Young Crowberry was for a theatrical burst upon the whole bench of bishops in Lisbon; but the prudent Antonio sought out his own diocesan and confided to him the whole story. The prelate heard him attentively and with growing emotion. He told Antonio that the Dominicans and Franciscans had already recovered certain houses in Portugal, and that the Government, having got its money, was winking at the return of the Orders. He bestowed upon the monk a fervent blessing and bade him return the next day.
Within forty-eight hours Antonio was received by three-fourths of the Portuguese hierarchy, and by the Papal Nuncio as well. His tale brought tears to the eyes of all, not excepting a political bishop who was supposed to believe that Portugal would be better off without the religious Orders than with them. The Nuncio dispatched a special memorandum to Rome, and three of the bishops wrote long letters to Benedictine abbots abroad, including an abbot-president, asking for their counsel.
Young Crowberry's deportment among these dignitaries left a little to be desired. At his entrance he would kneel and kiss the ring of a suffragan with disconcerting ardor, and the next minute he would begin to tell the Primate of the Spains a funny story in execrable French. On the whole, however, young Crowberry was better liked for his worldliness than for his piety. His dinner at the Bragança Hotel made a deep impression upon those ecclesiastics who were not too dignified to assist at it; and when their magnificent month drew to a close the Englishman and Antonio left Lisbon with the knowledge that they had committed no grave blunders and that they had made a host of powerful friends.
José received the Senhor Crôbri warmly. Within two days of the Englishman's arrival at the abbey the mortgages on the farm and the sea-sand vineyards were cleared off and the silver spoons came back from pawn. On Saint Isabel's Day both José and young Crowberry were assigned to cells in the monastery; and from that morning community life was solidly established and the work of God was regularly performed in choir. At Christmas, with Antonio's permission, another novice arrived in the person of an English clergyman who had been young Crowberry's closest friend.
Months passed. Twice Antonio received ecclesiastical notables at the abbey and twice he was bidden to Lisbon. At length it was found possible to form a small cosmopolitan community of monks from Brazil, Spain, Bavaria, and Belgium. As the sole link between Portugal's old and new Benedictine life, and as the savior of the abbey for his Order, every one looked towards Antonio as the new Abbot. But he set his face like a flint against the plan.
"My Lord," he said to the Nuncio, who had been expressly charged to impart to him the blessing of Pio Nono, and to inquire what boon Antonio most desired, "ask the Holy Father to intercede with those who would make me Abbot against my will. For more than twenty years I have dwelt in the world, buying and selling, and I am not fit to guide the simplest monk in the religious life. Suffer me to obey my Master's word. I hear Him saying, Vade, recumbe in novissimo loco."
"Father Antonio stops his ears too soon," observed the German Abbot-President who was assisting at the interview. "In the same verse of the Gospel he will find also Amice, ascende snperius. But let him be consoled. The anniversary of his ordination, and of his expulsion from the house he has saved, is drawing near. On that day let him say his first Mass; and after he has said it, let all things be set in order."
VII
On the day of his first Mass Antonio rose at dawn and climbed the spiral stairway to his bench on the roof of the cloister. A cardinal, three bishops, and two abbots were sleeping within the abbey walls, and a duke and his duchess were up at the guest-house. The monk yearned for solitude after a distracting week, and the cell was too narrow for his expanding and aspiring soul.