Antonio

ERNEST OLDMEADOW
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1916
Copyright, 1909, by THE CENTURY Co.
Published, June, 1909
Contents

ANTONIO
From a cork bench on the flat roof of the cloister, the monk Antonio gazed over dim orange-groves and vineyards toward the quiet Atlantic. For many a day no wind had vexed the waters, and the ocean swell, as it searched the creeks and caves, hummed no loudlier than a bee mining deeply in the bells of flowers. Overhead thousands of stars burned mildly. The May night's soft airs were rich with scents of lemon-blossom and honeysuckle: and, like a perfume from a great hidden lily, peace filled earth and heaven.
Peace. It was the watchword of Antonio's Order. Pax was chiseled boldly in the old stone lintel over each choir-monk's door; and, for the sake of the lay-brethren whose Latin was less fluent than their Portuguese, Paz had been painted between each pair of windows on the kitchen walls. On every one of the monastery's books, both in the library and in the choir, Pax was stamped in dull gold; and from the lips of St. Benedict's sons as they met in cloister or garden the salutation was ever going forth: Peace be with thee.
Peace. Within Antonio's breast as well as without there reigned on this summer night a peace which passed understanding. Hardly fifteen hours before, the apostolic hands of a saintly bishop had raised the young monk to the awful dignity of the priesthood, and had given him power to offer sacrifice for the dead and for the living.
With eyes at rest upon the dreaming sea the young Antonio recalled some of the hours he had spent sitting upon this same cork bench. All of them had not been hours of peace. Antonio remembered March nights of storm, when mountainous waves uplifted white crests in the cold shine of a racing moon. He remembered August dusks, when the thunder pounded and boomed like great guns, or like enormous breakers on a sandy shore, while the lightning unsheathed its blinding blade, bright and jagged as a scimitar. He remembered December gales, with the pine-trees cowering and creaking before the blast; and January floods raging down the mountain. But, most vividly of all, Antonio recalled his hours of inward strife and tempest. He remembered that long night's vigil when he wrestled and prayed against a sudden temptation to renounce the religious life and go back to the warm, sweet world. And he remembered those many, many hours of less sultry, more nipping and stinging tempest when all the arguments against religion in general, and against monasticism in particular, went on bursting like hailstones about his head. Thrice during his novitiate and once more on the very eve of his full profession a tornado of doubt had well-nigh swung him off his feet and hurled him back into the world. But on this May night, within him and without, there was peace.