"Of that my son must judge, sir," said Adone's mother, inflexible to argument. "I shall not set myself against him. He is master now. If he bid me fire the place I shall do it. For four-and-twenty years he obeyed me like a little child; never a murmur, never a frown. Now he is his own master, and master of the land. I shall do as he tells me. It is his turn now, and he is no fool, sir, Adone."
"He is no fool; no. But he is beside himself. He is incapable of judgment. His blood is on fire and fires his brain."
"I think not, sir. He is quiet. He speaks little"
"Because he meditates what will not bear speech. Were he violent I should be less alarmed. He shuns me — me — his oldest friend."
"Because no doubt, sir, he feels you are against him."
"Against him! How can I, being what I am, be otherwise? Could you expect me to foment insurrection, and what less than that can opposition such as he intends become?"
"You speak as you feel bound to speak, sir, no doubt."
"But think of the end? Must not every action be weighed and considered and judgment passed on it by what will be its issue? No rising of our poor people can effect anything except their own destruction. It is only a demagogue who would urge them on to it. Adone is not a demagogue. He is a generous youth frantic from sorrow, but helpless. Can you not see that?"
"I do not see that he is helpless," said his mother with obstinacy. "The thing that are about to do us is unjust. I would load a gun myself against them, and if money be what is wanted I would give Adone my pearls. He asks me for nothing, but when he does I will strip myself to my shift to aid him."
"It is a terrible madness!" cried Don Silverio. "What can your fowling-piece or your necklace do against all the force these speculators and contractors will employ? It is a great, a heinous wrong which will be done to you; that no one can feel more strongly than I. But there are wrongs to which we must submit when we are weak; and, my good Clelia, against this we poor folks in the Vale of Edera are as weak as the teal in the marshes against the swivel guns of the sportsmen's punts."