The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 12

And, turning a lingering and languid look toward Paullus, the slight boy darted away in pursuit of Aulus.

A moment afterward Arvina, his conference with Sanga ended, and ignorant of all that by-play, took the road leading to the Campus, eager to overtake his friend Aristius.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LATIN VILLA.

I come, O Agamemnon's daughter fair, To this thy sylvan lair.

ELECTRA.

Through a soft lap in the wooded chain of Mount Algidus, a bright pellucid stream, after wheeling and fretting among the crags and ledges of the upper valleys, winds its way gently, toward the far-famed Tiber.

Shut in, on every side, except the south, by the lower spurs of the mountain ridge, in which it is so snugly nestled, covered with rich groves of chesnut-trees, and sheltered on the northward by the dark pines of the loftier steeps, it were difficult to conceive a fairer site for a villa, than that sweet vale.

Accordingly, on a little knoll in the jaws of the gorge, whence issued that clear streamlet, facing the pleasant south, yet sheltered from its excessive heats by a line of superb plane trees, festooned with luxuriant vines, there stood a long low building of the antique form, built of dark-colored stone.

A villa, in the days of Cicero, was a very different thing from the luxurious pleasure-houses which came into vogue in the days of the later Emperors, of which Pliny has given us descriptions so minute and glowing; yet even his Tusculan retreat was a building of vast pretension, when compared with this, which was in fact neither more nor less than an old Roman Farmhouse, of that innocent and unsophisticated day, when the Consulars of the Republic were tillers of the soil, and when heroes returned, from the almost immortal triumph, to the management of the spade and the ploughshare.

This villa had, it is true, been adorned somewhat, and fitted to the temporary abode of individuals more refined and elegant, than the rough steward and rustic slaves, who were its usual tenants. Yet it still retained its original form, and was adapted to its original uses.

The house itself, which was but two stories high, was in form a hollow square, to the courts enclosed in which access was gained by a pair of lofty wooden gates in the rear. It had, in the first instance, presented on all sides merely a blank wall exteriorly, all the windows looking into the court, the centre of which was occupied by a large tank of water, the whole interior serving the purpose of a farm yard. The whole ground floor of the building, had formerly been occupied by stables, root-houses, wine-presses, dairies, cheese-rooms and the like, and by the slaves'

kitchen, which was the first apartment toward the right of the entrance.

The upper story contained the granaries and the dormitories of the workmen; and three sides still remained unaltered.

The front, however, of the villa had been pierced with a handsome doorway, and several windows; a colonnade of rustic stonework had been carried along the facade, and a beautiful garden had been laid out before it, with gra.s.sy terraces, clipped hedges, box trees, trans.m.u.ted by the gardener's art into similitudes of Peac.o.c.ks, Centaurs, Tritons, Swans, and many other forms of fowls or fishes, unknown alike and unnamed by G.o.ds or mortals.

The sun was within about half an hour of his setting, and his slant beams, falling through a gap in the western hills, streamed down into the little valley, casting long stripes of alternate light and shadow over the smoothly shaven lawn, sparkling upon the ripples of the streamlet, and gilding the embrowned or yellow foliage of the sere hill-sides, with brighter and more vivid colors.

At this pleasant hour, notwithstanding the lateness of the season, and looking upon this pleasant scene, a group of females were collected, under the rustic colonnade of Italian marble, engaged in some of those light toils, which in feminine hands are so graceful.

The foremost of these, seated apart somewhat from the others, were the stately and still beautiful Hortensia, and her lovely daughter, both of them employed in twirling the soft threads from the merrily revolving spindle, into large osier baskets; and the elder lady, glancing at times toward the knot of slave girls, as if to see that they performed their light tasks; and at times, if their mirth waxed too loud, checking it by a gesture of her elevated finger.

A little while before, Julia had been singing in her sweet low voice, one of those favorite old ballads, which were so much prized by the Romans, and to which Livy is probably so much indebted for the redundant imagery of his "pictured page," commemorative of the deeds and virtues of the Old Houses.

But, as her lay came to its end, her eye had fallen on the broad blood-red disc of the descending day-G.o.d, and had followed him upon his downward path, until he was lost to view, among the tangled coppices that fringed the brow of the western hill.

Her hands dropped listlessly into her lap, releasing the snow-white thread, which they had drawn out so daintily; and keeping her eyes still fixed steadily on the point where he had disappeared, she gave vent to her feelings in a long-drawn 'heigho!' in every language, and in all times, expression of sentimental sadness.

"Wherefore so sad a sigh, my Julia?" asked Hortensia, gazing affectionately at the saddened brow of the fair girl-"methinks! there is nothing very melancholy here; nothing that should call forth repining."

"See, see Hortensia, how he sinks like a dying warrior, amid those sanguine clouds," cried the girl, pointing to the great orb of the sun, just as its last limb was disappearing.

"And into a couch of bays and myrtles, like that warrior, when his duty is done, his fame won!" exclaimed Hortensia, throwing her arm abroad enthusiastically; and truly the hill-side, behind which he was lost to view, was feathered thick with the shrubs of which she spoke-"methinks!

there is nought for which to sigh in such a setting, either of the sun, or the hero!"

"But see, how dark and gloomy he has left all behind him!-the river which was golden but now, while he smiled upon it, now that he is gone, is leaden."

"But he shall rise again to-morrow, brighter and yet more glorious; and yet more gloriously shall the stream blaze back his rising than his setting l.u.s.tre."

"Alas! alas! Hortensia!"

"Wherefore, alas, my Julia?"

"For so will not the warrior rise, who sinks forever, although it may be into a bed of glory! And if the setting of the sun leave all here l.u.s.treless and dark and gloomy, although _that_ must arise again to-morrow, what must the setting do of one who shall arise no more for ever; whose light of life was to one heart, what the sunbeam was to the streamlet, but which, unlike that sunbeam, shall never s.h.i.+ne on the heart any more, Hortensia."

"My poor child," cried the n.o.ble matron, affected almost to tears, "you are thinking of Paullus."

"When am I not thinking of him, mother?" said the girl. "Remember, we have left the city, seeking these quiet shades, in order to eschew that turmoil, that peril, in the heat of which _he_ is now striving for his country! Remember, that he will plunge into all that strife, the more desperately, because he fancies that he was too remiss before! Remember this, Hortensia; and say, if thou canst, that I have no cause for sad forebodings!"

"That can I not, my Julia," she replied-"For who is there on earth, who knoweth what the next sun shall bring forth? The suns.h.i.+ne of to-day, oft breeds the storm of to-morrow-and, again, from the tempest of the eve, how oft is born the brightest and most happy morning. Wisest is he, and happiest, my child, who wraps himself in his own virtue, careless of what the day shall bring to pa.s.s, and confident, that all the shafts of fortune must rebound, harmless and blunted, from his sure armor of philosophy."

"Must not the heart have bled, Hortensia, before it can so involve itself in virtue?-must not such philosophy be the tardy offspring of great sorrow?"

"For the most part I fear it is so, Julia," answered the matron, "but some souls there are so innocent and quiet, so undisturbed by the outward world, that they have that, almost by nature, which others only win by suffering and tears."

"Cold and unfeeling souls, I fancy," replied the girl. "For it appears to me that this philosophy which smiles on all spite of fortune, must be akin to selfish and morose indifference. I see not much to love, Hortensia, or to admire in the stoic!"

"Nor much more, I imagine," said Hortensia, not sorry to draw her mind from the subject which occupied it so painfully, "in the Epicurean!"

"Much less!" answered Julia, quickly, "his creed is mere madness and impiety. To believe that the G.o.ds care nothing for the good or evil-ye G.o.ds!" she interrupted herself suddenly, almost with a shriek. "What is this? a slave riding, as if for life, on a foaming horse, from the cityward. Oh! my prophetic soul, Hortensia!"

And she turned pale as death, although she remained quite firm and self-possessed.

"It may be nothing, Julia; or it may be good tidings," answered Hortensia, although she was in truth scarce less alarmed, than her daughter, by the unexpected arrival.

"Good tidings travel not so quickly. Beside, what can there be of good, so unexpected? But we shall know-we shall know quickly," and she arose, as if to descend the steps into the garden, but she sank back again into her seat, crying, "I am faint, I am sick, _here_, Hortensia," and she laid her hand on her heart as she spoke. "Nay! do not tarry with me, I pray thee, see what he brings. Anything but the torture of suspense!"

"I go, I go, my child," cried the matron, descending the marble steps to the lawn, on which the slave had just drawn up his panting horse. "He has a letter in his hand, be of good courage."

And a moment afterward she cried out joyously, "It is in his hand, Julia, Paullus Arvina's hand. Fear nothing."

And with a quick light step, she returned, and gave the little slip of vellum into the small white hand, which trembled so much, that it scarcely could receive it.

"A snow-white dove to thee, kind Venus!" cried the girl, raising her eyes in grat.i.tude to heaven, before she broke the seal.

But as she did so, and read the first lines, her face was again overcast, and her eyes were dilated with wild terror.

"It is so-it is so-Hortensia! I knew-oh! my soul! I knew it!" and she let fall the letter, and fell back in her seat almost fainting.

"What?-what?" exclaimed Hortensia. "It is Arvina's hand-he must be in life!-what is it, my own Julia?"

"Wounded almost to death!" faltered the girl, in accents half choked with anguish. "Read! read aloud, kind mother."