II
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."