"Their Honours be damned!" 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 grass 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."