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From A Roman Reporter, by Arthur Aikin Brodribb, London: The Society for The Promotion of Christian Knowledge, New York: E. & J. B. Young & Co.; [c. 1893], pp. 29-43.

A ROMAN REPORTER

by A. A. Brodribb

CHAPTER  II.

ISMISSING the messenger, who was subsequently pronounced by Geta and his fellow servants to be the dullest, but the hungriest, guest they had ever entertained, Cassianus went to his daughter’s own room, and did his best to console her for her lover’s misfortune. Happily she had already begun to recover from the first shock of grief, and it was clear that she did not understand the full danger of the centurion’s position. A year ago Marcellinus would undoubtedly have been delivered over to the tender mercies of Severus and his agents; but Severus had perished, and his conquerors, as Priscilla’s father, who knew the Ravenna law courts, had repeatedly told her, had adopted a different and more liberal policy. Consequently, as the 30 Christians were treated with something more than justice by the new rulers, Priscilla imagined that Marcellinus would not be too severely punished, though the mere thought of his being punished at all rendered her sufficiently miserable. In her father’s presence she behaved with all maidenly reserve and fortitude, and her loving old nurse said nothing of the paroxysms of grief that she had soothed, or of the floods of tears that she had essayed to dry. Cassianus, however, new the strictness of military discipline, and feared the worst for his friend and future son-in-law. When he found the girl, red-eyed, but calmer, and, as he thought, all the lovelier for her tears, he could not undeceive her. Yes, Marcellinus would perhaps be fined, or perhaps dismissed without the deferred pay to which he would soon be entitled, or some other moderate penalty would be exacted; it was to be hoped that nothing worse than that would happen, though of course much would depend on the Judge.

“And that is true enough,” said Cassianus to himself, for the Judges did, in fact, vary very 31 greatly, and were often as much the friends as the enemies of the accused.

“Oh, it was noble of him!” said Priscilla, with flashing eyes in spite of her tears; “noble of him to speak out before God and man.”

“A brave man, doubtless,” replied her father, “but it was very, very injudicious.”

“Father, we should serve God rather than man,” quoted the girl.

“I must go to Ravenna,” continued Cassianus, avoiding a controversy, “and see what can be done for him. Our friend Fausta will receive you while I am away. The change of air will be good for you.”

Priscilla acquiesced in this arrangement, for Fausta was the friend with whom she usually lodged during her father’s visits to Ravenna, it being impossible to leave her alone in the house while he was absent. On some of these occasions, Fausta, instead of receiving Priscilla at the farm, came to stay with her at Imola; but more often the girl went to Fausta’s, in whose house she had stayed from time to time ever since her infancy. It was a farm in the neighbourhood 2 of Imola, and there were many less hospitable people than Fausta, her husband Rufus, and her two sons, Gallus and Gaudentius; the former Rufus’s right-hand man on the farm, and the latter the most accomplished of Cassianus’s pupils. Rufus’s daughter Ursula, a girl only a little older than Priscilla, completed the family.

While the troubles of Marcellinus and Priscilla were occupying his attention, Cassianus’s pupils, in the schoolroom at the end of the garden, waited and waited for him in various states of boredom and insubordination. Florus sat gloomily by himself, nursing his insults, and every now and then driving his pointed stilus into the bench as though it had been a dagger. Others sang comic songs in which uncomplimentary reference was made to Cassianus’s manner and appearance, and Lycas, a youth with artistic tastes, revenged a hundred affronts and harsh words by drawing on the wall a speaking caricature of his preceptor, with due insistence on the little man’s sharp nose, scanty hairs, and small ferrety eyes. Two or three of the richer and more independent pupils had gone 33 home, observing that they would not pay their money if their tutor did not earn it; and when Geta appeared with the announcement that his master desired the class to disperse, Gaudentius alone was occupying his time rationally. As he rose to go home he was joined by Florus, an undesired companion, part of whose road lay in the direction of Gaudentius’s house. Florus was in one of his worst moods, and walked for some minutes in silence by his fellow student’s side. Then he muttered: —

“Take care of yourself, my revered Cassianus, or by all the gods and goddesses ——”

“Eh?” said Gaudentius thinking himself addressed.

“Nothing. I was thinking of our delightful tutor. Did you hear what he had the impudence to say to me to-day?”

“Yes; but what does it signify? It was only said in joke.”

“Oh, a joke was it? I’ll teach him to make jokes some day. I’ll teach him to make blackguardly Greek jokes about my name, and to talk to me about lunatic asylums. Look here, 34 Gaudentius; I tell you fairly that if anything of the kind happens again I shall do that man, that human ape, a mischief. I will bear it no longer.”

“Bear it, man! laugh at it, and all these little rough jests will lose their sting.”

“No, by all the gods and ——”

“Come, don’t swear so incessantly. Your gods and goddesses won’t help you, my dear fellow. It is only Cassianus’s way, and always was. I have known him since I was a child. His harshness is only skin-deep.”

“Oh, I forgot,” said Florus, with a sneer, “you are his friend and favourite, for some reason or other. He teaches you for nothing, does not he?”

“Certainly not.”

“No, that is not the reason; but I know what it is; it is a reason with black eyes and ruddy lips and white arms, and — aha, how he is blushing; blushing as red as Bacchus! — but we don’t often see that vision of beauty as we did to-day! Surely Lais in all her glory ——”

He was not allowed to finish the insulting comparison. The old Adam was too much for 35 Gaudentius, a Christian, but a muscular one; and a straight blow between the eyes laid Florus prostrate on the road. When he picked himself up a minute or two later, cursing and vowing vengeance, he found that Gaudentius had not stayed to witness his recovery.

There was general satisfaction at the farm that evening when Cassianus came with the request that Priscilla might again be received by her friends. He made no secret of the cause of his journey, but told them plainly that Marcellinus was in great and sudden trouble, and that he was going to Ravenna to see what could be done. To Fausta alone he confided his worst fears, and, indeed, she had already guessed them, knowing from his manner that his anxiety was very great. The honest farmer himself wished him God-speed with his usual heartiness, Rufus being by no means emotional, and then went to make his evening tour of the premises. Gallus, the elder son, who was asleep on a bench after a hard and hot day’s work, was roused, and bade him an uncouth farewell without appearing to wake from his dreams; 36 Gaudentius came forward courteously from his writing-desk, and Ursula promised to make her playmate as happy as possible.

No more peaceful or secure retreat could have been found for Priscilla than Rufus and Fausta’s farm. It might be described in modern language as a mixed farm, that is to say, it was partly wine-growing and partly arable. There were fields of wheat and barley, beans and peas, pasture for sheep and oxen, and a moderate vineyard, which, as the wine was of no very excellent quality, gave, in Rufus’s opinion, more trouble than it was worth. Gallus acted as his father’s manager in all out-door matters, and superintended the slaves and farm-labourers; Fausta presided over the strictly domestic affairs with homely good sense; while Ursula, with liberal assistance from her father’s barley sacks, devoted herself to the poultry-yard, the pheasantry, the pigeon-house, and the rearing of peacocks. Gaudentius had no share in the domestic economy. He was a scholar, and had ambitions beyond the range of an Apennine farm. His sister sympathised with his aspirations, 37 but old Rufus was inclined to wonder how any son of his could have such phenomenal tastes. While Gallus was at work on the farm, and Ursula busy with her birds or in the dairy, Gaudentius was either at Imola, perfecting himself in the art of a reporter, or at home bending over his writing-desk, or, on rare occasions, assisting Cassianus, or his deputy, at Ravenna. Ravenna, notwithstanding its antiquity and importance, was not an agreeable town. Its fortifications were imposing, but its streets were dirty and mean, and Gaudentius loved neither the barracks nor the dockyard. But, though the place was always full of soldiers and sailors, here at least was part of the great world, and a glimpse of the power and might of the great empire. Here were soldiers who had fought in every known part of the world, and sailors who had seen other seas than the Adriatic. And Ravenna itself was but a provincial town — what then, thought Gaudentius, must Imperial Rome be? To Rome he would go, sooner or later — to Rome, the brain, the muscle, of the whole world; 38 and there, like many another country lad, he would make himself prosperous, and — who could tell? — famous. Such were his day dreams; and now, at the age of twenty-two, it was time for him to test and, perhaps, realise them. Besides, though no one else knew it, he had another reason for wishing to leave Imola and its neighbourhood. At Imola, a frequent visitor at his father’s farm, lived Priscilla, whom he had long loved, secretly, silently, and reverently; and since her betrothal to the centurion it was exquisitely painful to him to be in her company; nay, as often as he entered Cassianus’s classroom he hated to think that only a brick wall and a few yards of garden separated him from the dear object of his hopeless love. His religion gave him honourable principles, and forbade him all pursuit of a betrothed maiden; but each visit of Priscilla’s was a sore trial to his self-control.

The day before Cassianus started for Ravenna Priscilla arrived at the farm, and was cordially welcomed. She perceived at once that the business of the place was for the moment suspended, and that some festivity was in progress. 39 It was one of the spring holidays of the country folk, none of whom wore their work-a-day dress or demeanour. Ursula made the best apology she could for the unlucky coincidence, knowing that Priscilla could not be inclined to make merry; “but we could not stop the people,” she said, “and will not you come to the meadow and look on? There are dances and songs, and — don’t be shocked — incantations to the Queen of the Witches.”

“What! Among Christians?” asked Priscilla, indignantly.

“What can we do, dear? Our labourers are not Christians; at least, not many of them; and they all declare that if they do not appease Fufluns and Maso there will be no corn or wine, and then where should we all be?”

“It is God that giveth the increase.”

“Yes; but how can we teach our people?” Gaudentius has often tried it, but they only laugh at him for his pains. My father is obliged to permit the feast, and the people take it amiss if we all hold aloof.”

The two girls, therefore, went down to the 40 meadow and looked on at the sports from a little distance. There was dancing of an innocent and decorous kind, till all were tired and breathless, when a pause was made, and, all taking hands and forming a ring, some rustic, more musical than his fellows, would step into the middle and sing the time-honoured invocation to a rural deity. Thus, in the first place was Tinia honoured, the mighty god who could lay low whole fields with storms, and whose lightning could burn up all the garnered corn, the labour of the entire year. The singer prayed him to favour them with his absence, or to moderate his wrath; and at the end of every distich each man and maid, closing in a circle round the singer, and then receding, brandished aloft a sprig of the magic herb which had power to repel the attacks of the dreaded enemy. A somewhat similar ceremony was observed in the case of the god Maso, to whom the general fertility of Nature was in part ascribable; but the song, in this instance, was choral, and contained no threats against the god, but only supplications that he would be favourable. 41 Then, in a few minutes, came the jolly god Fufluns, represented by a handsome boy, who entered in triumph on the shoulders of his votaries, vine-crowned, and with a thyrsus in his hand. Three times he was borne round the meadow, all following, and singing hymns in his honour. In the middle of the field his bearers set him down on a throne of turf, and again a circle was formed. A peasant and one of the chief rustic beauties slightly advanced within the ring. Fufluns stepped towards the girl, but was roughly repulsed by her peasant father. Instantly the god snatched from the peasant his crown of vine-leaves, and, mounting the shoulders of his attendants, was rapidly carried off, heedless of the song of melancholy entreaty that followed his ears.

“You are mystified,” said Ursula to Priscilla; “but that is the old legend that they are acting. Don’t you see? The old man should not have refused his daughter to Fufluns. Fufluns has a right to whomsoever he will, and to show his wrath he has stripped the old man of his vine garland. That means that the man will have no wine till 42 he appeases Fufluns, and that his cellar will be full of laughing imps, who will frighten him out of his life whenever he goes to it. See, Fufluns is angry and has turned his back on them.”

“And do the poor silly people believe all this?” asked Priscilla.

“Indeed they do; all this and much more. There, do you see what is happening now? Listen to the pipes and flutes; they are bringing in the witch; I think it is old Afra, who was here in the autumn — and she will tell fortunes and give the people charms and philtres and magic herbs; and in the end she will go away a good deal richer and less sober than she is now.”

“Old Nanny, my nurse, you know, often told me of all this; but I never believed much of it.”

“Then come and see for yourself, and old Afra will tell your fortune for you if you like. Oh, I only spoke in jest, dear Priscilla,” continued Ursula, hastily, remembering her friend’s troubles; “let us go home and I will show you my new pigeons.”

As the two girls went into the house they 43 found no one there except Gaudentius. Nothing would have induced him to be even a distant spectator of a pagan festival, and he had spent the whole afternoon in writing a copy of the “Acts” for his sister. She bent over his shoulder to see how the work progressed, and to admire his wonderfully neat manuscript.

“Why, he has nearly finished it!” said Ursula, showing her friend the words that Gaudentius had just written; “here is an omen for you, Priscilla, an omen much better than all old Afra’s soothsaying.”

The ink was still wet, and Priscilla read, “This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds.”

Next:

CHAPTER  III.

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