"Last year, Senhor."
"Had he a long illness?"
"Not long. My son was with him when he died. The reverend Bishop was there too. On his last day our padre told them all that he was glad to be done with his pains and troubles; but he said he would cheerfully bear them longer, if it was God's will, so that he might change his life and begin to do a little good."
"But surely he had done good already!" exclaimed Antonio.
"Senhor," said the fisherman, almost resentfully, "we didn't know it till he was gone, because his ways were rough: but he was a saint walking the earth. Good? Had he done good? I dare say he had done more good than your Worship."
As Antonio continued his ride south he fell to thinking. In England he had once sat at dinner next to a whiskered curate, who was hot with anger against a proposal by one of the new-fangled High Churchmen to call a chapel-of-ease Saint Alban's. As far as Antonio could ascertain the Church of England recognized no saints after the apostolic age, and certainly none after the fourth century. Yet Antonio himself could name at least three Christians who had died saints' deaths, and at least one who had lived a saint's life.
Strangely enough it was on the same day, only a few hours after his pious reverie about sainthood, that Antonio succumbed for a season to the wiles of the devil. At midday the autumn sun was strong and he entered a roadside shanty for a pull of wine. Two or three peasants who were drinking made way for him respectfully; and Antonio's patriotic pride was stirred by the contrast between their quiet dignity and the vulgar shouting so common in the estaminets of France. The wine was bright and sharp, the floor was clean, and the little wooden hut was pleasantly dim and cool. But suddenly Antonio caught sight of himself in a cheap mirror, in a tawdry gilt frame, which hung behind the counter. The glass was so bad that it distorted the handsomest faces into lopsided masks.
In an instant Antonio was transported back to England and to the great dining-room of the earl with its lordly sideboard and beveled mirror. He did not remember his unworldly ecstasy of that night: he saw only the beeswax candles, the snowy linen, the bubble-thin glasses, the crimson roses, the creaming wine, the scarlet footmen, and the white-armed young beauty in her proud diamonds and soft pearls. That—all that—was the flattering, delicious life on which he had turned his back in order that he might live and die in a wilderness, toiling early and late on stock-fish and chick-peas and dark bread and peasant's wine.
Tired out as he was by hard days and nights this sudden temptation overthrew Antonio. The cabin which had lured him aside from the garish dusty road by its dimness and coolness suddenly seemed foul and mean, the soft-eyed, soft-voiced countrymen seemed louts, the refreshing wine seemed sugar and vinegar. Forgetting everybody's presence he broke into a loud, bitter laugh, flung down the price of ten glasses of wine, scrambled upon his horse and dashed away.
"That man is mad," said one of the peasants, gazing after the bobbing black core of the dwindling cloud of dust.