V

Fruits ripen quickly in these provinces, and children become women in a summer hour; but with Nerina, through want and suffering and hunger, physical growth had been slow, and she remained long a child in many things and many ways. Only in her skill and strength for work was she older than her actual age.

She could hoe and reap and sow: she could row and steer the boat amongst the shallows as well as any man; she could milk the cow, and put the steers in the waggon; she could card hemp and flax, and weave and spin either; she could carry heavy weights balanced on her head; she was strong and healthy and never ill, and with it all she was happy. Her large bright eyes were full of contentment, and her rosy mouth often smiled out of the mere gladness of living. Her senses were still asleep and her young soul wanted nothing more than life gave her.

"You can earn your bread anywhere now, little one," said Clelia Alba to her one day, when she had been there three years.

The girl shrank as under a blow; her brown and rosy face grew colourless. "Do you wish me to go away?" she said humbly.

"No, no," said Clelia, although that was what she did desire. "No, not while I live. But should I die, you could not stay here with my son."

"Why?" said Nerina. She did not understand why.

Clelia hesitated.

"You ought to feel that yourself," she said harshly. "Young men and young maids do not dwell together, unless"

"Unless what?" asked Nerina.

"You are a simpleton indeed, or you are shamming," thought Adone's mother; but aloud she only said, "It is not in our usage."

"But you will not die," said Nerina anxiously. "Why should you think of dying, madonna? You are certainly old, but you are not so very, very old."

Clelia smiled.

"You do not flatter, child. So much the better. Run away and drive in those fowls. They are making havoc in the beanfield."

She could not feel otherwise than tenderly towards this young creature, always so obedient, so tractable, so contented, so grateful; but she would willingly have placed her elsewhere could she have done so with a clear conscience.

"My son will never do ill by any creature under his roof," she thought. "But still youth is youth; and the girl grows."

"We must dower her and mate her; eh, your reverence?" she said to Don Silverio when he pa.s.sed by later in that day.

"Willingly," he answered. "But to whom? To the owls or the cats at Ruscino?"

In himself he thought, "She is as straight and as slight as a chestnut wand, but she is as strong. When you shall try to bend her where she shall not want to go you will not succeed."

For he knew the character of Nerina in the confessional better than Clelia Alba judged of it in her house.

"It was not wise to bring her here," he added aloud. "But having committed that error it would be unfair to charge the child with the painful payment of it. You are a just woman, my good friend; you must see that."

Clelia saw it clearly, for she never tried to trick her conscience.

"Your reverence mistakes me," she answered. "I would not give her to any but a good man and a good home."

"They are not common," said Don Silverio. "Nor are they as easy to find as flies in summer."

What was the marriage of the poor for the woman? What did it bring?

What did it mean? The travail of child-bearing, the toil of the fields, the hardship of constant want, the incessant clamour on her ear of unsatisfied hunger, the painful rearing of sons whom the State takes away from her as soon as they are of use, painful ending of life on grudged crusts as a burden to others on a hearth no longer her own. This, stripped of glamour, is the lot nine times out of ten of the female peasant -- a creature of burden like the cow she yokes, an animal valued only in her youth and her prime; in old age or in sickness like the stricken and barren goat, who has nought but its skin and its bones.

Poor little Nerina!

As he went home he saw her cutting fodder for a calf; she was kneeling in a haze of rose colour made by the many blossoms of the _orchis maculat_ which grew there. The morning light sparkled in the wet gra.s.s. She got up as she saw him cross the field, dropped her curtsey low with a smile, then resumed her work, the dew, the sun, the sweet fresh scents shed on her like a benison.

"Poor little soul," thought Don Silverio. "Poor little soul! Has Adone no eyes?"

Adone had eyes, but they saw other things than a little maiden in the meadow-gra.s.s.

To her he was a deity; she believed in him and worshipped him with the strongest faith, as a little sister might have done. She would have fought for him like a little mastiff; she would have suffered in his service with rapture and pride; she was as vigilant for his interests as if she were fidelity incarnated. She watched over all that belonged to him, and the people of Ruscino feared her more than they feared Pierino the watch-dog. Woe betided the hapless wight who made free with the ripe olives, or the ripe grapes, with the fig or the peach or the cherry which grew on Adone's lands; it seemed to such marauders that she had a thousand eyes and lightning in her feet.

One day, when she had dealt such vigorous blows with a blackthorn stick on the back of a lad who had tried to enter the fowl-house, that he fell down and shrieked for pardon, Adone reproved her.

"Remember they are very poor, Nerina," he said to her. "So were your own folks, you say."

"I know they are poor," replied Nerina; she held to her opinions.

"But when they ask, you always give. Therefore it is vile to rob you.

Besides," she added, "if you go on and let them steal and steal till you will have nothing left."

Whatever she saw, whatever she heard, she told Adone; and he gave ear to her because she was not a chatterer, but was usually of few words.

All her intelligence was spent in the defence and in the culture of the Terra Vergine; she did not know her alphabet, and did not wish to do so; but she had the quickest of ears, the keenest of eyes, the brightest of brains.

One morning she came running to him where he was cutting barley.

"Adone! Adone!" she cried breathlessly, "there were strange men by the river to-day."

"Indeed," said Adone astonished, because strangers were never seen there. Ruscino was near no highroad, and the river had long ceased to be navigable.

"They asked me questions, but I put my hands to my ears and shook my head; they thought I was deaf."

"What sort of men were they?" he asked with more attention, for there were still those who lived by violence up in the forests which overhung the valley of the Edera.

"How do I know? They were clothed in long woollen bed-gowns, and they had boots on their feet, and on their heads hats shaped like kitchen-pans."

Adone smiled. He saw men from a town, or country fellows who aped such men, with a contempt which was born at once of that artistic sense of fitness which was in him, and of his adherence to the customs and habits of his province. The city-bred and city-clothed man looked to him a grotesque and helpless creature, much sillier than an ape.

"That sounds like citizens or townsfolk. What did they say?"

"I could not understand; but they spoke of the water, I think, for they pointed to it and said a great deal which I did not understand, and seemed to measure the banks, and took your punt and threw a chain into the water in places."

"Took castings? Used my punt? That is odd! I have never seen a stranger in my life by the Edera. Were they anglers?"

"No."

"Or sportsmen?"