1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

The Inhabitants of the Alto Bouro Wine Bistrict. 99

the adjacent kitchen,heextinguished the lamp and rushed on the gang,grappling with the twoforemostof the party and thrusting them in the direction of the kitchen steps. On reaching the doorway,however, he noticed by the light of the kitchen lamp hisown men standing armed with sticks,asthoughin league with his assailants. Doubtful what to do,he grasped hold of acouple of the masked men and dragged them with him down the steps, falling and dislocating his wrist while doing so. In the confusion which ensued the kitchen lamp was upset and extinguished, and the feitor made at once for the adega,but, stumbling down the steep flight of stairs,he again fell and broke two of his ribs. Finding himself near the tonels he crawled be neath one of them, and,creeping along, reached the tonel in the furthermost corner,where he hoped to remain undiscovered. In the meantime the kitchen lamp had been relighted, and the masked men,assisted by their accomplices, searched for the feitor in various directions—^in the kitchen,in the dining-room, and in the different alcoves—vowing the while that they would hack him to pieces if they discovered him. They searched, too,for the money which they knew he was in possession of to pay the farmers for their wine, and which they believed to be secreted somewhere in thefeitor's sleeping-room,but with equal unsuccess, for the money in question was really hidden in a disused oven in the kitchen. Enraged at finding neither the feitor nor the money,they proceeded to the adega,there to con tinue their search,and while a couple of the gang sharpened their long knives on a stone, the other two crept under the row of tonels and commenced making a careful examination. They had looked beneath the first, second, and third tonels,when one of them suddenly remembering the sacristan, exclaimed that he must be concealed upstairs, and might perhaps be able to tell them where the money was kept. The pair thereupon hastily withdrew and rushed up to the dining-roomjfollowed by their comrades,butthey all soon returned,having discoveredoneofthe dining-room windows open,and seen by the broken vines below that the sacristan had made his escape that way.