion which he could not express even to himself in words. Unlike most Portuguese performers, whose melodic phrases were short-winded and very conventionally joined together, he was capable of trailing out long-drawn melodies and of welding them into forms of his own. José's huge fingers stroked the strings so subtly that the monk could almost see the eagle urging up, up, up, above the purple serras, above the moon and stars, until it swept on unwearied wings through the gates into the City.
But Antonio could not give himself up to watching the great bird's flight. He was painfully conscious that he and his man were killing the serão. In breaking the bowl he had almost broken poor Margarida's heart; and here was José driving everybody down into the depths of the blues. He glanced apologetically towards Donna Perpetua: but the candle on the trestle-table beside her lit up the unshed tears in her gray eyes so weirdly that he hastened to gaze upon the ground.
José's threnody ended at last, and he stumped back to his place without the slightest acknowledgment of the listeners' chastened applause. From a corner one of the guitarists struck up a lively dance-tune; but his notes sounded so thin after José's that he broke off of his own accord. To save the situation, Antonio plunged in desperately and asked if Donna Perpetua knew any riddles.
Yes. Donna Perpetua knew several.
"Who is it," she asked, "that knows the hour but not the month; that wears spurs but never rides a-horse; that has a saw but isn't a carpenter; that carries a pick-axe but isn't a quarryman; that delves in the ground but gains no wages?"
Antonio could not guess: but his ignorance was covered up by a general shout of "The cock!"
"Good," cooed Donna Perpetua. "Now explain this: 'Before the father is born the son is climbing up to the roof.'"
"Smoke!" roared everybody.
"What is born on the mountain," she continued, "and comes to sing in the house?"
The shrill voices of the old women were loudest in the chorus of "A spindle!"
"And who is it who is born on a dunghill, yet comes to eat with the king at his table?"
"A fly!" was the immediate unanimous answer.
Donna Perpetua beamed benevolently upon the company. It had pleased her to be made prominent. The guests were equally pleased: for had they not shown the brightness of their wits, or, at the very least, of their memories? Antonio was entertained in a different way. These cut-and-dried riddles and answers reminded him of a village school which he had visited in England and of the joyous heartiness with which the rosy-cheeked boys and girls, in answer to the teacher's question, "What is hell?" roared out, "It is a bottomless and horrible pit, full of fire."
By way of returning the compliment, Donna Perpetua invited Antonio to propound one or two of the riddles he had heard in England. Unguardedly he gave consent: and only when he began racking his memory did he perceive his mistake. He had heard a feeble riddle in a country house about a door being a jar; but the pun could not be made in Portuguese. Again, he knew by heart a rhymed enigma, said to be Byron's, on the letter H; but this was worse still. Apart from the Portuguese having no aspirate, how could he render the line "'Twas whispered in heaven, 'twas muttered in hell" into a language which spelled heaven with a "c" and hell with an "i"? At last he cut short a very uncomfortable silence by saying that the only English conundrums he knew could not be translated. At this remark the girls hung their heads modestly and the matrons gave silent thanks that they had not been born in an apostate country where the very riddles brimmed with blasphemies and lewdnesses.
"England is no good," grunted Emilio, who had been playing a tune on his jack-boots with the handle of his whip. "The English have plenty of money; but they live dogs' lives. In England there are no fruits, no flowers. They have no wine save what we send them from Portugal. When the rain stops, there is a fog. No Englishman ever sees the sun."
"Things are hardly so bad as that," said Antonio, smiling. "In July and August I have known the sun in England shine as fiercely as any sun in Portugal. It is true there are no grapes or oranges, except those that grow in glass hot-houses; but the English have apples and pears, cherries and strawberries, plums and damsons, as fine as ours. Their flowers are wonderful; and I wish everybody in Portugal could see an English village."
Emilio, whose father had suffered wrongs under Marshal Beresford during the Regency, thwacked his boot again with the whip-stock and mumbled. Antonio was concerned. He and José had already gone far towards wrecking the serão, and he saw the necessity of avoiding a quarrel. So he added what he conscientiously believed, saying, in a conciliatory tone:
"The English are not the equals of the Portuguese. But they are a fine people and a great nation."
"I have heard," put in Senhor Jorge, "that the English are not happy."
"They were merry once," Antonio answered, "and they will be merry once more when they regain the Faith."
"Yes," said Donna Perpetua devoutly. "Only those who are going to be happy in the next life can be truly happy in this."
"Yet the English ought to be happy," objected Senhor Jorge, growing restive at all this piety. "They have the best government in the world."
"Even the best government in the world is very bad," Antonio retorted. "Still, with all its faults, the English government is indeed the best in Europe. There is much more intrigue and corruption in their public life than they care to recognize; but one can get justice in their courts, and, except for Catholics, there is almost complete liberty. If we Portuguese had a government one half so good—"
A thin, short, bald, bent old man with a long white beard and madly bright eyes leaped out of the shadow and startled Antonio by shouting:
"Till he comes back there'll be no good government in Portugal. They'll go on being thieves and cowards. Yes, thieves. The French were thieves and bullies. The English were thieves and bullies too. Dom Miguel was the worst thief and coward of them all. As for the Queen—"
Antonio staunched the flow of eloquence before treason could burst forth.
"Whom do you speak of?" he demanded quickly. "You say 'Till he comes back.' Who?"
While the old man stood glaring at the monk with trembling lips, Senhor Jorge bent over and whispered in Antonio's ear:
"Have patience with him, your Worship. He is a Sebastianista—the only Sebastianista for leagues around. On all other points he is saner than I am. He is a good man. I beg your Worship to indulge him."
Antonio did more than indulge the hoary monomaniac. He strained forward, all ears. That there should be a Sebastianista left alive in Portugal amazed him. From the lips of a very old Jesuit he had once heard of some Sebastianistas in the forests of Brazil, and the Abbot had mentioned a Sebastianista whom he had seen, as a child, in the Açores. But a Sebastianista was the last curiosity Antonio had expected to meet at Senhor Jorge's serão.
"Tell us all about it," he asked.
"Ah, your Excellency," moaned the old man, "I am a poor blacksmith and no scholar, and I cannot use fine words."
"Don't some people believe," asked Antonio, egging him on, "that King Sebastião was killed by the Moors at the battle of al-Kasr al-Kebir? Don't they say his body rests in the church of the Jeronymos at Belem?"
"Lies, all lies!" cried the Sebastianista. "Why were we beaten at Alcacer-Kibir by those hounds of infidels? Because they were braver or stronger? No. It was because we had sinned and the just God punished us. But I tell your Excellency that not one hair of the King's head fell to the ground. He departed unhurt from the battle. The tomb in the Jeronymos is emptier than this barrel."
Unfortunately the barrel which the Sebastianista kicked with the iron tip of his wooden shoe gave back a blunt sound which proved that it was full. The girls began to titter; but the old man raved on, unabashed.
"Yes," he cried, "King Sebastião, the brave, the good, the Desired, escaped without a scratch on his body, although he had fought a hundred Moors hand-to-hand. He slew eighty with his own sword. He is waiting in the enchanted isle. Waiting, waiting, waiting. God knows things are bad enough in Portugal. But they will be worse. And when they are worst of all, he will come back. The Hidden Prince will come back, riding on a white horse. He will drive out the thieves and cowards. He will deal out justice to rich and poor alike. He will set up the Fifth Empire."
"The Fifth Empire?" echoed Antonio, astonished at hearing such a phrase from such lips. "What is the Fifth Empire?"
"It is the Empire which King Sebastião will set up," said the old man.
"But, come now, Senhor Joaquim," objected Emilio pertly. "Isn't it rather a long time since King Sebastião went away? Tell us. How long ago?"
"It was before my grandfather was born," snapped the old man, wheeling defiantly towards Emilio.
"Then when he comes back he'll be thrice as old as you are. He'll have no hair, no teeth, and he'll be as blind as a bat. So how much good will he be?"
"How much good will the King be?" bellowed the Sebastianista. "How much good? Senhor Emilio Domingos Carneiro, I'll tell you. If he's an old man, thank God for that! Portugal has suffered enough from the young ones. And hark to this: He'll be a true old Portuguese. He'll be a man, not a dandy. He won't crack whips and wear spurs unless he can mount a horse without falling off on the other side."
At this home-thrust most of the young men chuckled or laughed outright, while the girls giggled. Donna Perpetua, however, was flurried and Emilio's cousins tried to protest. With ready tact Senhor Jorge preserved the peace.
"Come, Joaquim," he said. "Talking has made you thirsty. Come with me and I'll find you a mug of good wine to drink King Sebastião's health in."
The old man, proud at having had the best of it, departed nimbly in his host's wake and was no more heard or seen.
"Does the Senhor believe that Dom Sebastião will ever return?" asked the handsome yoke-carver, turning to Antonio.
"I've just been reckoning," the monk answered, "that it is more than two hundred and sixty years since the day of the battle."
Two hundred and sixty meant little to the handsome youth, who had never had occasion to engage his brains with any such number. He knew that he possessed ten fingers and ten toes, and that there were seven days in the week and that his father owned eight bullocks; but who had ever heard of such a number as two hundred and sixty? He stared at Antonio blankly.
"It seems to me," put in José, "that when we see Dom Sebastião on a white horse, it will be his ghost."
He uttered the word "ghost" in a tone which made the pretty Rosalina Saldanha clasp her pretty hands and emit a pretty squeak. The other damsels squeaked after her, in chorus. They reveled in ghost-tales, although they dreaded them.
Antonio laughed.
"Your Worship may laugh," railed Emilio, who seemed determined to shine in one way or another. "But he wouldn't laugh if he saw what some people have seen."
The girls cuddled together in delicious fright.
"Perhaps your Worship has not heard," continued the dandy, feeling important, "about the lobis-homem of Rio Briga, between Santarem and Thomar?"
Antonio had not heard of this particular case. But he was familiar with the lobis-homem or were-wolf superstition in general, and he detested it as a poisonous survival from dark and cruel days. He knew that, in remote mountain hamlets, this lingering pagan lie sometimes brought life-long anguish to the very unfortunates who most needed help and love. Involuntarily the monk's eyes sought Donna Perpetua's. He saw that she wished as little as he did to hear of were-wolves.
"Are not all tales of lobis-homens alike?" said Antonio to Emilio. "Will not your Worship tell us another tale instead? I have heard that a Moorish maiden was once turned to stone up in these hills."
"It's a tale for little girls," snorted Emilio. Horror suited his narrative style better than romance. But he tried to recite the legend of a young peasant who heard one of the stones of the fountain cry out piteously. He went on to tell how the peasant released the Moor-maiden from the spell and married her; how she wrought him grief; and how her evil-spirit was cast out by a hermit. But Emilio's touch was heavy; and, as every one present knew the story by heart already, he bored his audience badly.
"Your Excellency lives almost by himself," said a pleasant, middle-aged woman, pausing in her spinning and looking towards Antonio, "so it is important he should be on his guard against the cock's egg."
Antonio looked bewildered.
"Once every seven years," she explained, "the cock lays a tiny egg, as round as a marble and as black as ink. It is smaller than a pigeon's. As a rule the rats get it and no harm is done. But, if your Excellency has no rats, take care. If the egg is not destroyed a monster will come out of it. Perhaps you won't see him; but, wherever he is hatched, he causes the death of the master of the house within the year."
She resumed her spinning. Antonio thanked her politely and promised that he would show no mercy to any egg as black as ink and as round as a marble which he might find about his farm.
"You can't be always sure you've found the egg," said the woman, pausing again. "So it's a good thing always to leave a pair of scissors open on a shelf, especially at night."
Antonio perceived that the open scissors made the sign of the Cross; and it thrilled him to find, in this peasant-woman's chatter about eggs and scissors, a miniature picture of the millennial struggle between heathenism and Christianity. For he had common-sense enough to understand that, while she held the Christian Faith with all her heart and mind, she was only half-serious about her grandsires' goblins and demons.
"Are open scissors good against anything else besides monsters out of black eggs?" asked José.
"Yes," answered the spinner. "They're good against witches."
"I was hoping they might be good against ghosts," grumbled José.
Antonio was surprised. José was still only half-educated; but he had never before found him superstitious. As for the more serious guests, they were scandalized. The farrier's wife, Donna Catharina de Barros Lopes, who was a "Blessed One," said aloud:
"Thanks be to God there are no witches left! As for ghosts, there never were any."
"Then the Senhora has never been up to the old abbey chapel on a dark night?" asked José doggedly.
Antonio could not believe his ears. As for the other guests, they sat up and bent forward, all sudden excitement. There were no more affected little squeaks from the maidens. All, even the men, were struck dumb at the news that a ghost walked within a league of Senhor Jorge's barn. Emilio Carneiro, whose farm was only a mile and a half from one of the abbey gates, turned white with terror.
"No," answered the Blessed One curtly. "I do not go, Senhor, up to the old abbey chapel on dark nights. And what is more, I don't intend to."
"I am glad to hear it," said José, with maddening slowness. "The Senhora is better at home. And the rest of your Worships too."
When the general excitement could no longer be suppressed, Senhor Jorge, who had just re-entered the room, demanded sternly:
"What is all this? Why are we better at home?"
"Because," said José in awe-struck tones, "it's very easy for us to talk and be brave here, in the light and in good company. But I don't think we should stay up there very long if we saw—"
"If we saw—?" urged six or seven voices.
"If we saw a monk, all in black, sitting in his stall, with a face as white as a curd cheese."
Rosalina Saldanha screamed and collapsed into the stout arms of Joanna Quintella. Twenty people began talking at once, and bombarding José with questions.
"No," cried Antonio loudly. "No more. We've had more than enough of witchcraft and ghosts and superstition. Donna Perpetua—Senhor Jorge—I ask pardon for interfering."
"Your Worship is quite right," answered Senhor Jorge, with warmth. "In my own house such talk is forbidden. We don't want the maids in hysterics. Luiz—Affonso—every one is dying of thirst and hunger. Where are the broas?"
The two young men, whose limbs were brisker than their tongues, jumped up and began filling roughly glazed and gaily painted jugs and mugs with green wine from a newly broached cask. Senhor Jorge was famous for his hospitality, and even José's ghost was forgotten for a moment in the good-tempered rough-and-tumble.
Margarida, who had remained invisible since the breaking of the bowl, now reappeared. She and her brother Gaspar each carried a basket of broas. These were not the plain work-a-day broas; they looked paler, because of an admixture of fine flour, and they were sweetened with honey and flavored with spice. Gaspar began distributing his dainties at the far ends of the barn, while Margarida served the notables round the candles.
Antonio could not unlearn in a single moment his old habits; and therefore, when he took his broa from Margarida's hand, he thanked her with the softly strong tones and the momentary boldness of the eyes which, without his knowing or intending it, had captivated more than one high lady in England. If Donna Perpetua or the farrier's wife or the spinner had offered the broa, he would have expressed his thanks in the same way. But poor Margarida found in his voice and glance a lover-like reverence, meant for herself alone. She forgot the evil omen of the broken bowl, and hurried away with rosy fires burning on her cheeks and love-lights dancing in her eyes.
When the serão was beginning to break up, Senhor Jorge asked Antonio into the house in order that he might judge some old wine. After it had been tasted and praised, the lavrador gazed at the monk wistfully and said:
"I hope the Senhor is not superstitious?"
"Superstitious? I hope not," Antonio replied. "And I promise, Senhor Jorge, that I will speak very plainly to my man José about that ridiculous ghost-story."
"I wasn't thinking of your man José," said the lavrador. And, after an awkward pause, he added: "That clay pot. Your Worship failed to catch it. And just after the pot broke the sky was darkened. It ... it upset my Margarida very much."
Antonio's heart sank. Had Senhor Jorge been merely a selfish match-maker, bent on marrying off Margarida for his own profit, it would have been easy to rebuff him by silent contempt. But the monk knew that he was face to face with an honest Portuguese of the old school who was sacrificing pride to duty.
To gain time Antonio poured another spoonful of wine into the thin English glass. Having warmed it with his hand, he swirled it round, sniffed it, and held it up to the lamp. But he did not drink it. Replacing it on the table, he said:
"Have two or three minutes' patience with me, Senhor Jorge, while I perform one of the hardest tasks of a life which has not been easy. For three years I have lived like a hermit. To-night is my first social recreation since I settled down in this parish."
"Go on," urged Senhor Jorge. His face was paler and his mouth twitched.
"My farm was a tangled wilderness. Our work claimed all our time. Now and again business took me to Navares or Villa Branca; but I hardly knew the names of half-a-dozen people in this village. Your Worship, I will come to the point. When you called at my farm I did not know you had a daughter. I had seen the Senhorita Margarida in church; but until her mother called her into our presence last Sunday I did not know she was yours."
"You know now," muttered the lavrador angrily. "And I'd like to hear what's wrong with her. If any one has breathed a whisper against her I'll kill him with my own hands. Yes!" he cried, raising his voice, "I'll do it as easily as I'd cut a pig's throat."
"Not so fast," said Antonio. "I have not heard one word against Margarida. And I can use my eyes. I know she's as good as gold."
"Then what's wrong? Out with it! Isn't she pretty enough for your Worship? Most people call her a beauty. Or are you afraid she won't have enough money?"
"Her beauty is so great that it would be wasted in an out-of-the-way corner like my farm," said the monk, keeping his temper. "As for money, it's the last thing in the world I should think of. But the truth is, I do not mean to marry."
After he had stared at Antonio a full minute, the lavrador's stern face suddenly relaxed and he burst into unaffected laughter.
"If that's all, friend Francisco," he chuckled, clapping Antonio on the back, "it's less than nothing. Why, I myself didn't mean to marry: and look at me to-day! De Barros Lopes, the farrier, swore he'd never marry; and he has eight children. Old Martins said he would hang himself before he would marry; and this is his third wife."
"Then old Martins has taken my share," said Antonio curtly. "I repeat I shall not marry."
"The reason?"
"My ... my work."
"Work? Is your Worship the only man in Portugal who works? There's a bit of work, now and again, on my own farm. Is it the worse done because there's a mistress, and three stout sons and the best daughter a man ever had? Work! My wife and I squabble sometimes; but the best day's work I ever did was to get married."
The monk held his peace. Senhor Jorge, genuinely desirous of promoting Antonio's happiness as well as Margarida's, chaffed him with rough heartiness.
"Come, come," said he. "Your head's full of cobwebs. You've been hiding yourself too long in holes and corners. Don't be a fool. It's all very well while you're young and healthy; but, when days and nights of sickness come, who will nurse you then, and put up with your foibles? And who will carry on the wine-making when you're dead and gone? Come, you don't want to let the grand old family of Da Rocha die out? Besides ... a man without a woman is only half a man."
Senhor Jorge uttered his concluding sentence with a meaning change of tone. But, even if his own daughter Margarida had not been involved, the lavrador had too much delicacy to expand this clinching argument. Antonio, however, scented the meaning.
What was he to say? All these arguments against celibacy, and a host of others more refined, had hurled themselves in his teeth a dozen years before, when he first contemplated the vow of chastity. But the answers which satisfied him were not available in the presence of Senhor Jorge. He could not reply that he had deliberately renounced his high-sounding names until events forced him to resume them; that he welcomed roughness and solitary vigils of pain in thankful honor of the Man of Sorrows; and that the succession of Saint Benedict's spiritual family was secure until the end of the world. With bent head and knitted brows he remained mute.
"Then I will persuade you no more," said Senhor Jorge. "If my wife knew I had said half so much, she would never forgive me. By Saint Braz! To think I should be begging and praying anybody to be so kind as to marry Marge! Before I asked for Perpetua, I had to go down almost on my bended knees. Pssh! Sometimes, before she braided up her hair, I've watched Margaridinha playing about the house and I've thought how I would hum and haw and hesitate when a suitor should come along. I thank your Worship. For to-night I've done with him. If he wants to speak to me after Mass next Sunday he may; but next Sunday will be his last chance."
Antonio flung himself against the door before his ruffled host could open it.
"One moment," he pleaded in low, insistent tones. "Here and now let me say, once for all, that neither next Sunday nor any other day can I do myself this great honor. Senhor Jorge, I shall never forget the extreme compliment you have paid me. Senhor, I trust you to keep my secret. I cannot ask for Margarida because ... already ... I am..."
"You are married already," hissed the lavrador, blazing into terrible indignation.
"No. No, no, a thousand times. But ... I am plighted to another Bride."
He turned away abruptly and walked to the tiny window. The scudding moon had escaped from the black rain-clouds, and Antonio thought he could discern the white belfry of the abbey chapel rising above the distant pine-woods.
"Another bride?" echoed Senhor Jorge, more wrathful than ever. "Who? Where? When? It's that chalk-faced chit of a Rosalina Saldanha!"
"No," Antonio answered, wheeling round. "Neither Rosalina Saldanha nor any other mortal woman you've ever seen or heard of."
"Then where is she? Why does she leave you year after year alone? Tut! A fine bride. Let her take you or leave you. You're a fool to stand it."
"We will not quarrel," said the monk. "If you knew all, you would not malign Her. It may be years, many years more, that I must live alone. But my faith is plighted, and there's an end."
This time it was the older man who walked to the window. After a long time he asked, without looking round:
"Why did not your Worship think of this before? Why did he come here to-night, leading on my poor Marge, and setting all the tongues a-wagging?"
There was an obvious and fair retort; but Antonio did not make it. Instead, he answered:
"For that blunder I ask pardon. I had promised to come to the serão: and I had some foolish idea that it would give me a chance of putting matters right. In England I prided myself on having tact in these things. But pride goes before a fall. Forgive me for not staying away. I have blundered worse than a village booby. Yet I hope, in spite of all, that we may part friends."
They parted friends.
Out in the open, Antonio said to José:
"Hear me for one minute on a matter we need never mention again. I have made it plain to Senhor Jorge that I am not free to marry the Senhorita Margarida."
"But Senhor Jorge was not satisfied with that?"
"I told him," replied Antonio awkwardly, "that I am already plighted to another Bride. You know what Bride I mean, José?"
"Yes. But Senhor Jorge doesn't."
Half a mile further on Antonio demanded:
"About this ghost—this black monk in the chapel. I was thunderstruck. I thought you were mad."
"For once in my life," said the peasant, "I had all my wits about me. I overheard that cockatoo of an Emilio saying that he often took a stroll in the abbey gardens, after his day's work. He was lying; but I didn't want the other young fellows to begin prowling about up there."
"They'll prowl all the more now."
"They never will, your Worship," affirmed José flatly. "They're the poorest lot I ever saw. There isn't a man among them. Why, at Pedrinha das Areias, if we had heard of a ghost, a dozen of us would have turned out to see how ghosts looked after they have been soused with buckets of cold water. Here they're fops and cowards. No, your Worship. From to-night the abbey is safe."
Antonio marveled at José's shrewdness. It was of a piece with his shrewdness in choosing the sun-baked sand-pit for burying the boxes of the Viscount. All the same he felt it his duty, as José's spiritual director, to rebuke him mildly, saying:
"But there's no ghost there at all."
Hardly were the words out of his mouth before he regretted them. Fresh from his well-meaning prevarication with Senhor Jorge, who was he to censure others? He hoped José would not notice the inconsistency; but he hoped in vain.
"I never said there was any ghost," chuckled José. "I said there was a monk, all in black, in his stall. You know what monk I mean, your Worship."
"But Emilio Carneiro doesn't," said Antonio.
They laughed loudly together and strode on, talking with unwonted gaiety under the bright moon. Had not the master rid himself of match-makers, and had not the man made the abbey safer than ever?
"Sing," begged the monk.
The peasant struck up a rousing song in praise of wine. But in the middle of the third verse he stopped. They were crossing the road which led from Navares to the main gate of the abbey. José sank on one knee and pored over something he had seen.
Two wheels had cut two deep grooves in the wet sand. José measured the distance between them with his two palms. Then he examined the marks of the horse's shoes.
"These wheels," he said, "were not Portuguese. And, unless they've shod him in Lisbon or Oporto, these shoes didn't belong to a Portuguese horse."
Antonio hardly heard him. High on the hill, from inside the principal window of the abbey guest-house, the flame of a candle looked out like a living thing.
Until one o'clock in the morning Antonio and José sat in council. But their session was barren.
Who was up at the guest-house? Could it be the Viscount de Ponte Quebrada, resuming his search for the buried pictures and chalices? They thought not. The Viscount had become a considerable personage, and could not afford to run such risks. Or was it the Viscount's old accomplice, the Captain? Perhaps. The Captain had little to lose. But no: it could not be he. A thief would never have proclaimed his presence by setting lights in front windows.
For a minute or two Antonio indulged a hope that the visitor was merely his old adversary, the official of the Fazenda at Villa Branca. But José shook his head, and said that such a guess was too good to be true. He went on to avow a presentiment that the abbey had been sold. Antonio could not contradict him, and the two men sat silent for a long time.
"Come and speak to me at dawn," said the monk, going at last to the hearthside and lighting José's lantern. "Perhaps it will be best for one of us to march up boldly to the guest-house. As the nearest neighbors we can easily make some excuse."
José shook his head again and departed without a word.
Soon after daybreak they met in the garden, and the master confessed that his man was right. God only knew what high strategy and petty tactics they might have to employ in their defense of His house; and it would be the worst policy to thrust themselves into notice.
The autumn sun was rising behind the abbey hill. Pearly mists hid everything. But, as the glorious orb ascended, the tides of vapor began to ebb. Here and there the tops of the higher pines showed themselves above the drifting mists, like masts and shrouds of ships wrecked in milky shallows. A minute later the chapel and the monastery buildings appeared, huge and vague as an enchanter's palace suddenly exhaled from twilight seas of foam.
As the outlines sharpened, Antonio recalled his vigil on the moonlit night of his return. He remembered the fear which preceded it—the sickening fear that he might be too late. But he remembered also how he had finally trusted in God to guard His own.
"Come, José," he said. "You have done your share and I have tried to do mine. Our Lord will do His. It is time for prayers."
He led the way to the narrow room which served them as oratory, and drew back a curtain from a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor. José's education had advanced so far that he was able to recite Terce in Latin. They sat down facing one another, on benches which José had carved like stalls, and began the Hour. At the psalmLevavi oculos, peace and strength entered their souls.
"I have lifted up my eyes unto the hills, from whence my help shall come," said Antonio.
"My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth," responded José slowly and attentively.
Their faith waxed stronger as the psalm proceeded. "Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep," said José; and Antonio answered: "The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy defense upon thy right hand." José said: "The sun shall not burn thee by day, nor the moon by night." Antonio said: "The Lord keepeth thee from all evil." José said: "May the Lord keep thy coming in and thy going out, from this time forth and for ever." And by way of Amen, Antonio put his whole soul into the appointedGloria Patri, and into the first words of the following psalmLaetatus sum, "I was glad."
They parted at the oratory door, and consumed separately their first breakfast, which consisted of rye bread and of a so-called coffee made from roasted grain and the roots of dandelion. Before six José was at work removing gorgeously discolored leaves from a pergola, while Antonio planted some vines which had come to him from Sexard in Hungary. As they moved about they could plainly see the buildings and out-buildings of the abbey; for the mists had drifted away. But no smoke rose from the guest-house chimney, and the place gave no sign of life.
At half-past ten, when José was in the kitchen preparing almoco, or second breakfast, Antonio heard a dull muttering of hoofs on the sandy road. He dropped his tools and began running like a hare up the ravine, so as to get a view of the horseman from behind a boulder. Ducking his head and shoulders he kept himself out of sight.
The noise of the horse's feet stopped. Antonio was startled. He raised his head and saw a mounted man stooping from the saddle, and fumbling with the latch of the farm gate. While he remained in this position it was impossible to make out his age, or class, or nationality. The monk, however, did not wait. He turned and raced back to warn José. But, before he could reach the kitchen door, the horseman came cantering down the slope.
He sat his bay horse rather stiffly and in an un-Portuguese style. His clothes looked English. As he drew near, Antonio saw that he was young and blonde. The monk had a feeling that he and this stranger had met before.
It was young Crowberry.
When he recognized Antonio a flash of joy lit up the youth's pale blue eyes. But, instead of greeting his old cicerone simply and straightforwardly, he jumped down from his horse and began to declaim some prepared rigmarole.
"Zounds! By'r Lady!" he cried, "whom have we here? Marry, by my halidom, I trow it is the goodly knight Oliveira da Rocha himself."
"Why not speak English?" asked Antonio, wringing the young man's hand.
"English?" he retorted. "If you're disrespectful, Senhor da Rocha, I'll begin speaking Portuguese."
"Pode," said the monk. Which meant "he may."
Young Crowberry fumbled in his pockets and fished up a manuscript phrase-book which had been compiled for him, he pretended, by some pitiful friend in Oporto. After turning the pages this way and that, he asked:
"Está prompto o almoço?" Young Crowberry meant "Is breakfast ready?"
"Not quite," said Antonio.
"O que tem Fossa Mercê: What has your Worship got?"
"Brown bread, green figs, white cheese, purple grapes, red wine, and black coffee."
"De-me alguma bebida: Give me something to drink."
"I don't understand," said Antonio, shaking his head.
José, hearing voices, thrust his shaggy face through the window and glared at young Crowberry, with his mouth almost as wide open as his eyes.
"This," said Antonio, "is José Ribeiro, therégisseurof the Château da Rocha. He knows more about sea-sand wine than any other man north of Collares." And, turning to José, he explained in Portuguese: "You have heard me speak of the English Senhor Crowberry. This is his son. Go and kill a chicken—the fat brown one."
When José had departed on his murderous errand, Antonio brought their guest a large glass of green wine. Young Crowberry drank it with a wry face; but he admitted that it acted like a charm in quenching his thirst. They walked out into the vineyards.
"And now, Senhor Eduardo, explain yourself," demanded the monk.
"I came on ahead—last night," said Senhor Eduardo.
"Ahead of whom?"
"Of the others."
By this time Antonio was getting irritated by young Crowberry's tiresome smartness; and he was on the point of asking him, rather sharply, not to be a young ass. But he restrained himself and waited. At last young Crowberry said:
"They are in Coimbra. Dirty hole. They're following next week. I came on ahead to chase out the rats and beetles."
"We saw a light last night in the guest-house window," said Antonio. "Do you mean to tell me you opened the place in the dark, and slept there by yourself?"
"Certainly. What of it?"
"Simply this. My dear Eduardo, you are not half such a muff as you try to look, and not one tenth such a ne'er-do-well. But about these 'others.' Who are they? Why are they coming here? How long will they stay?"
"Firstly," replied Edward Crowberry, "there's the guv'nor. Secondly and thirdly, there's Sir Percy and his daughter. Fourthly, there's Mrs. Baxter. Fifthly and sixthly and all-the-restly, there's the servants."
"Who are Sir Percy and his daughter? And who is Mrs. Baxter?"
"Sir Percy is Sir Percival Lannion Kaye-Templeman. His daughter is named Isabel. Lady Kaye-Templeman died before I was born. That's why there's a Mrs. Baxter. She's called Isabel's governess; but it's Isabel who does the governing."
"Why are they coming here?"
"The devil only knows. I'm sure they don't."
Antonio stopped dead.
"Master Edward," he said, "if you're wanting to be a wit or a rattle you shall practice on me at breakfast. But not now; not here. Why are these English people coming here with your father?"
"What's the use of asking me?" demanded young Crowberry, somewhat injured. "It's a complicated business, and I haven't brains enough to puzzle it out."
"Then use such brains as you've got. Have they bought the abbey, or taken it on lease, or what?"
"Something of that sort," pouted the young man. "The guv'nor will explain. I tell you I don't understand it."
A jangling bell announced that breakfast was ready. Young Crowberry threw up his hat and shouted for joy.
José's fat brown chicken did not remind the guest of a Surrey capon. But as his teeth were good and his appetite still better, he devoured two-thirds of it with relish, and had still enough hunger left for the fruit and bread and cheese. During the meal he consumed a whole bottle of wine and, to finish off, he drank a large cup of corn-and-dandelion coffee, as well as two little glasses of Antonio's orange brandy. Then he lit one of his own cigars. Antonio excused himself from smoking.
Soothed and warmed by these good things, young Crowberry gradually became a reasonable human being. He began to talk naturally, and the monk was rejoiced to see that he was vastly improved. It turned out that he had gone back home after only eight months in Oporto, and that he had thrown up the wine-trade in favor of civil engineering. He told Antonio about the railway mania in England, and nearly all his talk was of cuttings, viaducts, and tunnels. Only with difficulty was he led back to the abbey.
"All I know is this," he said at last. "You wrote to the pater about raising a thousand or two and buying the place yourself, didn't you? Well, the old man'd have done it like a shot, only he was putting his last shilling into the Sheffield and Birmingham Railway. I expect he'll lose it all in the long run. But he wanted to find you the money. So he's made some kind of a bargain with Sir Percy. They've been jabbering and scribbling over it for a year. Sir Percy's supposed to have bought the abbey from the Portuguese Government. Don't ask me how he's managed it. I always thought he was so hard up he couldn't buy a penny bun."
The monk's heart beat fast.
"But if this Sir Percy has bought it," he asked, trying to conceal his intense anxiety, "what good is it to me?"
"Any amount," said young Crowberry. "You don't want a lot of tumbling-down cells and chapels and cloisters; you only want vineyards. As for Sir Percy, he does not want to be bothered with vineyards; he only wants a nice place. So you're to be offered a perpetual lease of the vines. No, not perpetual. Only nine hundred and ninety-nine years. So don't waste any time."
The room, with its odors of food and wine and tobacco, suddenly seemed to stifle Antonio. He felt faint and sick. Under the coarse tablecloth his two hands were so tightly clenched that the nails cut his flesh.
At first he blamed his own stark folly in writing to Mr. Crowberry. But he quickly remembered how long had been his deliberation and how many his prayers before writing the letter. Indeed, he had not posted it until, as he believed, the voice of the Holy Ghost said "Yea." For a few moments Satan entered into the monk's heart. So this was God's way of keeping faith with His champions! Seven years, seven hungry, lonely, loveless years of unceasing toil ... and for what? For this: that the holy house of God and the venerated home of Antonio and his brethren should become "a nice place" for the spendthrift heretic.
Into the ears of the monk's soul the arch-tempter breathed his poison. "If you had known last night, under the moon, what you know this morning," he whispered, "you would not have let Margaridinha's bowl smash into atoms. Poor Margaridinha! First you broke the bowl, and now you are breaking her heart. She has sobbed all night, for your sake. But it is not too late. Go back to Senhor Jorge. Say to him—"
Antonio sprang up and strode to the open door.
"The devil," said young Crowberry.
"Yes. The devil!" cried Antonio, turning upon him with a terrible look.
But the promise of Terce was suddenly fulfilled:Dominus custodit te ab omni malo. Without the smallest anti-devilish volition on Antonio's part, without oneRetro me, Satana, without one syllable of prayer, without one crossing of his breast, the tempter vanished back like a spent flash of lightning into the dark. Nor did he flee leaving behind him a void. It seemed that in his unholy footprints stood a strong angel of consolation. Antonio's faith returned with three-fold force. Once more he knew that God would do His part, and that these new happenings were parts of His design. Perhaps He was about to draw Antonio and José along mysterious ways. Perhaps it was His will that they must press with torn raiment and bleeding feet through many a thorn-brake and over leagues of sharp-edged, burning stones. But it was to victory and triumph, not to defeat and shame that the path ran.
When the monk, with inarticulate apologies, resumed his place at the table, the terrible look in his eyes had given place to radiant happiness.
"That's right," said young Crowberry. "I was getting frightened. I was beginning to remember a story I read years and years and years ago, when I was only a young fellow, like yourself. It was something about a man falling down dead, because somebody had broken good news to him too suddenly."
Before young Crowberry set out on his return to Coimbra, he deigned to say a little more about his movements and his party. It appeared that he could speak Portuguese fairly well, and that he had traveled all the way from Oporto to the abbey in an English-built dogcart drawn by an English-bred horse. After depositing his heavier luggage in a bedroom at the guest-house and spending one night there, he had left the dogcart in the stables, and was returning on horseback, with nothing but saddle-bags, a heavy-handled whip, and a pistol.
The monk asked twice for some account of Sir Percy Kaye-Templeman. His first application drew forth the answer that there were many better fellows; his second that there were many worse. Concerning Sir Percy's daughter, young Crowberry was voluble: but very little information could be extracted from his discourse, which was almost entirely to the effect that young Crowberry would give his hat (or, at successive repetitions, his ears, or his horse, or tuppence, or the whole world, or his boots, or his soul, or his dinner, or a million pounds) to know what Senhor da Rocha thought of her.
It was of Mrs. Baxter that the young man spoke with most clearness. He persisted in never naming her without the prefix "That Excellent Creature."
"That Excellent Creature, Mrs. Baxter," he said, "gave me solemn instructions to see that large fires were kept blazing in all the bedrooms for a whole day. Now, except in the kitchen, there isn't a single fireplace or chimney. So I smoked all over the place instead."
Antonio did not suffer his visitor to depart without a message to Mr. Crowberry, senior. He sent word that he sought the honor of providing a simple dinner for Mr. Crowberry and his friends on the day of their arrival. With regret he added a request that each one of the party would bring his own napkin, knife, fork, and spoon. He concluded by offering his friendly and neighborly services in general.
José agreed to walk a couple of leagues at the bay horse's side, so as to show young Crowberry a bridle-path which would save him three hours in the saddle. They left at one o'clock.
As soon as horse and men were out of sight, Antonio hurried up the hill and made his way into the abbey. It was his hope and prayer that Sir Percival would be restrained by lack of cash from interfering with the monastery and that he would live quietly and cheaply in the more modern and airy little guest-house. But the monk knew that the sacred pile was menaced by a thousand perils; and therefore he spent nearly an hour in wandering from kitchen to refectory, from library to calefactory, from cell to cell, from cloister to chapel. Perhaps he was near the last time. With burning earnestness he recited Vespers in his old stall.
Rising from his knees, Antonio paid a visit to a useless-looking door in the outer wall of the cloisters. Like all the other doors of the building, it was so well plastered over with official seals on the outer side that José and Antonio had never dared to use it. Yet Antonio knew its secret well. A massy bolt appeared to secure it, like the gate of a castle; but there was a tiny green-painted stud of iron hidden in the masonry outside which controlled the whole. By pressing the stud, the staple on the door-jamb moved slightly, leaving the bolt free. This clever and simple mechanism was due to an English Benedictine, who had fled to Portugal just after the martyrdom of the Abbot of Reading, under Henry the Eighth. Antonio examined it, and found it in good order.
He and José reached home almost at the same moment. The man would have returned to his work without a word had not the master stopped him.
"These English people, who are arriving next week," said Antonio, "may become, in the long run, our worst enemies. But they think they are our friends. They mean well. We will do our whole duty to them as neighbors."
José said nothing.
"It is my prayer," added Antonio, "that they will lock up the monastery and be satisfied with the guest-house. For some things, I wish ... I hope ... I should like them to hear ... I mean, José, I should like some one in the village to tell young Mr. Crowberry your ghost-tale about the monk."
"He knows it already, your Worship," said José stolidly.
"Knows it already? Who told him?"
"I did, your Worship."
Antonio could have wrung José's hand. But the shaggy fellow had a little more to tell.
"They come on Tuesday," he said slowly. "The young Senhor Crôbri says he is going to sit up in the chapel on Wednesday night. But he won't see anything; because I know that next Wednesday the monk won't be there. The young Senhor is going back to England, starting on Thursday. After that, the monk can do as he likes. The senhoras will be so frightened at the young Senhor's tale that they won't go near the abbey. As it's nearly winter, perhaps they'll soon be afraid of the guest-house too. Ghosts might begin appearing up there, as well, before long. You never know."
"Come," said Antonio, after he had done marveling. "We are both tired. We had a late night and an early morning, and we've walked a long way. The young Senhor ate both wings of the brown chicken and all the breast. But there are the two legs left. And, for once, we will open a bottle of our good wine."
On the Sunday afternoon, at an earlier hour than usual, José and Antonio went up to the abbey. They oiled the secret levers which controlled the bolt in the cloisters, and replaced on the shelves of the library a few pious books which they had borrowed. Afterwards, sitting in opposite stalls of the choir, they sang Vespers and Compline. It was safe to sing, for once; because the feast of Saint Iria had drawn the whole able-bodied population of the parish to the village of Santa Iria do Rio, nearly three leagues away. In hushed voices they sang all the psalms to the proper tones; also the two hymns and the Magnificat. The sun shone warmly through the western window while they were singing: but the chapel was growing dim when they arose at the end of their silent prayers.
On the Monday little was done outside elaborate preparations for the morrow's dinner. Nearly all José's heirlooms rose again from their carven sarcophagi. His six solid silver spoons, his solid silver ladle, and his china bowl with dark green leaves on a light green ground cried aloud for a worthy soup; and accordingly much time had to be spent in preparing a cream of cauliflowers. Meanwhile, a fowl, two partridges, and the prime parts of a kidling were gently cooking in a giant casserole, along with four or five handsful of vegetables and herbs.
On the Tuesday, between eleven and twelve, when Antonio was upstairs shaking out his fine suit of English clothes, an ill-blown coach-horn blared out a wanton greeting. The monk leaped to his tiny window. An imposing procession was jolting along the narrow road. Antonio's keen eyes could make out almost everything, although the road was over a furlong away.
At the head of the file rode young Crowberry on his bay. With one hand he was holding a short horn to his mouth, while with the other he bunched up the reins and strove to caracole his deeply scandalized steed. Next rolled an open chariot, containing two quietly dressed ladies and Mr. Crowberry,père. This was followed by a hired carriage, of Portuguese build, wherein sat a tall, straight, military-looking Englishman and the official of the Fazenda, from Villa Branca. A smaller hired carriage held one of the Fazenda clerks and a Villa Branca notary. Two closed coaches, looking like superannuated diligences, brought up the rear. Antonio guessed that these crazy and stuffy vehicles were carrying the Englishman's servants and personal luggage.
The procession crawled up a slope, and disappeared in the dip of the hills. But five minutes later, while he was cutting an armful of flowers for the dinner-table, the monk saw it mount again on its way to the abbey. About noon he distinctly heard, through the still air, the big gate screaming on its rusty hinges. It reminded him of the exceeding bitter cry with which that same gate had cried out when Saint Benedict's sons went forth from their ancient seat.
Antonio could picture the successive scenes. He could almost see Mrs. Baxter, young Crowberry's Excellent Creature, throwing up horrified hands at the comfortlessness of the guest-house, although Father Sebastian had been wont to grieve over its almost sinful luxury. He could imagine the Fazenda dignitary pompously breaking the seals, and calling upon all to witness the close of his impeccable stewardship. He could almost hear young Crowberry quipping and quirking about everything. But this last thought was too much for Antonio. It suddenly sharpened, almost to a poignant certainty, his fear lest irreverent feet should profane the holy place, and lest sacrilegious hands should be laid upon the Ark of the Lord.
Mr. Crowberry and the others were to arrive at half-past three and to dine at four, so that they could regain the guest-house before dusk. It was therefore with dismay, that Antonio heard horses and wheels on the road just as José's clock was striking three. He sprang up the stairs two at a time, and changed his clothes with both haste and speed. When, however, he descended to the ground-floor, it was not Mr. Crowberry's voice which met his ears.
The monk's visitors were the Villa Branca notary and the official of the Fazenda. They had left their carriage and the clerk waiting on the road. The notary said little: but the great man from the Fazenda was fulsomely wordy. Up at the abbey Mr. Crowberry had more than confirmed in his hearing nearly all the local rumors concerning Antonio's cleverness and prosperity, and he deemed it prudent to pay so considerable a personage his respects.
There was coldness in the monk's tone as he prayed his old scorner to be seated; for he could not forget that, after his ten-league journey to Villa Branca, he himself had been kept standing. But, as policy required that he should stand well with the henchman of the Government, he concealed most of his disgust. To think of this pilfering bully sitting familiarly at his table went against Antonio's grain; but, when he found that both the notary and the official had heard of the impending dinner, he went so far as to suggest that they should remain. Happily, however, the shortness of the days made it necessary that the pair should at once resume their long journey. They drained two cups of wine, flourished a few parting compliments, and hurried away.
Hardly could the monk give a rapid glance at the table and a final order to José before young Crowberry was upon him, plunging from one room to another and back again, like a dog just off the leash. He poked his nose into everything, and kept on rattling out a thousand criticisms and witticisms.
"Mind you count these, later on," he chattered, as he weighed two silver spoons in his two hands. "If you find one missing, go through the pockets of that Excellent Creature, Mrs. Baxter. What's this? That beastly green wine? Pour it down the sink. And, look here, I say, mind you, da Rocha: don't forget to remember what I said about Isabel Kaye-Templeman. Where did you get this cloth? By the way, Sir Percy isn't such a bad old sort, after all. Have you got any more of that orange brandy? I'll have mine in this."
He rang his knuckles against José's great green bowl. Then his quick eye noticed that the best chair in the house was at the right of the table-head.
"H'llo!" he said, "Isabel on your right? Of course. Couldn't be anywhere else. Now mind: you've got to tell me what you think of her—just what you really and truly and honestly think. Where are you putting the Excellent Creature?"
"At the foot," said Antonio. "Between your excellent self and your excellent father. On your left you'll have the excellent Isabel. On my left I shall have the excellent Sir Percival."
"Then Heaven help you," said young Crowberry. "Still, you'll have Isabel on your right. And be sure to remember—"
Antonio hurried to the door. His guests, with the exception of Mrs. Baxter, who was following in the chariot with a hamper of silver and linen, had reached the little white gate of the garden. Mr. Crowberry rushed in first.
"Good, good, good," he cried, wringing the monk's hand up and down. Antonio noticed with pleasure that his old employer now treated him as a social equal; but it pleased him more and touched him deeply to find that Mr. Crowberry was overflowing with honest delight at his reunion with a friend.
Before he could reply he was being presented to Sir Percival. Sir Percival submitted to the ceremony inattentively. Nine-tenths of his wits were evidently engaged with something or somebody else. He was a tall, thin, straight, soldierly man, whose scanty gray hair and disproportionately luxuriant mustache made his head look too small and bird-like. His cheeks were a trifle red, his gray eyes bright and restless. As soon as one quick glance had assured him that Antonio did not mean to do him any harm, he seemed to lose interest in his host and in his surroundings.
With Sir Percival's daughter the case was different. Antonio instantly became conscious that, after four years of isolation, he was standing once more face to face with a being of his own kind. He felt, vaguely, that this being was tall, graceful, feminine, proud, fine; but it did not occur to him to take stock of her features, or dress, or complexion. Until later in the afternoon, he could not have told young Crowberry the color of her eyes, or whether she was dark or fair.
This had always been Antonio's way in the presence of a woman. When she happened to be handsome, he felt unerringly and immediately her grace and beauty; yet his first, involuntary, eager search was for her spirit, for the inner self which might perchance be peeping out from the depths of her eyes. His own eyes, dark and soft as brown velvet, could be in the same moment both masterful and tender. While he was still a boy, a wise old woman had said of him: "May God put it into his head to turn monk, for he has eyes to break hearts." Not that Antonio was ever aware of looking at a woman otherwise than at a man. The habit was unconscious; but, for all the purity and austerity of his heart and life, it was there. It was not a fault. One might as well have blamed him for his black hair or for his tallness.
Fifty times in the past Antonio's glance had flashed forth to probe fifty pairs of eyes. Black eyes, blue eyes, hazel eyes, gray eyes, brown eyes—he had glanced into them all. Very often this swift glance had encountered maiden shyness and confusion; very seldom it had struck against brazen immodesty, like a sword against a shield. Once it had met a devil, a devil from hell, all the uglier because of the possessed woman's sweet pink cheeks and gold-crowned white brow. Twice or thrice it had peered into bottomless lakes of pity; and twenty times it had surprised a craving for human kindness, a hunger and thirst for Antonio's or some other love. But, when Mr. Crowberry began reciting his formula of introduction, the monk's keen glance met something it had never met before.
What his glance met was a glance more searching than his own; a still swifter glance which encountered his, like one mailed knight encountering another; a stronger, more impetuous glance which overmastered his and hurled it back. This glance came from beautiful eyes which were neither hard nor cold; but Antonio was too much taken aback to notice their heavenly blue. Unlike his, the lady's glance did not seem to be habitual. It seemed, on the contrary, to be something against the grain of her pride; something peculiar to an abnormal moment of her life. Of this the monk was speedily assured by the slight flush which warmed her cheeks as she turned the blue eyes away.
Mr. Crowberry put an end to the embarrassment. As tumultuously as a cart discharging a thousand of bricks, he expressed, in a single outburst, his joy at seeing Antonio, his detestation of Portugal, his ravenous hunger and raging thirst, and also some sudden animosity against his headlong heir. He wound up by demanding an immediate view of the champagne.
Antonio promised to give Mr. Crowberry satisfaction at a later stage. He explained that the dark and chilly cellar was no place for a lady at any time, and that even Mr. Crowberry could not go in and out of it with impunity during the heat of the afternoon. But the vineyards, he said, could be seen; also thechaisor over-ground cellars, the patent wine-plant from Bordeaux, the Irish pot-still for the orange brandy, and some of the casks of Portuguese claret which England might expect to receive in twelve months' time.
At that minute young Crowberry joined them. He was alternately sucking and rubbing one of his fingers which he had just burned while interfering with José in the kitchen. As the others moved off towards the nearer vines the young man detained Antonio and dug mysteriously into the monk's ribs with his unburnt hand.
"What d'ye think of Isabel Kaye-Templeman?" he muttered.
"How do I know? What do you think of yourself?" Antonio retorted. And he hurried after his guests, without waiting for an answer.