I
His Lady of Gifts smiled at him and held out her hand with something
shut tight inside of it. The white fingers were just about to open
into his palm, when he felt his mother's hand on his and heard her
say: "Come, Marcus, come, the sun will get ahead of you this morning."
He knew that she had kissed his eyes and hurried away again before
he could open them upon the faint, grey light in his tiny room. A
piercing thought put an end to sleepiness and brought him swiftly
from his bed. This was the day of his Lady's festival! His mother
seemed to have forgotten it, but he could say a prayer for her as
well as for himself at the shrine by the Spring. He must make haste
now, however, for before the June sun should fairly have come up over
the tops of the hills he must get his sheep and goats to their pasture
on the lower slopes.
When he had slipped into his blue cotton tunic, which reached just
to his knees, leaving bare his stout brown legs, he went into his
mother's room and plunged his head into a copper basin of water
standing ready for his use. Shaking the drops from his black curls,
he hastened on to the kitchen for his porridge. His grandfather was
already there, sitting in his large chair, mumbling half-heard words
to himself, while his daughter-in-law dipped out his breakfast from
a pot hung over a small fire laid frugally in the middle of the wide,
stone hearth. Marcus went up to him and kissed his forehead before
he threw his arms around the neck of the big white sheep-dog which
had leaped forward as he entered. His mother smiled out of her tired
eyes as she gave him his morning portion, and then began to wrap up
in a spotless napkin the dry bread and few olives which were to be
his lunch in the pasture. When the last bit of hot porridge and the
cup of goat's milk had been finished, he kissed her hand, gave the
signal to the impatient dog, and ran across the courtyard to the fold
where his meagre flock awaited their release. The sky was turning
pink and gold, the sweet air of dawn filled his nostrils and, in spite
of his mother's forgetfulness, he knew that on this day of all days
in the year Good Fortune might be met by mortals face to face. As
he and his dog marshalled the sheep and goats out of the gate, he
turned happily toward the long, hard road which to him was but a
pathway to his upland pasture and his Lady's shrine.
His mother came to the gate and watched the springing step with which
he met the day. Her most passionate desire was that he might,
throughout his life, be spared the sorrow, the disillusionment and
the exhaustion which were her daily portion. But what chance was
there of such a desire being fulfilled? A cry from the house, half
frightened, half peevish, called her back from dreams to duties.
Marcus was the last child of a long line of independent farmers. When
he was born his father was sharing with his grandfather the
management of a prosperous estate. But before Marcus could talk
plainly the crash had come. It seemed incredible that the Emperor
in Rome should have known anything about the owners of a farm in Como.
But Domitian's evil nature lay like a blight over the whole empire,
and his cruelty, mean-spirited as well as irrational, was as likely
to touch the low as the high. Angered by some officer's careless story
of an insolent soldier's interview with Marcus's grandfather, he
used a spare moment to order the confiscation of the rich acres and
the slaves of the farm, and the imprisonment of their owner. The
imprisonment had been short, as no one was concerned to continue it
after Domitian's death. But it had been long enough to break the
victim's spirit and hasten his dotage. By this time he knew almost
nothing of what went on around him. He did not know that Domitian
had been killed and that at last men breathed freely under the good
Trajan. He was still full of old fears, pathetically unable to grasp
the joy of this tranquillity, which, like recreative sunshine,
penetrated to every corner of the exhausted empire. Nor, in fretting
over the absence of his son, did he remember the brave fight that
he had made for a livelihood as a muleteer in the Alps just above
Como, nor the manner, almost heroic, of his death.
The burden fell upon Marcus's young mother. It was no wonder that
her eyes were always tired, her hands rough and red, and her shoulders
no longer straight. The actual farmstead had been left to them, but
its former comfort now imposed only a heavy load. Once the servants
had been almost as numerous as in the great villas along the lake.
There had been stables for oxen and horses and sheep, lofts full of
hay and corn, spacious tool-rooms, store-rooms for olive oil and
fruits and wine, hen-yards and pigsties, and generous quarters for
the workmen. Most of this was now falling into decay, year by year.
Only a few bedrooms were used--the smallest and warmest--and the
great kitchen was the only living room. It had been large enough for
all the farm-servants to eat in and for the spinning and weaving of
the women. Now the family of three gathered lonesomely close to the
hearth when a rare fire was indulged in on stormy winter nights. The
only source of income were the few sheep and goats and hens. In the
old days great flocks of sheep on the farm had sent fleeces to Milan.
Now there were only enough to furnish lambs on feast days and
occasional fleeces to more prosperous neighbors. The few goats
provided the family with milk. Far oftener than anyone knew, in the
winters, they were in actual distress, lacking food and fuel.
But it was not her own hunger that burdened the nights of Marcus's
mother. In letting her old father-in-law be hungry she felt that she
was false to a trust. And her boy must be saved to a happier life
than his father's had been. He was eleven years old and must soon,
if ever, turn to something better than tending sheep in a lonely
pasture from sunrise till sunset. She did not let him know it,
thinking that he was too young to look beyond the passing days in
which he seemed able to find happiness, but she had laid aside every
year, heedless of the sacrifice, some little part of the scanty money
that came from the eggs and chickens. What she could do with it she
did not know. It grew so slowly. But there was always the hope that
some day Marcus would find it a full-grown treasure to face the world
with. When, seven years ago, the great Pliny had given to Como a fund
to educate freeborn orphans, she had thought bitterly that her baby
would be better off without her. Sometimes, since then, she had been
mad enough to think of trying to see Pliny when he came to the villa
which was nearest to her farm. He was there now. Stories of his
magnificent kindnesses were rife. His tenants were the most
contented in the country-side and his slaves were better treated than
many Roman citizens. He had given his old nurse a little farm to live
on and sent one of his freedmen to Egypt when he was threatened with
consumption. But she had never found the courage--she could not find
it now--to believe that he would care what happened to a child in
no way connected with him. His wealth, by no means the largest known
in his own circle, to her seemed appalling. The Emperor could not
have been more distant from her than this magnate, who, although he
had been born in Como and was said to love his Como villas better
than any of his other houses, yet had about him the awful remoteness
of Rome. Of course she could never be admitted to his presence. She
could only store up a few more coins each year and trust to the gods.
With a start she realised that to-day was the festival of Fors Fortuna.
In the hurried morning she had forgotten to remind Marcus of his
prayers. In the days when the farm had been sure of the largest
harvest in the neighbourhood this summer festival had been
brilliantly celebrated, and as long as Marcus's father had lived the
family had still cherished the quaint rites and the merrymaking of
a holiday especially dear to the common people of both city and
country. But in these later years there had been neither time nor
money for any fetes. Piety, however, was still left, and it was
characteristic of the scrupulousness persisting in Marcus's mother
through all the demoralising experiences of poverty that, after she
had finished the heavier tasks, she should set to work to mark the
religious day by a freshly washed cloth upon the table, with a bowl
of red roses picked from the bush that grew by the doorway, and a
gala supper of new-laid eggs, lentil soup and goat's milk cheese.
In the meantime Marcus had been having adventures. His pasture was
on a grassy plateau of a mountain slope, edged by heavy green
cypresses and dotted with holm-oaks. In the woods above him chestnut
and walnut trees showed vividly against the silver olives. Below
stretched the shining waters of the Larian Lake. Here, while the
sheep browsed happily, he was wont to feed his little soul on dreams.
Sitting to-day where he could look out to a distant horizon, his blue
tunic seeming to insert into the varied greens about him a bit of
colour from sky or lake, he dug his toes into the soft grass and for
the hundredth time tried to think out how he could attain his heart's
desire. He knew exactly what that was. He wanted to go to school!
If anyone had tried to find out why, he would have discovered in the
boy's mind a tangled mass of hopes--hopes of helping his mother and
owning once more their big fields and vineyards, of going to Rome
and coming home again, rich and famous. But to any glorious future
school was the portal, of that he was sure. The nearest boys' school
was in Milan, and to Milan he must go. The golden fleece on the borders
of strange seas, the golden apples in unknown gardens, never seemed
to lords of high adventure more remote or more desirable than a
provincial school-room thirty miles away seemed to this little
shepherd. He dreamed of it by day and by night. Last night, when the
Lady of the Spring held out her hand to him he had been sure that
what it held would help him to go to Milan. He knew he must have money,
and that was why he had never told his mother what he wanted. She
would be unhappy, he knew, that she could not give it to him. He wanted
her to think that he asked for nothing better than to mind the sheep
all day. Sometimes his heart would be so hot with desire that only
tears could cool it, and all alone in the pasture he would bury his
face in the grass and sob until his dog came and licked his neck.
At other times it was his pan's-pipe that brought ease. His father
had taught him to play on it when he was a mere baby, and sometimes
he would forget his burden in making high, clear notes come out of
the slender reeds. To-day, especially, tears seemed far away, and
he piped and piped until his heart was at rest, and the sun, now nearly
in mid-heaven, made him warm and drowsy.
An hour later he woke with a start into a strange noonday silence.
Every blade, and twig, and flower, was hushed. A soft white light
dimmed the brilliant colours of the day. No sound was heard from bird
or insect, and the only movement was among his white sheep, which
noiselessly, like a distant stream of foamy water, seemed to flow
down a winding path. The goats were standing quite still. Suddenly
they flung up their heads, as if at an imperious call, and in wild
abandon rushed toward the shadowy woods above. The dog, as if roused
from a trance, gave chase, shattering the silence with yelping barks.
The boy, his heart beating violently, followed. It took all the
afternoon to collect and quiet the flock, and when Marcus started
home he had himself not lost the awed sense of a Presence in his
pasture. The nearness seemed less familiar than that of his Lady of
Gifts, and yet she must have been concerned in it, for the thrill
that remained with him was a happy one.
It was late, but to-day more than ever he must stop at her shrine.
Near his regular path, below a narrow gorge, there was a marvellous
spring. It rose in the mountains, ran down among the rocks, and was
received in an artificial chamber. After a short halt there, it fell
into the lake below. The extraordinary thing about it was that three
times in each day it increased and decreased with regular rise and
fall. One could lie beside it and watch its measured movements.
Everybody from far and near came to see it, even the grand people
from the villas. But Marcus, coming in the early morning or evening,
had almost never met anyone there and had grown to feel that the spot
was his own. In the dusk or at dawn it often seemed to him as if a
lovely lady, with eyes such as his mother might have had, came up
out of the spring and laid smooth, cool hands on his face. Because
the Goddess of Gifts had become associated in his mind with the first
day he could remember in his early childhood--a radiant and merry
day--he had come to identify with her this Lady of the Spring, who
alone gave romance to the harsher, soberer years that followed his
father's death. To-day Marcus could have sworn she smiled at him
before she disappeared, as the water receded after the gushing flow
which he had come just in time to watch. He was rising from his knees
when his eye fell upon a strange, green gleam upon the wet rock. For
a moment he thought it was the gleam of a lizard's back, but as he
took the little object into his hand he realised that it was hard,
and inert, and transparent. Even in the dusk he could see the light
in it. It almost burned in his hand. He felt sure that it was a gift
from his Lady, but he did not stop to think what he could do with
it. He was filled with happiness just in looking at it. It was the
most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he could take it to his
mother and it would make her smile. Full of joy, he hurried homeward.
Even on ordinary occasions he loved the end of summer days. His
grandfather would go to sleep and cease saying strange things, and,
after he and his mother had finished the evening tasks in house and
court-yard and sheepfold, they would sit for a while together in the
warm doorway, and she would tell him stories of his father and of
many other people and things. Sometimes when he leaned against her
and her voice grew sweet and low he forgot he was a man and a shepherd.
To-night this did not happen, although the air was sweet with roses,
and the stars were large and bright. Marcus had shown his mother the
green marvel and told her how the Lady of the Spring had brought it
out to him from her secret recesses. She had caught her breath and
turned it over and over, and then she had put her arms close round
him and explained to him that this beautiful thing was a jewel, an
emerald, and must have belonged in a great lady's ring. Her father
had been a goldsmith and she had often seen such jewels in their
setting. They were bought with great sums of money, and to lose one
was like losing money. And that was true, too, of finding one. Money
must be returned and so must this.
Money--money--his head swam. Could he have bought his heart's desire
with the little green gleam? He put his head on his mother's knee
and, for all his efforts, a sob sounded in his throat. She lifted
him up against her warm, soft breast, and her hands were smoother
and cooler than his Lady's, and he told her all that was in his heart,
and she told him all that was in hers, for him.
Later they talked like comrades and partners about the emerald, and
decided that it must belong to someone in Pliny's villa, either to
Calpurnia herself or to one of her guests. They agreed that they could
not sleep until it was returned. The mother had to stay near the
sleeping old man, but the villa was only two miles away, the
neighbourhood was safe, with a dog as companion, and Marcus was a
fast walker on his strong bare feet. At the villa he could ask for
Lucius, who came to the farm twice a week for eggs and chickens. "He
is an old servant," she said, "loyal to his master and friendly toward
us. He is sure to be kind to you. I will do the jewel up in a little
package and put father's seal on it, and you can trust it to him.
Be sure to give it to no one else."
So Marcus, with his dog, long past his usual bed-time, trudged forth
into the night whose cavernous shadows deepened the shadows in his
little heart. The worst of the adventure was walking up through the
grounds of the villa and facing the porter at the servants' door and
asking for Lucius. When he came, the boy thrust the package into his
hand, stammered out an explanation, and ran away before the
bewildered old man knew what had happened. On the way home the dog
seemed to share his master's discouragement and left unchallenged
the evening music of the bull-frogs. When Marcus stretched his tired
legs out in bed he thought of to-morrow with the sheep again, and
wondered dully why his Lady and her mysterious comrade in the pasture
had cheated him. His mother, going into the kitchen to see that the
wood was ready for the morning, snatched the red roses from the table
spread for Fors Fortuna and threw them fiercely on the ashes.