“ ... When those dead men are loitering there
To stir the boiling pot.”
_Yeats._
After his grandfather’s death, Titus Barrus had sold the house in Rome,
which he never much liked, and had settled down in the country to
farming and bringing up his children. He had almost dropped out of
politics; the Civil Wars were over and surely there must be peace now
for a little! He watched the slow growth of the olives; he imported
fruit trees and skilled labourers; he used to ride round his estate with
the bailiff, looking at the crops, with a word or a nod for every slave
he passed; he would spend a whole afternoon discussing a new strain of
wheat, or the blight on the vines, or the best way to stack the vetch
and bean harvest. Æmilia, too, had a flower garden, with a little
waterfall, a stream meandering through scythed lawns, small wooden
bridges, and a path bordered with water-mint.
He had come in late one day, after being out since daybreak, and found
his wife cutting long branches of oleander from the tall bushes where
the evening sun still rested. Under an arbutus-tree by the edge of the
stream his two children were playing with their nurse and a maid; he
heard their high little voices across the lawn, and smiled. Æmilia came
to him with her arms full of branches: “Where have you been to-day?”
“I’ve been over at the Twelve-Acre; there’s a cow sick; she’s the one I
got up from Sicily.”
“Oh, Titus, not that pretty gentle creature with white on her face?”
“I think we shall save her. They’ve not done so badly this year, on the
whole.”
“It makes all the difference having you back to look after the place
yourself. Did you get your dinner there?”
“No, dear; I went over and had it with Lerrys. He’s just bought a new
bit of land down by the marsh, and he’s draining it; it should make a
good vineyard in time.”
“Are they all well there?”
“Oh yes; I found Coisha in the kitchen making some of those delicious
little cakes of hers; you never give me anything half so good!”
She laughed: “You know you only like them because they’re Gallic; if I
made them and said they were Greek you’d think nothing of them! I
suppose the baby’s beginning to walk now?”
“Yes; you should go over there some day soon; they’d be so glad to see
you. I had a great game with the little red-heads before Lerrys came
home.”
“Ask Coisha to bring the two eldest here one morning, Titus. It’s so
nice for the children to have them to play with, and she always keeps
them beautifully clean.”
“I will,” he answered, and called across the garden, “Caius!” The
little boy came running over, with a small sister trotting after and
tumbling and picking herself up again. Their father reached up and broke
off a twig from the cherry-tree with five dangling cherries; the
children danced up and down, with their fat brown arms stretched,
crying, “Me! Me!”
“Oh, Titus, do take care of the stones!” said Æmilia. “You really
oughtn’t to give the children these new-fashioned fruit of yours!”
“I like the stones; I want them to plant in my own garden!” said Caius
determinedly, and got the twig; he took two cherries and gave two to
Lælia, who squashed them up with a broad grin, and licked the juice.
“Who’s to have the odd one?” asked Titus.
His small son considered: “Well, I’m the biggest----” Suddenly he broke
off and ran across the lawn: “You have it!”
Meromic ate the cherry and Caius tugged him along: “Come and play
horses!” He wore the tunic and sandals of an Italian; there was nothing
to show the difference but his height and fairness, and one bracelet of
worked bronze on his left arm. Titus called to him and he came over.
“Well, have you seen Dith?”
Meromic nodded: “Oh, yes, it’s just like I thought.”
Æmilia raised her hands in a gesture of half-amused annoyance: “What
_has_ Dith been doing this time?”
Her husband explained: “He’s only been fighting again--with the head
ploughman. What was it about, Meromic?”
“It wasn’t anything really. They’d had words about a horse, that was
all done with. Then Dith picked up a whetstone and threw it at him.”
“But why? What did he say?”
“He said because it was a hot day. Anyhow, that started them; I’m afraid
the man won’t be fit to work for a day or two, and Dith’s got a cut
head.”
“What’s to be done with him, Meromic?”
“Nothing. He’ll always be like that; you’ll never stop him fighting.”
“If he had any reason----”
“Oh, if you’re looking for reasons! I told him he oughtn’t to do it, but
he doesn’t mind what I say nowadays. He’s just pleased because he got
the best of it.”
“Well, I suppose it’s no use my doing anything. I wish you’d try and
make it up with the ploughman; Dith’ll get a knife into him one of these
days.”
Here Caius, who had been fidgeting, interrupted: “Do come now! Father, I
want him!”
“Bedtime!” said Titus. “Off you go!”
“Well, then, we’ll play horses as far as the house.”
“Very well,” said Meromic, “who’s the horse?”
“Me--no, you! Trot, my horse, trot!”
Æmilia picked up her Lælia and followed them in; the nurse went after.
There was a stone seat by the oleander bushes; Titus leant back in it,
watching the primrose light behind the wood to the west; two late bees
rose heavily from a sunflower and flew straight past him towards the
hives; in the stillness after the children had gone, he heard the petals
dropping from the big orange lilies behind the seat. Meromic came back
from the house, brushing past the clipped rosemary and stooping to smell
it; Titus beckoned to him: “You’re looking tired, Meromic.”
“Am I? I’m feeling it too; but I think most of the hot weather’s over
now.” He sat down on the grass, and flipped with his finger at a little
green beetle that was walking through it.
“We’re getting old,” said Titus. “When one thinks what one meant to do
with one’s life! But I’d live it over again all the same if I’d the
chance. Would you, Meromic?”
“There’s a lot I’d change. I don’t feel very old though, only--oh, I
don’t know. That little statue there: oughtn’t it to be mended?”
“Meromic, can’t I help you at all?”
“No; I’m happy enough. I like seeing the children grow up; Caius is
nearly a man already.”
“You ought to have boys of your own.” The Gaul was silent, looking at
the ground. Titus went on: “That’s what it comes to in the end: a wife,
and children to follow after one, take one’s name.”
“I wonder. I don’t think my children would bless me: little lone wolves
with no pack and no hunting!” He turned suddenly and laid his hand on
Titus’ knee: “You’re going to Rome, aren’t you? Will you take me?”
“I’m only going for a week--for the Triumphs.”
“I know; I want to see them.”
“There’s not really much to see; you wouldn’t like it.”
“It’s just the first day I want.”
“Why? That’s the Gallic day; you’d hate it. There’s no need to wake all
that up again.”
“Just one bit of it.”
“What? Meromic, if you want to see Vercingetorix led in chains, I’m not
going to take you! Who told you he would be there?”
“I guessed. What are they going to do with him? Can’t he be let go now?
It’s so long since.”
“I wish they would, but I can’t tell. Meromic, you mustn’t go; it does
no good to any one. I don’t want to at all, but I have to.” He got up
with a little shiver: “Let’s come in. It’s cold.”
“And nearly dark.”
Two days later, Titus Barrus went to Rome. There was a great deal he
regretted; Cæsar had changed much from his old general of the Gallic
Wars. He did not care for Triumphs and such, either; it would be
different, perhaps, when his boy was old enough to take. But he was
always glad to see Quintus Velanius again, and talk things over with
him.
Æmilia never quite knew how to deal with her husband’s barbarians; not
that Meromic was difficult: he played with the children and looked after
the home farm; often she didn’t see him from one day’s end to the next.
But sometimes she met him roaming about the fields and talking to
himself in Gallic; she knew his story and more than once she had felt
she would like to say something sympathetic, but somehow when she got
near enough she never could: he was so big and different, and she was
never quite sure if he liked her or not. It was all a little trying.
Meromic rather hated the days when Titus Barrus was away; he went down
to see Lerrys at his house from time to time, and Lerrys talked about
his land and his children, what he was going to do and they were going
to do, and then, just sometimes, of the past. But he was happy, happier
perhaps than he would ever have been in his own wild Colchian hills;
Coisha, the Hæduan, she was happy, she had never really known what her
country was; and some day perhaps the children might be Roman citizens
and soldiers. Sometimes Meromic would find Dith and talk to him; but he
felt just a little that Dith was clear enough about some things and was
always now despising him for what he had done; he never got any
satisfaction out of the Briton. Often he felt desperately that he must
be among other people, but then suddenly he would feel just as much that
he must be alone, and he would go off into the oak woods to the north or
west. There was a brown pond among the trees, shallow and full of
leaves, but the only place for miles round where he could swim;
afterwards he would sit on the bank, getting dry, and swing his feet in
the water, and sing low his wolf song, and tell himself long stories of
what might have happened if--or if--or if--and look and listen and prowl
through the hollows of dim air under the oak boughs, and whisper the
names of dead friends. But always he came back at nightfall to food and
rest and the cool balconies of the Italian house.
He had come in one day when the children were going to bed, and Caius
had demanded a story and climbed on to his knee; Lælia snuggled up
beside him and started sucking her thumb.
“A short story,” said the nurse.
“A long story!” said Caius; “the story about the princess and the deer.”
Meromic began; it was a story he knew so well that he could go on
telling it and think about something else all the time; now he was
thinking that Titus would be back soon and wondering what he would have
seen. The story went on. “And Esa of the Blue Mantle followed the deer
through a hundred glens and round a hundred sea-lochs, and she heard the
wild geese crying overhead but never knew if it was night or morning
till she came to a great white castle, standing alone on a hill-top----”
He heard voices outside: Titus and Æmilia; the story wavered.
“Go on! Go on!” cried Caius, and he took it up again.
“Then the deer went three times left-handways round the castle and ran
in over the threshold and up through the hall; and there were two old
women sitting in the high place, and full cups on the table before them,
and Esa----” They were coming in, Æmilia saying supper would be ready in
a few minutes, Titus asking what the children had been doing all the
week.
“And then?” asked Caius, but Meromic got half up, holding the child to
him: “Oh, what did you see?”
Titus came over quickly: “Meromic, I was glad you weren’t there.”
“Did you see--him?”
“Yes.”
“And now?” The Roman said nothing, but Meromic knew, and went white:
“He’s been killed?”
“Yes. But don’t, don’t! Æmilia, take the children away!”
For Meromic had fallen back on to the seat, shivering and looking
straight in front of him. Caius clamoured, “The story! I want the end of
the story!” but they were swept out, and the two men left together.
“Now tell me; tell me everything,” said Meromic.
Titus sat down beside him, frowning. “Well,” he said, “it was mostly the
soldiers; they went by with their crowns, and the fifes playing. And
Cæsar stood in the car with the white horses; he’s looking older now.
And they had pictures of the battles, not very like; there was one of
Curdun, but you wouldn’t have known it. And there was armour, and swords
and spears; and crested helmets. And there were two or three carved
prows from your Venetan ships; and models of houses and towns and strong
places. And there was gold and silver and enamel work, and painted jars
and fur; and one great wagon full of woven stuff, all colours like you
wear it. And then there were necklaces and jewels laid out on black
cloth. It went on for hours.”
“But the prisoners?”
“Well, there weren’t so many, after all this time. There were some
Britons, and Germans, wearing furs.”
“Yes; but--my own people. Him.”
“Oh, Meromic, I hate telling you! Don’t mind too much; it’s all over.
They were there, in chains, led along; I didn’t want to see it: every
one yelling! Vercingetorix was first; then more chiefs, many I’d heard
of, some I’d seen; among them one you’d know: Lucter of the Cadurci.”
“Lucter there too! Oh my God, my God. I thought he’d escaped that, I
thought he was well dead! They’ve kept him all these years in the dark.
Oh, better to have died at Uxeldun! Go on; what did they look like?”
“They were white and bent and grey-haired mostly. Vercingetorix--oh, you
oughtn’t to know!”
“I must.”
“They’d made him wear all his old armour and that gay-coloured cloak of
his we knew so well, only not the sword. It seemed as if he couldn’t
bear the weight of it, I saw his knees shake as he passed; that great
winged helmet was a mockery on him, his head was down on his chest, he
looked at the ground all the time. They’d kept the black horse alive
somehow, but it was all skin and bone. And I remembered how we’d seen
him flaming through the battle, how we shook at the sight of him! Now
this: they shouldn’t do it! And the others: all in their armour, all in
chains; some of them were afraid, kept on looking about them, started at
every howl from that crowd; some of them were crying, begging for mercy,
but one couldn’t hear what they said; the rest were almost worse, your
Lucter among them: they didn’t seem to hear anything, they were like
dead men walking. I don’t know how any one could have hated them still;
but they did, they threw stones.”
“Stones: yes. And the end?”
“Well, at the finish of the day Cæsar went up under the arches to
sacrifice; then at the foot of the hill most of the prisoners died:
Vercingetorix and Lucter and all but a few of the chiefs.”
“How?”
“Strangled with cords.”
“Not even the axe. Did you see?”
“No. I heard it was over quick. I think it was not Cæsar’s doing, but
the judgment of the State.” Meromic had his hand over his face; Titus
could see the tears running down between his fingers, and looked away,
longing for something to break through this choked silence, that was
filled with Meromic’s short, hard breathing.
Æmilia came into the dusky room, with a long, white dress, her hair low
on her neck, a lamp in her hand: the genius of the home. She stood by
the doorway and called them out to supper; Titus rose: “I’ll follow
you.” She went out; he turned and laid a hand on the Gaul’s shoulder:
“Are you coming, Meromic?”
Meromic looked up and shook his head; when Titus left him he went to his
room and threw himself down on his bed half stunned by the news. He had
not realized before that it made any difference to him that
Vercingetorix was still alive; he had thought all that was past, but he
knew now that he had forgotten and forgiven nothing.
After a little he tried to sleep, but it was no use; he was picturing
those inglorious and unavenged deaths at the foot of the hill. Gaul had
been free, but now Rome was the master everywhere; Vercingetorix and
Lucter his friend, they had been free, now in chains they had been led
to the death of slaves. And he himself had sailed his own free waves
once with Fiommar: now he was living in the house and by the compassion
of his enemy!
In the woods to the north he heard a wolf howling, very far away: little
of a wolf he had shown himself, to wear the Roman dress and play with
the Roman children! He leapt out of bed and stood in the dark, naked and
quivering, his heart suddenly full of murder. He thought of Titus, not
as his friend, the one man to be depended on, trusted in, but as the
enemy, potentially the slayer of Vercingetorix, and not him alone, his
father, his sister, Caltane, Molhir--their faces thronged in his mind!
He thought of the children, not as the little Caius who played horses
with him, the little Lælia he carried about the garden, but only as
means to his revenge, small things, easy for a one-armed man to kill.
Hastily he went over to the wall, and took down the broad-bladed Gallic
knife.
The howling of the wolves was nearer and louder; he went to the window;
the lawn was grey with dew, the white roses hung stilly; a night-jar
swished past him with its thick purr. He lifted up his left hand, with
the knife, consecrating it and himself. The wolves were very near; a
pair of shining eyes showed at the far side of the lawn. Suddenly he had
an idea that it was sunrise and looked eastward, half expecting to see
the stars pale with morning. But it was black midnight: why then? what
sense had guessed at daybreak? He stood listening: all round him, from
the creepers on the house, there was a stir of wings, the first clear,
sweet notes of dawn-awakened birds. The story-teller was coming across
the lawn, leaving dark footprints in the dew; behind him a wolf trotted,
another bayed from the shadow of the arbutus-tree. Meromic dropped his
knife. “What are you doing,” he asked, “so far from Gaul?”
“It is not so far as you would think,” said the story-teller, “in a
night I shall be back.”
Meromic knelt at his feet: “Take me!”
The story-teller laid his hand on the bowed head.
Meromic’s room stood empty; his knife lay on the window-sill, rust
beginning to gather in the dew spots; on the paths and under the bushes
there were tracks of wolves, and one wolf that went lame of the right
fore-foot; the tracks went north....
Epilogue
_Amor Mortis Conturbat Me_
Your friends have known me, I have not failed them,
When pain and terror and life assailed them
I drew them close in my arms and haled them
Home to my everlasting rest.
Their souls are free and exempt forever
From hope and passion and vain endeavour,
Whom all eternity shall not sever
From dreamless sleep on my cool soft breast.
Their shells and frosts and unending trouble
Are ceased and vanishéd like a bubble,
And lo, I have rewarded them double
For all their labour and all their pain.
For the soul from being at last reposes,
And the open secret my door discloses
Is fairer than God or women or roses:
O come, you shall not return again.
J. B. S. HALDANE.
* * * * *
Principal Books Used
Cæsar, “The Gallic Wars”; Rice Holmes, “Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul” and
“Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Cæsar”; Ferrero, “Rise and
Decline of Rome”; Camille Julian, “Histoire de la Gaule” and
“Vercingétorix”; Déchelette, “Manuel d’Archeologie”; Holder,
“Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz”; and the British Museum’s Guide to the
Antiquities of the Early Iron Age. And I am most grateful to Mr. Rice
Holmes for his advice and criticisms, even though I have not always
adopted them. The two towns, Rodec and Curdun, are not real. Also,
Britons shaved.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
had longer for=> had longed for {pg 54}
Meromic feel asleep=> Meromic fell asleep {pg 163}
He frowned, intend on the lines=> He frowned, intent on the lines {pg
165}
and that Calthane=> and that Caltane {pg 189}
dough on to the girdle=> dough on to the griddle {pg 204}
Æmelia interested herself=> Æmilia interested herself {pg 261}
get on with your work on you=> get on with your work or you {pg 271}