The Snare | Page 8

god-dammed French swine. "not a drop - not a spoonful
remain. But the monks at Tavora still have much of what they buy, I
am told. They treasure it for they know good wine. All priests know
good wine. Ah yes! Goddam!" He fell into deep reflection.
Lieutenant Butler stirred, and became sympathetic.
"'San infern'l shame," said he indignantly. "I'll no forgerrit when I . . .
meet the French." Then he too fell into reflection.
He was a good Catholic, and, moreover, a Catholic who did not take
things for granted. The sloth and self-indulgence of the clergy in
Portugal, being his first glimpse of conventuals in Latin countries, had
deeply shocked him. The vows of a monastic poverty that was kept
carefully beyond the walls of the monastery offended his sense of
propriety. That men who had vowed themselves to pauperism, who
wore coarse garments and went barefoot, should batten upon rich food
and store up wines that gold could not purchase, struck him as a
hideous incongruity.
"And the monks drink this nectar?" he said aloud, and laughed
sneeringly. " I know the breed - the fair found belly wi' fat capon lined.
Tha's your poverty stricken Capuchin."
Souza looked at him in sudden alarm, bethinking himself that all
Englishmen were heretics, and knowing nothing of subtle distinctions
between English and Irish. In silence Butler finished the third and last
bottle, and his thoughts fixed themselves with increasing insistence
upon a wine reputed better than this of which there was great store in
the cellars of the convent of Tavora.

Abruptly he asked: "Where's Tavora?" He was thinking perhaps of the
comfort that such wine would bring to a company of war-worn soldiers
in the valley of the Agueda.
"Some ten leagues from here," answered Souza, and pointed to a map
that hung upon the wall.
The lieutenant rose, and rolled a thought unsteadily across the room.
He was a tall, loose-limbed fellow, blue-eyed, fair-complexioned, with
a thatch of fiery red hair excellently suited to his temperament. He
halted before the map, and with legs wide apart, to afford him the
steadying support of a broad basis, he traced with his finger the course
of the Douro, fumbled about the district of Regoa, and finally hit upon
the place he sought.
"Why," he said, "seems to me 'sif we should ha' come that way. I's
shorrer road to Pesqueira than by the river."
"As the bird fly," said Souza. "But the roads be bad - just mule tracks,
while by the river the road is tolerable good."
"Yet," said the lieutenant, "I think I shall go back tha' way."
The fumes of the wine were mounting steadily to addle his indifferent
brains. Every moment he was seeing things in proportions more and
more false. His resentment against priests who, sworn to
self-abnegation, hoarded good wine, whilst soldiers sent to keep harm
from priests' fat carcasses were left to suffer cold and even hunger, was
increasing with every moment. He would sample that wine at Tavora;
and he would bear some of it away that his brother officers at Pinhel
might sample it. He would buy it. Oh yes! There should be no
plundering, no irregularity, no disregard of general orders. He would
buy the wine and pay for it - but himself he would fix the price, and see
that the monks of Tavora made no profit out of their defenders.
Thus he thought as he considered the map. Presently, when having
taken leave of Fernando Souza - that prince of hosts - Mr. Butler was
riding down through the town with Sergeant Flanagan and ten troopers

at his heels, his purpose deepened and became more fierce. I think the
change of temperature must have been to blame. It was a chill, bleak
evening. Overhead, across a background of faded blue, scudded ragged
banks of clouds, the lingering flotsam of the shattered rainstorm of
yesterday: and a cavalry cloak afforded but indifferent protection
against the wind that blew hard and sharp from the Atlantic.
Coming from the genial warmth of Mr. Souza's parlour into this, the
evaporation of the wine within him was quickened, its fumes mounted
now overwhelmingly to his brain, and from comfortably intoxicated
that he had been hitherto, the lieutenant now became furiously drunk;
and the transition was a very rapid one. It was now that he looked upon
the business he had in hand in the light of a crusade; a sort of religious
fanaticism began to actuate him.
The souls of these wretched monks must be saved; the temptation to
self-indulgence, which spelt perdition for them, must be removed from
their midst. It was a Christian duty. He no longer though of buying the
wine and paying for it. His one aim ow was