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Zeferino was the godson of the landowner of Barrimão, a cavalry major. The major was a firm Miguelist, but he had a calm nature. He lived in an old manor house with his brother, Friar Gervásio, a former Benedictine monk. The narrator calls the friar contemplative but shows him almost always sleeping or eating. Even his cough echoed through the house and frightened the old servant. Two former monks visited Friar Gervásio every two months. The three men prayed for their dead companions and then drank plenty of wine at the table.
Barrimão gave money each year to the exiled Dom Miguel. He celebrated the king's birthday and imagined the rank he would receive if the king returned to the throne. Friar Gervásio wrote his brother's political letters and filled them with phrases from sermons. In the middle of 1845, a rumour spread among the royalists that Dom Miguel was going to return. There was no confirmation, only mysterious letters received by Friar Gervásio. The friar showed those letters to his brother, and Barrimão answered with grand gestures of enthusiasm. Friar Gervásio said that Russia was making a move.
During one of these conversations, Zeferino arrived with his patched trousers. He recounted the argument with Simeão and the attack by José Dias's dogs. He showed them the repair and promised revenge. Friar Gervásio told him to forget Marta and José and prepare his father's sword to defend throne and altar. Barrimão declared that the moment was near. Zeferino rubbed his hands and said that he would fetch the sword from his old father.
Zeferino's father was called Gaspar das Lamelas and had been an ensign in the 17th Infantry. In 1834, the local liberals pursued him, and he lived in hiding for several months. The family's property was seized, and Zeferino had to become a mason. Later, the land was returned, and Gaspar came home with a sword covered in green rust. He said that he would wash the blade in the blood of the liberals.
On Christmas Day in 1838, Gaspar got drunk and went into the street cheering Dom Miguel. Other drunken men answered the cheers and joined him. Gaspar put on his old uniform, took up his sword and began the march towards Santo Tirso. At the head of labourers and boys, he meant to offer battle to the authorities. The group had three old muskets, sickles fixed to poles and a pig-killing knife. The march gathered more drunken men from the taverns and reached Barrimão's manor house. The men chose Barrimão as their general, but he refused the command. He ordered that they be given wine and advised them to go home before they received a beating. Friar Gervásio said that it looked more like wine than patriotism. Gaspar did not give up and continued to threaten his old enemies in Santo Tirso.
The alarm bells rang, and news of a rising reached Santo Tirso. A false report said that Barrimão commanded the band, and this increased the fear. Some merchants fled towards Porto, and about eighty armed men prepared the defence. The rebels' shouting drew in more than three hundred men. The narrator recalls, with irony, how that day of Christian peace ended as a festival of wine and hatred.
Near the bridge at Santo Tirso, an innkeeper warned Gaspar that the march would end badly. Gaspar's courage began to fade, but his companions forced him to drink spirits. The district administrator crossed the bridge with two unarmed men and asked for Barrimão. Gaspar replied that he himself was the leader. The official said that a serious man like Barrimão would never lead those deceived people. He made a long speech and told everyone to return to work. A very drunk man threw his hat into the air, but the available text does not preserve his shout. The crowd drowned out the administrator's reply, and he turned back. The liberals then began to march across the bridge.
Gaspar's men fired first and killed a man in the front rank. The liberals returned fire with discipline, and the band began to flee. At the age of fifty, Gaspar ran faster than many of the boys in his group. The former sergeant Lopes had crossed the Ave with twenty men and attacked the fugitives from the other side. Lopes spoke to the pursuers, but the words do not appear in the available text. Gaspar ran across a flooded field while bullets struck the mud around him. He disappeared behind some trees, left his cap and coat on the bank and entered the river. He swam across the Ave on a December afternoon with the sword held between his teeth. Patarro de Monte Córdova prepared his gun to shoot him. A young man asked him not to kill the old man and thought that the river would do the job.
The current carried Gaspar for a while, but he managed to reach the far bank. Hours later, he returned home, drank gin and raised his sword. Gaspar shouted some words, but the available text does not preserve that shout. He later developed rheumatism in his joints and became paralysed. Seven years later, he still lived in a wheelchair and wept because he could no longer fight the liberals. He asked to be buried with his sword, and that is what they did. The narrator imagines Gaspar's skeleton rising with the sword still in its hand, if Russia finally makes a move. This story left Zeferino an inheritance of resentment, wine, political dreams and violence.