XIV

One morning in early April Adone received a printed invitation to attend in five days' time at the Munic.i.p.ality of San Beda to hear of something which concerned him. It was brought by the little old postman who went the rounds of the district once a week on his donkey; the five days had already expired before the summons was delivered. Adone's ruddy cheeks grew pale as he glanced over it; he thrust it into the soil and drove his spade through it. The old man waiting, in hopes to get a draught of wine, looked at him in dismay.

"Is that a way to treat their Honours' commands?" he said aghast.

Adone did not answer or raise his head; he went on with his digging; he was turning and trenching the soil to plant potatoes; he flung spadefuls of earth over the buried summons.

"What's amiss with you, lad?" said the old fellow, who had known him from his infancy.

"Leave me," said Adone, with impatience. "Go to the house if you want to drink and to bait your beast."

"Thank ye," said the old man. "But you will go, won't you, Adone? It fares ill with those who do not go."

"Who told you to say that?"

"n.o.body; but I have lived a' many years, and I have carried those printed papers a' many years, and I know that those who do not go when they are called rue it. Their Honours don't let you flout them."

"Their Honours be d.a.m.ned!" said Adone. "Go to the house."

The little old man, sorely frightened, dropped his head, and pulling his donkey by its bridle went away along the gra.s.s path under the vines.

Adone went on delving, but his strong hands shook with rage and emotion as they grasped the handle of the spade. He knew as well as if he had been told by a hundred people that he was called to treat of the sale of the Terra Vergine. He forced himself to go on with his forenoon's labour, but the dear familiar earth swam and spun before his sight.

"What?" he muttered to it, "I who love you am not your owner? I who was born on you am not your lawful heir? I who have laboured on you ever since I was old enough to use a tool at all am now in my manhood to give you up to strangers? I will make you run red with blood first!"

It wanted then two hours of noon. When twelve strokes sounded from across the river, tolled slowly by the old bronze bell of the church tower, he went for the noonday meal and rest to the house.

The old man was not longer there, but Clelia Alba said to him --

"Dario says they summon you to Dan Beda, and that you will not go?"

"He said right."

"But, my son," cried his mother, "go you must! These orders are not to be shirked. Those who give them have the law behind them. You know that."

"They have the villainy of the law behind them: the only portion of the law the people ever suffered to see."

"But how can you know what it is about if you do not go?"

"There is only one thing which it can be. One thing that I will not hear."

"You mean for the river -- for the land?"

"What else?"

Her face grew as stern as his own. "If that be so... Still you should go, my son; you should go to hold your own."

"I will hold my own," said Adone; and in his thoughts he added, "but not by words."

"What is the day of the month for which they call you?" asked his mother.

"The date is pa.s.sed by three days. That is a little feat which authority often plays upon the people."

They went within. The meal was eaten in silence; the nut-brown eyes of Nerina looked wistfully in their faces, but she asked nothing; she guessed enough.

Adone said nothing to Don Silverio of the summons, for he knew that the priest would counsel strongly his attendance in person at San Beda, even though the date was already pa.s.sed.

But the Vicar had heard of it from the postman, who confided to him the fears he felt that Adone would neglect the summons, and so get into trouble. He perceived at once the error which would be committed if any sentence should be allowed to go by default through absence of the person cited.. By such absence the absentee discredits himself; whatsoever may be the justice of his cause, it is prejudiced at the outset. But how to persuade of this truth a man so blind with pain and rage and so dogged in self-will as Adone had become, Don Silverio did not see. He shrank from renewing useless struggles and disputes which led to no issue. He felt that Adone and he would only drift farther and farther apart with every word they spoke.

The young man viewed this thing through a red mist of hatred and headstrong fury; it was impossible for his elder to admit that such views were wise or pardonable, or due to anything more than the heated visions evoked by a great wrong.

That evening at sunset he saw the little girl Nerina at the river.

She had led the cows to the water, and they and she were standing knee deep in the stream. The western light shone on their soft, mottled, dun hides and on her ruddy brown hair and bright young face.

The bearded bulrushes were round them; the light played on the broad leaves of the docks and the red spikes of great beds of willow-herb; the water reflected the glowing sky, and close to its surface numbers of newly-come swallows whirled and dipped and darted, chasing gnats, whilst near at hand on a spray a little woodlark sang.

The scene was fair, peaceful, full of placid and tender loveliness.

"And all this is to be changed and ruined in order that some sons of the mammon of unrighteousness may set up their mills to grind their gold," he thought to himself as he pa.s.sed over the stepping-stones, which at this shallow place could be crossed dryfoot.

"Where is Adone?" he called to the child.

"He is gone down the river in the punt, most reverend."

"And his mother?"

"Is at the house, sir."

Don Silvero went through the pastures under the great olives. When he reached the path leading to the house he saw Clelia Alba seated before the doorway spinning. The rose-tree displayed its first crimson buds above her head; on the roof sparrows and starlings were busy.

Clelia Alba rose and dropped a low courtesy to him, then resumed her work at the wheel.

"You have heard, sir?" she said in a low tone. "They summons him to San Beda."

"Old Dario told me; but Adone will not go?"

"No sir; he will never go."

"He is in error."

"I do not know sir. He is best judge of that."

"I fear he is in no state of mind to judge calmly of anything. His absence will go against him. Instead of an amicable settlement the question will go to the tribunals, and if he be unrepresented there he will be condemned _in contumacium_."

"Amicable settlement?" repeated his mother, her fine face animated and stern, and her deep dark eyes flashing. "Can you, sir, dare you, sir, name such a thing? What they would do is robbery, vile robbery, a thousand times worse than aught the men of night ever did when they came down from the hills to hara.s.s our homesteads."