"Come and have a cup of coffee with me, my son," he said in his old, kind tones. "I am going home to break my fast."
But Adone was hurt and humiliated, and made excuse of field work, which pressed by reason of the weather, and so he did not name to his friend and councillor the visit of the three men to the river.
Don Silverio went home and boiled his coffee; he always did this himself; it was the only luxury he ever allowed himself, and he did not indulge even in this very often. But for once the draught had neither fragrance nor balm for him. He was overtired, weary in mind as in body, and greatly dejected; even though nothing was known at San Beda he felt convinced that what he had read was the truth.
He knew but little of affairs of speculation, but he knew that it was only in reason to suppose that such projects would be kept concealed, as long as might be expedient, from those who would be known to be hostile to them, in order to minimise the force of opposition.
VI
On the morning of the fourth day which followed on the priest's visit to San Beda, about ten in the forenoon, Adone, with his two oxen, Orlando and Rinaldo, were near the river on that part of his land which was still natural moorland, and on which heather, and ling, and broom, and wild roses, and bracken grew together. He had come to cut a waggon load of furze, and had been at work there since eight o'clock, when he had come out of the great porch of the church after attending mass, for it was the twentieth of June, the name-day of Don Silverio.
Scarcely had that day dawned when Adone had risen and had gone across the river to the presbytery, bearing with him a dozen eggs, two flasks of his best wine, and a bunch of late-flowering roses. They were his annual offerings on this day; he felt some trepidation as he climbed the steep, stony, uneven street lest they should be rejected, for he was conscious that three evenings before he had offended Don Silverio, and had left the presbytery too abruptly. But his fears were allayed as soon as he entered the house; the vicar was already up and dressed, and was about to go to the church. At the young man's first contrite words Don Silverio stopped him with a kind smile.
"I was impatient and to blame," he said as he took the roses. "You heap coals of fire on my head, my son, with your welcome gifts."
Then together they had gone to the quaint old church of which the one great bell was tolling.