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She would have fought for him like a little mastiff; she would have suffered in his service with rapture and pride; she was as vigilant for his interests as if she were fidelity incarnated. She watched over all that belonged to him, and the people of Ruscino feared her more than they feared Pierino the watch-dog.
The dusty, stinking, sun-scorched waggons, open one to another, with the stench of hot unwashed flesh, and the clouds of dust driven through the unglazed windows, seemed to Don Silverio a hell of man's own making, and in remembrance his empty quiet room, with its vine-hung window, at Ruscino, seemed by comparison a lost heaven.
The Gauls, though they had heard that the war was directed against Italy, yet because there was a report that the Spaniards on the other side of the Pyrenees had been reduced by force, and that strong forces had been imposed on them, being roused to arms through the fear of slavery, assembled certain tribes at Ruscino.
He was relieved from the pressure of one immediate anxiety, but his apprehensions for the future were great, both for the young man and for the people of Ruscino and its surrounding country. To take away their river was to deprive them of the little which they had to make life tolerable and to supply the means of existence.
Cold northern blasts blew from the upper Apennines, and piled the snows upon the grey and yellow rocks of the Abruzzo heights, as he crossed the valley of the Edera towards Ruscino. It seemed to him as though a century had passed since he had left it. In the icy wind which blew form the hills he shivered, for he had only one poor, thin coat to cover him.
"It is the least you can do. But you must not forget the cattle. Nerina is not there to see to them." She pushed past him and went on to the footbridge; but midway across it she turned and called to him: "I lit the fire, and the coffee is on it. Where am I to look for the child? In the heather? in the woods? up in Ruscino? down in the lower valley? or may be at the presbytery?"
But he had been used to such work from childhood, and it was never irksome to him; even though he rose in the dark, and rarely went home to supper till the stars were shining. He had no near neighbours except the poor folks in Ruscino.
He was used to have had a little weekly journal sent to him by the post; which came at rare intervals on an ass's back to Ruscino, the ass and his rider, with a meal sack half filled by the meagre correspondence of the district, making the rounds of that part of the province with an irregularity which seemed as natural to the sufferers by it as to the postman himself.
To Adone, whose nature was unspoilt by modern influences, and whose world was comprised in the fields and moors around Ruscino, it seemed incredible that such a title as that of his native soil to the water of Edera could be made clear to those in power without instant ratification of it. "Whether you do aught or naught it comes to the same thing," said the old Garibaldino, who was wiser.
The Carthaginians, who, if they had made haste would, on the first assault, have surprised their adversaries while every thing was in a state of confusion, from the hurry and bustle attending the preparations, were so dismayed at their losses by land, and thereby had lost so much confidence even in their strength by sea, in which they had the advantage, that, after consuming the day, in consequence of the slow rate at which they sailed, about sun-set they put in to a harbour which the Africans call Ruscino.
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