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Updated: July 17, 2025
Most of these people dwelling on the Edera water had not been five miles away from the river in all their lives. The moorland birds and beasts went farther afield than they. They had no interest in what was beyond their own freehold; they did not even know or care whither the water went, or whence it came. Where it was, they owned it. That was enough for them.
"You will not send this little foreigner away till I return?" he asked. Every one was a foreigner who had not been born in the vale of Edera. "No; not till you return." He went away through the sunshine and shadow of the olive-trees. He knew that his mother never broke her word. But she thought as she washed the bowl: "A little stray mongrel bitch like that may bite badly some day. She must go.
There was no other Edera river. Unless it were indeed a misprint altogether, the stream which flowed under his church walls was the one which was named in the news-sheet. "But it is impossible, it is impossible!" he said so loudly, that his little dog awoke and climbed on his knee uneasily and in alarm. "What could the people do? What could the village do, or the land or the fisher folk?
The sere vine veiled his study casement; in the silence he could hear the sound of the Edera water; he sat down at his familiar table, with the dog upon his knees. His eyes were wet, and his heart was sick; his courage was broken. "How shall I bear my life here?" he thought. All which had made it of value and lightened its solitude was gone.
But when he had walked the four miles which separated the Terra Vergine from the chestnut woods where the maker of wooden shoes lived, he heard nothing else from Ruffo than this: that gentlemen had come from Teramo to study the Edera water; they were going to turn it aside and use it; more than that the man who had driven them had not heard and could not explain.
To kill these men as you wish, little one, would do nothing. Others of their kind would fill their places. The seekers of gold are like ants. Slay thousands, tens of thousands come on; if once the scent of gain be on the wind it brings men in crowds from all parts, as the smell of carrion brings meat-flies. If they think of seizing the Edera it is because men of business will turn it into gold.
The people are quiet, patient, meek, but they will not be so if they are robbed of the water of the Edera. It is the source of all the little the very little good which comes to them. So it is with Adone Alba. He has been God-fearing, law-abiding, a good son, excellent in all relations; but he will not recognise as law the seizure of his land.
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