One night, Roseta experienced a certain relief. While she was still close to the city, a man came out upon the road and began to walk at the same pace as herself.
"Good evening!"
And while the mill-girl was walking over the high bank which bordered the road, the man walked below, among the deep cuts opened by the wheels of the carts, stumbling over the red bricks, chipped dishes, and even pieces of glass with which farsighted hands wished to fill up the holes of remote origin.
Roseta showed no disquietude. She had recognized her companion even before he saluted her. It was Tonet, the nephew of old Tomba, the shepherd: a good boy, who served as an apprentice to a butcher of Alboraya, and at whom the mill-girls laughed when they met him upon the road, taking delight in seeing how he blushed, and turned his head away at the least word.
Such a timid boy! He was alone in the world without any other relatives than his grandfather, worked even on Sundays, and not only went to Valencia to collect manure for the fields of his master, but also helped him in the slaughter of cattle and tilled the earth, and carried meat to the rich farmers. All in order that he and his grandfather might eat, and that he might go dressed in the old ragged clothes of his master. He did not smoke; he had entered the tavern of Copa only two or three times in his life, and on Sundays, if he had some hours free, instead of squatting on the Plaza of Alboraya, like the others to watch the bullies playing hand-ball, he went out into the fields and roamed aimlessly through the tangled net-work of paths. If he happened to meet a tree filled with birds, he would stop there fascinated by the fluttering and the cries of these vagrants of the air.
The people saw in him something of the mysterious eccentricities of his grandfather, the shepherd: all regarded him as a poor fool, timid and docile.
The mill-girl became enlivened with company. She was safer if a man walked with her, and more so if it were Tonet, who inspired confidence.
She spoke to him, asking him whence he came, and the youth answered vaguely, with his habitual timidity: "From there ... from there...." and then became silent as if those words cost him a great effort.
They followed the road in silence, parting close to the barraca.
"Good night and thanks!" said the girl.