10
At a little distance from the church, stood the house of Joseph Roccia; a man of about fifty, who with his son James, a lad of fifteen, had, like his neighbours, got upon the roof of his house, in order to lessen the weight of it, and thereby prevent its destruction.
In the meantime, the clergyman, who lived in the neighbourhood, and was about leaving home, in order to repair to the church, and gather the people together to hear prayers, perceiving a noise towards the top of the mountains, descried two valancas driving headlong towards the village; wherefore, raising his voice, he gave Joseph notice instantly to come down from the roof, to avoid the impending danger; and then immediately retreated himself into his own house.
Joseph Roccia immediately came off the roof at the priest’s notice, and with his son fled as hard as he could towards the church. He had scarce advanced forty steps, when hearing his son fall just at his heels, he turned about to assist him, and taking him up, saw the spot on which his house, his stable, and those of some of his neighbours stood, converted into a huge heap of snow, without the least sign of either walls or roofs.
Such was his agony at this sight, and at the thoughts of having lost, in an instant, his wife, his sister, his family, and all the little he had saved, that he lost his senses, swooned away, aud tumbled upon the snow. His son now helped him, and, coming to himself a little, he made a shift to get to a friend’s house at the distance of a hundred feet from the spot where he fell.
