During the long siege of Oporto the echoes of the bugles had often resounded in Antonio's cell, challenging him to imitate many a monk of bygone ages and to exchange the cowl for the helmet. This was one of the most frequent shapes in which his doubts assailed him. He was young, he was ardent, he loved his country; and sometimes a flush of shame would burn his cheek as he heard of some desperate sortie from the beleaguered city. To be praying in a cloister at such a time was a good work: but, so long as the battles were actually raging, was it not a work for women, like preparing lint? Once, indeed, he went so far as to approach the abbot for leave to interrupt his monastic life while he struck a good blow for Portugal: but the abbot confounded him by demanding sadly on which side Antonio felt it his duty to fight. To the old man's question the young one could give no clear answer. His political sympathies were with sterling liberalism: but he had read enough history and seen enough of the world to know that those who preach mostly of liberty often tolerate others' liberty least, and that both the constitutionalism of Dom Pedro and the absolutism of Dom Miguel were mere passwords of opportunists rather than sincere utterances of convictions and principles. In response to his silence and confusion the abbot charged him, under obedience, to dismiss the idea of soldiering from his mind: but whenever tidings of fresh carnage on the banks of the Douro reached the monastery Antonio's heart bled anew. That Portuguese should have helped to slay the thousands of Frenchmen whom Massena had flung at the ridges of Bussaco was a thing for which Massena's master was alone to blame: but the shooting down of Portuguese by Portuguese was a different thing. And so it was with a brimming heart that Antonio, as he sat on his cork bench under the mild stars, thanked God for peace at last in Portugal. Peace. Best of all, peace seemed to have begun even for the Church and for her religious Orders. It was true that the victorious Liberals had decreed the expected confiscation of the military Orders' rich possessions: but, instead of heeding the firebrands from France and suppressing the religious Orders altogether, the new Government had contented itself with closing the smaller houses and distributing their old inmates among the larger monasteries. And, it was true that the State was seeking to impose vexations upon the Church: but it seemed probable that patience and charity and prudence on the Church's part would soon make the crooked straight, and that the Portuguese family would once more dwell in harmony and peace.