Chapter Five.The Trouble Grows.“There!” muttered Serge. “We’ve done it now!”“My old arms and weapons! Yours, Serge! And these?—How came you to be possessed of those, my boy?”The new-comer pointed, frowning the while, at the boy’s weapons, and then turned his eyes upon Serge, who turned as red as the detected boy, and made signs for him to speak; but, instead of speaking out, Marcus signalled back for his companion to explain.“I am waiting very patiently for one of you to give me some explanation, though I see plainly enough that I have been disobeyed by you, my son, as well as by my old servant, in whom I thought I could place confidence. Marcus, my son, do not disgrace yourself further by behaving like a coward. Speak out at once and confess.”“Yes, father,” cried the boy, making a desperate effort to speak out frankly. “I want to tell you everything, but it is so hard to do.”“Hard to speak the truth, boy?”“No, father, I did not mean that. I—I—”“Well, sir?”“I’ve done wrong, father, and I am ashamed of it.”“Hah! Come, that is more like my boy,” cried Cracis, very sternly, but with the frown upon his brow less deeply marked. “There, go on.”“It was like this, father. One day I found Serge cleaning and burnishing the old armour that you and he used to wear.”“Why was this, sir?” cried Cracis sternly to his old servant. “Did I not tell you that I had given up a warrior’s life for ever?”“Yes, master.”“Did I place any tie upon you? Did I not tell you that you were free to remain in the legion?”“Yes, master; but how was I to leave you? You know I could not.”“Well, sir, I gave you leave to stay here with me in my country house, but I told you to leave all traces of my former life behind.”“You did, master.”“Is this the way that you obey a master who has always been true to you in his dealings?”“It’s all bad, master,” replied the man, “and I tried hard to do my duty, and so I brought the old armour and our swords, and something seemed to make me keep everything clean and bright, ready if it should be wanted.”“It never could be wanted by one who was rejected, humbled and disgraced as I was, man. You knew all that took place, and saw me cast down from my position.”“Yes, master, and my heart bled for you. That’s why I came.”“Yes,” said Cracis, more gently, “and in my heart, Serge, I thank you for your fidelity; but my orders were that all traces of our old position in the Roman army should be destroyed.”“Yes, master,” said the man, humbly, “but they wouldn’t destroy. I only kept them, and cleaned them up now and then when no one was looking; but you know what young Marcus is: he found me out.”“Yes, father,” cried Marcus, excitedly; “don’t blame Serge. I made him talk to me about the past, and he was obliged to tell me all about you being such a great friend of Caesar, and how, at last, you went against him and he—There, I won’t say any more, father, because I can see from your face how it hurts you; but I got to know everything, and, when you were busy reading and writing of an evening, I used to come and sit by the fire in the winter’s nights and make him tell me about the wars and what a great general you were; and so, from always loving to hear about rights, I loved to hear of the wars and conquests more and more, and—”“Go on, my son, and keep nothing. I must hear everything now.”“Yes, father; I want to be frank. It was all my doing, for I persuaded and then I ordered Serge to get me sword and armour, and made the armourer alter a man’s breast-plate and helmet to fit me, and—and paid for it all by degrees; and then I made Serge teach me how to wear the armour and use the sword and spear and shield; and it was all like that, father.”“And he has taught you all this?” said Cracis, sternly.“Yes, father. I made him do it; but I did it all as a thoughtless boy.”“And did this old soldier do all as a thoughtless boy,” said Cracis, bitterly, “or as my trusted servant?”“He did it as my servant as well as yours, father,” said the boy, proudly. “I told him it was his duty to obey me, his master’s son, father, and, poor fellow, he obeyed unwillingly till to-day, when he felt and I felt, that we had been doing very wrong, that it was all worse than we had ever thought, and this was the last time the teaching was to go on. Everything was to be put aside, and I was going to work hard at my writing and reading, as you wished, and try to think no more about the army and the wars.”Cracis was silent for a few moments, during which he gazed searchingly at his son.“Is this the very truth?” he said.“Every word of it, master!” cried Serge, excitedly. “Tell him, Marcus boy, how it was all by chance you put on your helmet and drew your sword. I wish now, boy, it had gone through me and made an end of me, before I had to stand up like this and own all my fault.”“What do you mean by that—the sword gone through you, Serge?”“Yes, father. In my eagerness I made a big thrust at him, and the point of my sword almost entered his breast.”“Dangerously close?” asked Cracis.“Horribly close, father, and—there, I am glad you found it all out. I have no more to say, father, only that you must punish me, not Serge, and I will bear everything without saying a word.”Cracis was silent for a few minutes, and his voice sounded different when he spoke again.“Where have these war-like implements been kept?” he said.“In your big chest, master, made out of the planks cut from the big chestnut that was hewn down four years ago.”“Place them back there, Serge,” said Cracis, gravely. “Fasten them in, and carry the chest and bestow it where it may stand beside my bed.”“But father—” began Marcus.“Silence, sir!” said Cracis. “I wish to think of all this, and not judge hastily. Take off those unseemly weapons, which are far from suited for my student son. Let this be done at once, Serge. You, Marcus, will follow me to my room, and be there an hour hence. I have much to say to you, my boy, very much to say.”Cracis turned thoughtfully away, leaving his son with the old soldier, for them to gaze sadly at one another as the slow steps of the father and master died away.“He’ll never forgive us, Marcus, my lad.”“He will forgive us both, Serge,” said Marcus quickly; “but what would I not give if it had never been done!”“No,” said Serge, grimly, “he’ll never forgive us.”“Nonsense!” cried Marcus. “You don’t know my father as I do.”“Better, a lot, boy. I’ve fought with him, starved with him, saved his life; and I’ll be fair—he’s saved mine more than once. But he’s hard as bronze, boy, and when he says a thing he’ll never go back.”“And I say he’s as good and forgiving as can be, and when all the armour has been put away as he told you, he’ll forget all this trouble, and we shall be as happy again as ever.”“You say that, boy, because you don’t know him. I do, and there’s nothing left for it but for me to make up my bundle and go off.”“What!” cried Marcus, laughing. “You pack up your bundle and go?”“Yes, my lad; I can never get over this again. I have been a servant and herdsman here all these years because I felt your father respected me, but now he don’t I feel as if I could never do another stroke of work, and I shall go.”“No, you won’t, Serge; you are only saying that because you are cross.”“Oh no,” said the man, shaking his head, “not cross, boy—wounded. Cut to the heart. I’m only a poor sort of labouring man here and servant, but I have been a soldier, and once a soldier always a soldier at heart, a man who thinks about his honour. Ah, you smile; and it does sound queer for a man dressed like this and handling a herdsman’s crook to talk about his honour; but inside he’s just the same man as wore the soldier’s armour and plumed helmet and marched in the ranks, erect and proud, ready to follow his general wherever he led. You wouldn’t think it strange for a proud-looking man like that to say his honour was touched.”“No,” said Marcus, thoughtfully.“Well, boy, I’m the same man still. I have lost your father’s confidence, and as soon as I have done putting away of our armour and weapons, as he told me, in the big old chest, I shall pack up and go.”“Shall you take your sword and helmet with you, Serge?” asked the boy.The man stared, and looked at him sharply, before remaining silent for quite a minute.“No,” he cried, angrily; “I shall take nothing that will bring up the past. I want to forget it all.”“But what do you mean to do?” said Marcus.“I don’t know yet, boy. Something will happen, I daresay; for we never know what’s going to take place to-morrow, and I shall leave all that.”The man ceased speaking, and began almost caressingly to straighten and arrange the various pieces of military accoutrement that he had been burnishing, while Marcus sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching him sadly.“I don’t like it, Serge,” he said at last.“Nay, boy, and I don’t like it,” replied the man. “I said just now we never know what is going to take place to-morrow. Who would have thought yesterday that things could have been like this to-day? But here they are. Hah!” he cried passionately. “I wish I hadn’t shrunk away.”“Shrunk away!” cried Marcus. “Why, you are bigger and stouter than ever you were.”“Pah!” ejaculated the man, angrily. “I don’t mean that. I mean shrunk away as I did just now when you made that thrust at me with the sword.”“What!” cried Marcus. “Why, I should have killed you. That sword point is so horribly sharp. You don’t know what a shudder ran through me when I saw what I had nearly done.”“Yes, you would have killed me, boy, and that’s what I wish you had done.”“Serge, do you know what you are talking about?” cried Marcus. “Are you going mad?”“Oh yes, I know what I’m talking about, and perhaps I am going mad. What else can you expect of a poor fellow who, all at once, finds himself dishonoured and disgraced?”“You are not. I tell you I don’t believe that my father will ever say another word when all the things are put away.”“Yes, because you don’t know him, boy. There, it’s no use to talk. I have made up my mind to go.”“What nonsense!” said Marcus. “When my father as good as said he was going to look over all the past.”“Ah, but that won’t do for me, boy. I am dishonoured and disgraced, and I can never hold up my head again.”“Oh, Serge, this comes hard on me,” cried the boy, passionately.“Nay, boy; it’s all on my unfortunate head.”“It isn’t, Serge,” cried Marcus, “for, as I told father, it was all my doing. It was my stupid vanity and pride. I took it into my head that I wanted to be a soldier the same as father and you had been, and it has brought all this down upon you. I shall never forgive myself as long as I live.”“Nay, but you will, boy, when I’m gone and forgotten.”“Gone and forgotten!” cried Marcus, angrily. “You are not going, and you couldn’t be forgotten. I shall never forget you, Serge, as long as I live.”“Shan’t you, boy?” said the man, smiling sadly. “Well, thank ye. I don’t think you will. I like that, boy, for you never seemed like a young master to me. I’m old and ugly, while you’re young and handsome, but somehow we have always seemed to be companions like, and whatever you wanted me to do I always did.”“Yes, that you did, Serge,” cried Marcus, laughing.“I don’t see nothing to laugh at, boy,” said the old soldier, bitterly, as he half drew Marcus’ blade from its scabbard, and then thrust it fiercely back with a sharp snap.“No, but I do,” said Marcus, “sad as all this is. It seems so droll.”“What does?” cried the man, fiercely.“For you to talk about being old and ugly—you, such a big, strong, manly fellow as you are. Why, you are everything that a man ought to be.”“What!” cried the old soldier, gazing wonderingly at the boy, a puzzled look in his eyes as if he was in doubt whether the words to which he listened were mocking him.“Why, look at you! Look at your arms and legs, and the way in which you step out, and then your strength! The way in which you lift heavy things! Do you remember that day when you took hold of me by the belt and lifted me up, to hold me out at arm’s length for ever so long when I was in a passion and tried to hit you, and the more I raged the more you held me out, and laughed, till I came round and thought how stupid I was to attack such a giant as you, when I was only a poor feeble boy?”“Nay, nay, you were never a poor feeble boy, but always a fine, sturdy little chap, and strong for your years, from the very first. That was partly my training, that was, and the way I made you feed. Don’t you remember how I told you that it was always a soldier’s duty to be able to fast, to eat well when he had the chance, and go without well when he hadn’t, and rest his teeth?”“Oh, yes, I recollect you told me it was the way to grow up strong and hearty, and that some day I should be like you.”“Well, wasn’t that true enough? Only it takes time. And so you thought I was quite a giant, did you?”“Yes, and so I do now. Old and worn out! What stuff! Why, Serge, I have always longed and prayed that I might grow up into a big, strong, fine-looking man like you.”“Thank you, my lad,” said the man, sadly, and with the beaming smile that had come upon his face dying out, to leave it cold and dull. “Then you won’t forget me, boy, when—” He stopped short, with a suggestion of moisture softening his fierce, dark eyes.“Forget you! You know I shan’t. But what do you mean by ‘when’?”“When my well-picked, dry bones are lying out somewhere up the mountain side, scattered here and there.”“What!” cried Marcus, laughing merrily. “Who’s going to pick them and scatter them to dry up in the mountains?”“The wolves, boy, the wolves,” said the man, bitterly, “for I suppose I shall come to that. You asked me what I was going to do. I’ll tell you. I shall wander away somewhere right up among the mountains, for my soldiering days are over, and I can never serve another master now, and at last I shall lie down to die! The wolves will come, and,” he added, with a sigh, “you know what will happen then.”“Oh yes,” said Marcus, with mock seriousness. “The poor wolves! I shall be sorry for them. I know what will happen then. At the first bite you will jump up in a rage, catch them one at a time by the tail, give them one swing round, and knock their brains out against the stones. You wouldn’t give them much chance to bite again.”A grim smile gradually dawned once more upon the old soldier’s countenance, and, slowly raising one of his hands, he began to scratch the side of his thickly-grizzled head, his brow wrinkling up more deeply the while, as he gazed into the merry, mocking eyes that looked back so frankly into his.“You are laughing at me, boy,” he said, at last.“Of course I am, Serge. Oh my! You are down in the dumps! I say, how many wolves do you think you could kill like that? But, oh nonsense! You wouldn’t be alone. If old Lupe saw you going off with your bundle he’d spring at you, get it in his teeth, and follow you carrying it wherever you went.”“Hah! Good old Lupe!” said the man, thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten him. Yes, he’d be sure to follow me. You’d have to shut him up in the wine-press.”“And hear him howl to get out?” cried Marcus. “No, I shouldn’t, because I shouldn’t be there.”“Why, where would you be?” said Serge, wonderingly.“Along with you, of course.”“Along o’ me?”“Yes. If you left home and went away for what was all my fault, do you think I should be such a miserable cur as to stop behind? No; I should go with you, Serge, and take my sword, and you and Lupe and I could pretty well tackle as many wolves as would be likely to come up at us on the mountain side.”“Ah,” cried the man, “you are talking like a boy.”“And so are you, Serge, when you say such things as you did just now. Now, look here; you are going to do as father said, pack up all the armour in the old chest, and then you are going to speak out and tell him that you are sorry that you listened to me, and then it will be all over and we shall go on again just the same as before. You and I will think out something that we can learn or do, and talk of something else besides fighting. There, let’s have no more talking about going away. Look sharp and get it over. I shan’t be happy till I see you and father shaking hands again. Now promise me you will go and get it done.”“’Tis done, boy; I did speak and made myself humble, just as you want; but he wouldn’t take it right, and you know what he said. I can’t never forget it now. He wouldn’t listen to me, and no words now, no shaking hands, will put it straight. I shall have to go.”“Oh!” cried Marcus. “What an obstinate old bull it is! Yes, I mean it, Serge; you are just like a human bull. Now, look here; do as I tell you. You have got to go and speak to father as I say.”“Nay, boy,” said the man, solemnly, “not a word. I am going to do my bit of work, the last job I shall ever do here, and then it will be good-bye.”Marcus sprang up in a passion.“I can’t bring you to your senses,” he said. “You are too stubborn and blunt. If you won’t promise me you will go and speak to father, I shall go myself and tell him all you say.”“Do, boy; that’s right! I like to hear you turn like that. Hit me and kick me if you will. It will all make it easier for me to go away.”Marcus stood up before him, looking at him fiercely, and he was about to flash out a torrent of angry words, but, feeling that he would say something of which he might afterwards repent, he dashed out of the room and made for his father’s study.
“There!” muttered Serge. “We’ve done it now!”
“My old arms and weapons! Yours, Serge! And these?—How came you to be possessed of those, my boy?”
The new-comer pointed, frowning the while, at the boy’s weapons, and then turned his eyes upon Serge, who turned as red as the detected boy, and made signs for him to speak; but, instead of speaking out, Marcus signalled back for his companion to explain.
“I am waiting very patiently for one of you to give me some explanation, though I see plainly enough that I have been disobeyed by you, my son, as well as by my old servant, in whom I thought I could place confidence. Marcus, my son, do not disgrace yourself further by behaving like a coward. Speak out at once and confess.”
“Yes, father,” cried the boy, making a desperate effort to speak out frankly. “I want to tell you everything, but it is so hard to do.”
“Hard to speak the truth, boy?”
“No, father, I did not mean that. I—I—”
“Well, sir?”
“I’ve done wrong, father, and I am ashamed of it.”
“Hah! Come, that is more like my boy,” cried Cracis, very sternly, but with the frown upon his brow less deeply marked. “There, go on.”
“It was like this, father. One day I found Serge cleaning and burnishing the old armour that you and he used to wear.”
“Why was this, sir?” cried Cracis sternly to his old servant. “Did I not tell you that I had given up a warrior’s life for ever?”
“Yes, master.”
“Did I place any tie upon you? Did I not tell you that you were free to remain in the legion?”
“Yes, master; but how was I to leave you? You know I could not.”
“Well, sir, I gave you leave to stay here with me in my country house, but I told you to leave all traces of my former life behind.”
“You did, master.”
“Is this the way that you obey a master who has always been true to you in his dealings?”
“It’s all bad, master,” replied the man, “and I tried hard to do my duty, and so I brought the old armour and our swords, and something seemed to make me keep everything clean and bright, ready if it should be wanted.”
“It never could be wanted by one who was rejected, humbled and disgraced as I was, man. You knew all that took place, and saw me cast down from my position.”
“Yes, master, and my heart bled for you. That’s why I came.”
“Yes,” said Cracis, more gently, “and in my heart, Serge, I thank you for your fidelity; but my orders were that all traces of our old position in the Roman army should be destroyed.”
“Yes, master,” said the man, humbly, “but they wouldn’t destroy. I only kept them, and cleaned them up now and then when no one was looking; but you know what young Marcus is: he found me out.”
“Yes, father,” cried Marcus, excitedly; “don’t blame Serge. I made him talk to me about the past, and he was obliged to tell me all about you being such a great friend of Caesar, and how, at last, you went against him and he—There, I won’t say any more, father, because I can see from your face how it hurts you; but I got to know everything, and, when you were busy reading and writing of an evening, I used to come and sit by the fire in the winter’s nights and make him tell me about the wars and what a great general you were; and so, from always loving to hear about rights, I loved to hear of the wars and conquests more and more, and—”
“Go on, my son, and keep nothing. I must hear everything now.”
“Yes, father; I want to be frank. It was all my doing, for I persuaded and then I ordered Serge to get me sword and armour, and made the armourer alter a man’s breast-plate and helmet to fit me, and—and paid for it all by degrees; and then I made Serge teach me how to wear the armour and use the sword and spear and shield; and it was all like that, father.”
“And he has taught you all this?” said Cracis, sternly.
“Yes, father. I made him do it; but I did it all as a thoughtless boy.”
“And did this old soldier do all as a thoughtless boy,” said Cracis, bitterly, “or as my trusted servant?”
“He did it as my servant as well as yours, father,” said the boy, proudly. “I told him it was his duty to obey me, his master’s son, father, and, poor fellow, he obeyed unwillingly till to-day, when he felt and I felt, that we had been doing very wrong, that it was all worse than we had ever thought, and this was the last time the teaching was to go on. Everything was to be put aside, and I was going to work hard at my writing and reading, as you wished, and try to think no more about the army and the wars.”
Cracis was silent for a few moments, during which he gazed searchingly at his son.
“Is this the very truth?” he said.
“Every word of it, master!” cried Serge, excitedly. “Tell him, Marcus boy, how it was all by chance you put on your helmet and drew your sword. I wish now, boy, it had gone through me and made an end of me, before I had to stand up like this and own all my fault.”
“What do you mean by that—the sword gone through you, Serge?”
“Yes, father. In my eagerness I made a big thrust at him, and the point of my sword almost entered his breast.”
“Dangerously close?” asked Cracis.
“Horribly close, father, and—there, I am glad you found it all out. I have no more to say, father, only that you must punish me, not Serge, and I will bear everything without saying a word.”
Cracis was silent for a few minutes, and his voice sounded different when he spoke again.
“Where have these war-like implements been kept?” he said.
“In your big chest, master, made out of the planks cut from the big chestnut that was hewn down four years ago.”
“Place them back there, Serge,” said Cracis, gravely. “Fasten them in, and carry the chest and bestow it where it may stand beside my bed.”
“But father—” began Marcus.
“Silence, sir!” said Cracis. “I wish to think of all this, and not judge hastily. Take off those unseemly weapons, which are far from suited for my student son. Let this be done at once, Serge. You, Marcus, will follow me to my room, and be there an hour hence. I have much to say to you, my boy, very much to say.”
Cracis turned thoughtfully away, leaving his son with the old soldier, for them to gaze sadly at one another as the slow steps of the father and master died away.
“He’ll never forgive us, Marcus, my lad.”
“He will forgive us both, Serge,” said Marcus quickly; “but what would I not give if it had never been done!”
“No,” said Serge, grimly, “he’ll never forgive us.”
“Nonsense!” cried Marcus. “You don’t know my father as I do.”
“Better, a lot, boy. I’ve fought with him, starved with him, saved his life; and I’ll be fair—he’s saved mine more than once. But he’s hard as bronze, boy, and when he says a thing he’ll never go back.”
“And I say he’s as good and forgiving as can be, and when all the armour has been put away as he told you, he’ll forget all this trouble, and we shall be as happy again as ever.”
“You say that, boy, because you don’t know him. I do, and there’s nothing left for it but for me to make up my bundle and go off.”
“What!” cried Marcus, laughing. “You pack up your bundle and go?”
“Yes, my lad; I can never get over this again. I have been a servant and herdsman here all these years because I felt your father respected me, but now he don’t I feel as if I could never do another stroke of work, and I shall go.”
“No, you won’t, Serge; you are only saying that because you are cross.”
“Oh no,” said the man, shaking his head, “not cross, boy—wounded. Cut to the heart. I’m only a poor sort of labouring man here and servant, but I have been a soldier, and once a soldier always a soldier at heart, a man who thinks about his honour. Ah, you smile; and it does sound queer for a man dressed like this and handling a herdsman’s crook to talk about his honour; but inside he’s just the same man as wore the soldier’s armour and plumed helmet and marched in the ranks, erect and proud, ready to follow his general wherever he led. You wouldn’t think it strange for a proud-looking man like that to say his honour was touched.”
“No,” said Marcus, thoughtfully.
“Well, boy, I’m the same man still. I have lost your father’s confidence, and as soon as I have done putting away of our armour and weapons, as he told me, in the big old chest, I shall pack up and go.”
“Shall you take your sword and helmet with you, Serge?” asked the boy.
The man stared, and looked at him sharply, before remaining silent for quite a minute.
“No,” he cried, angrily; “I shall take nothing that will bring up the past. I want to forget it all.”
“But what do you mean to do?” said Marcus.
“I don’t know yet, boy. Something will happen, I daresay; for we never know what’s going to take place to-morrow, and I shall leave all that.”
The man ceased speaking, and began almost caressingly to straighten and arrange the various pieces of military accoutrement that he had been burnishing, while Marcus sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching him sadly.
“I don’t like it, Serge,” he said at last.
“Nay, boy, and I don’t like it,” replied the man. “I said just now we never know what is going to take place to-morrow. Who would have thought yesterday that things could have been like this to-day? But here they are. Hah!” he cried passionately. “I wish I hadn’t shrunk away.”
“Shrunk away!” cried Marcus. “Why, you are bigger and stouter than ever you were.”
“Pah!” ejaculated the man, angrily. “I don’t mean that. I mean shrunk away as I did just now when you made that thrust at me with the sword.”
“What!” cried Marcus. “Why, I should have killed you. That sword point is so horribly sharp. You don’t know what a shudder ran through me when I saw what I had nearly done.”
“Yes, you would have killed me, boy, and that’s what I wish you had done.”
“Serge, do you know what you are talking about?” cried Marcus. “Are you going mad?”
“Oh yes, I know what I’m talking about, and perhaps I am going mad. What else can you expect of a poor fellow who, all at once, finds himself dishonoured and disgraced?”
“You are not. I tell you I don’t believe that my father will ever say another word when all the things are put away.”
“Yes, because you don’t know him, boy. There, it’s no use to talk. I have made up my mind to go.”
“What nonsense!” said Marcus. “When my father as good as said he was going to look over all the past.”
“Ah, but that won’t do for me, boy. I am dishonoured and disgraced, and I can never hold up my head again.”
“Oh, Serge, this comes hard on me,” cried the boy, passionately.
“Nay, boy; it’s all on my unfortunate head.”
“It isn’t, Serge,” cried Marcus, “for, as I told father, it was all my doing. It was my stupid vanity and pride. I took it into my head that I wanted to be a soldier the same as father and you had been, and it has brought all this down upon you. I shall never forgive myself as long as I live.”
“Nay, but you will, boy, when I’m gone and forgotten.”
“Gone and forgotten!” cried Marcus, angrily. “You are not going, and you couldn’t be forgotten. I shall never forget you, Serge, as long as I live.”
“Shan’t you, boy?” said the man, smiling sadly. “Well, thank ye. I don’t think you will. I like that, boy, for you never seemed like a young master to me. I’m old and ugly, while you’re young and handsome, but somehow we have always seemed to be companions like, and whatever you wanted me to do I always did.”
“Yes, that you did, Serge,” cried Marcus, laughing.
“I don’t see nothing to laugh at, boy,” said the old soldier, bitterly, as he half drew Marcus’ blade from its scabbard, and then thrust it fiercely back with a sharp snap.
“No, but I do,” said Marcus, “sad as all this is. It seems so droll.”
“What does?” cried the man, fiercely.
“For you to talk about being old and ugly—you, such a big, strong, manly fellow as you are. Why, you are everything that a man ought to be.”
“What!” cried the old soldier, gazing wonderingly at the boy, a puzzled look in his eyes as if he was in doubt whether the words to which he listened were mocking him.
“Why, look at you! Look at your arms and legs, and the way in which you step out, and then your strength! The way in which you lift heavy things! Do you remember that day when you took hold of me by the belt and lifted me up, to hold me out at arm’s length for ever so long when I was in a passion and tried to hit you, and the more I raged the more you held me out, and laughed, till I came round and thought how stupid I was to attack such a giant as you, when I was only a poor feeble boy?”
“Nay, nay, you were never a poor feeble boy, but always a fine, sturdy little chap, and strong for your years, from the very first. That was partly my training, that was, and the way I made you feed. Don’t you remember how I told you that it was always a soldier’s duty to be able to fast, to eat well when he had the chance, and go without well when he hadn’t, and rest his teeth?”
“Oh, yes, I recollect you told me it was the way to grow up strong and hearty, and that some day I should be like you.”
“Well, wasn’t that true enough? Only it takes time. And so you thought I was quite a giant, did you?”
“Yes, and so I do now. Old and worn out! What stuff! Why, Serge, I have always longed and prayed that I might grow up into a big, strong, fine-looking man like you.”
“Thank you, my lad,” said the man, sadly, and with the beaming smile that had come upon his face dying out, to leave it cold and dull. “Then you won’t forget me, boy, when—” He stopped short, with a suggestion of moisture softening his fierce, dark eyes.
“Forget you! You know I shan’t. But what do you mean by ‘when’?”
“When my well-picked, dry bones are lying out somewhere up the mountain side, scattered here and there.”
“What!” cried Marcus, laughing merrily. “Who’s going to pick them and scatter them to dry up in the mountains?”
“The wolves, boy, the wolves,” said the man, bitterly, “for I suppose I shall come to that. You asked me what I was going to do. I’ll tell you. I shall wander away somewhere right up among the mountains, for my soldiering days are over, and I can never serve another master now, and at last I shall lie down to die! The wolves will come, and,” he added, with a sigh, “you know what will happen then.”
“Oh yes,” said Marcus, with mock seriousness. “The poor wolves! I shall be sorry for them. I know what will happen then. At the first bite you will jump up in a rage, catch them one at a time by the tail, give them one swing round, and knock their brains out against the stones. You wouldn’t give them much chance to bite again.”
A grim smile gradually dawned once more upon the old soldier’s countenance, and, slowly raising one of his hands, he began to scratch the side of his thickly-grizzled head, his brow wrinkling up more deeply the while, as he gazed into the merry, mocking eyes that looked back so frankly into his.
“You are laughing at me, boy,” he said, at last.
“Of course I am, Serge. Oh my! You are down in the dumps! I say, how many wolves do you think you could kill like that? But, oh nonsense! You wouldn’t be alone. If old Lupe saw you going off with your bundle he’d spring at you, get it in his teeth, and follow you carrying it wherever you went.”
“Hah! Good old Lupe!” said the man, thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten him. Yes, he’d be sure to follow me. You’d have to shut him up in the wine-press.”
“And hear him howl to get out?” cried Marcus. “No, I shouldn’t, because I shouldn’t be there.”
“Why, where would you be?” said Serge, wonderingly.
“Along with you, of course.”
“Along o’ me?”
“Yes. If you left home and went away for what was all my fault, do you think I should be such a miserable cur as to stop behind? No; I should go with you, Serge, and take my sword, and you and Lupe and I could pretty well tackle as many wolves as would be likely to come up at us on the mountain side.”
“Ah,” cried the man, “you are talking like a boy.”
“And so are you, Serge, when you say such things as you did just now. Now, look here; you are going to do as father said, pack up all the armour in the old chest, and then you are going to speak out and tell him that you are sorry that you listened to me, and then it will be all over and we shall go on again just the same as before. You and I will think out something that we can learn or do, and talk of something else besides fighting. There, let’s have no more talking about going away. Look sharp and get it over. I shan’t be happy till I see you and father shaking hands again. Now promise me you will go and get it done.”
“’Tis done, boy; I did speak and made myself humble, just as you want; but he wouldn’t take it right, and you know what he said. I can’t never forget it now. He wouldn’t listen to me, and no words now, no shaking hands, will put it straight. I shall have to go.”
“Oh!” cried Marcus. “What an obstinate old bull it is! Yes, I mean it, Serge; you are just like a human bull. Now, look here; do as I tell you. You have got to go and speak to father as I say.”
“Nay, boy,” said the man, solemnly, “not a word. I am going to do my bit of work, the last job I shall ever do here, and then it will be good-bye.”
Marcus sprang up in a passion.
“I can’t bring you to your senses,” he said. “You are too stubborn and blunt. If you won’t promise me you will go and speak to father, I shall go myself and tell him all you say.”
“Do, boy; that’s right! I like to hear you turn like that. Hit me and kick me if you will. It will all make it easier for me to go away.”
Marcus stood up before him, looking at him fiercely, and he was about to flash out a torrent of angry words, but, feeling that he would say something of which he might afterwards repent, he dashed out of the room and made for his father’s study.
Chapter Six.Making the Best of it.Cracis was deep in thought, seated by the open window, with the double roll of a volume in his hands, reading slowly line by line of the old papyrus Romano-Grecian writings of one of the philosophers, and, as he came to each line’s end, it slowly disappeared beneath the upper roll, while the nether was opened out to leave the next line visible to the reader’s eye.Marcus dashed in loudly, but stopped short as he saw how his father was occupied, and waited for him to speak; but Cracis was deep in his studies and heard him not, so, bubbling over with impatience, the boy advanced and laid his hand upon the student’s arm.Cracis looked up, wonderingly, and seemed to be obliged to drag his attention from the book, smiling pleasantly in the flushed face of his son, and with every trace of anger missing from his own.“Well, boy,” he said, gently, “what is it? Something you can’t make out?”“Yes, father—old Serge.”“Ah, Serge!” said Cracis, with his brow clouding over. “I am sorry all that happened, but it was your fault, my boy. You regularly led the brave, old, honest fellow astray.”“Yes, father, I did,” cried Marcus, eagerly, “and now he has taken all your angry words to heart.”“Oh, tut, tut, tut! Nonsense! I have forgiven it all, my boy; but he has not yet brought in the chest.”“No, father, I have left him packing it all now, and I have told him that all that is over, and that when we have time we must amuse ourselves in some other way than playing at soldiers and talking of war.”Cracis laid his hand upon his son’s shoulder and, with his face growing sterner, looked proudly in the young, frank face.“Thank you, my boy,” he said. “That is very brave and right of you. It shows great respect for me. Well, there! The past is all forgiven and forgotten—nay, I will not say forgotten; that can never be. Let it always stand in your memory as a stone of warning. Well, that is all over now.”“But it isn’t all over, father,” cried the boy. “Old Serge says what you said has cut him to the heart, and that you didn’t forgive him properly, and that he is dishonoured and disgraced as a soldier.”“Poor brave old Serge!” said Cracis, warmly.“Hah!” cried Marcus, excitedly. “I wish he were here to hear you speak like that.”“Oh, nonsense, boy. Time is too valuable to waste by thinking over such troubles as that. He must understand that I have reproved him for a fault and forgiven him.”“But he won’t understand, father. He’s as obstinate as a bull.”“He is, and always was, Marcus,” said Cracis, smiling; “but no man is perfect, and Serge’s good qualities more than balance all his bad. But there, boy, what does he want me to do?”“I don’t know, father. He thinks what you have said can never be undone, that he can never be the same here again as he was, that he has lost your confidence and you won’t trust him again, and—”“Well, and what?” said Cracis, smiling tolerantly.“Oh, it’s too stupid to tell you, father.”“One has to hear stupid things in life, my boy, as well as wise, so tell me all the same. You see, poor Serge, with all his noble qualities, has never been a man to read and learn wisdom from the works of the great. Simple, matter-of-fact and straightforward, he is not one who reflects and balances his acts before he makes them live. I don’t think Serge ever said to himself: ‘shall I? Shall I not?’ before he did a thing, and I suppose he has not been reflecting now. I am sorry I hurt his feelings, but I am the master. He is my servant, just as in old days I was his officer, he my legionary. It was his duty to obey. Now then, what is he doing?”“Putting the armour together to go in the chest.”“Well, quite right.”“But it’s what he’s going to do next, father.”“And what is he going to do next?”“Pack up his bundle, and then tramp up into the mountains to lie down and die, for the wolves to pick his bones.”It is impossible to put in words the young speaker’s tones, mingled, as they were, of sadness, ridicule and mirth, while Cracis drew a deep, long breath and said, softly:“Brave as a lion, strong beyond the limits of ordinary men; and yet, poor faithful Serge, what a child he is at heart! Don’t tell him what I said, boy. That is a piece of confidence between ourselves.”“But it’s all so real, father. If you are angry with me you scold me, and it’s soon all over. I forget it all.”“Yes, too soon, my boy, sometimes.”“Oh, but I do try to go on right, father. But, you see, with poor old Serge it all sticks. He’s regularly wounded.”“Yes, my boy, I know, and it’s the sort of wound that will not heal. Well, of course, that’s all absurd. He mustn’t go.”“He will, father, if something isn’t done.”“Yes, I am afraid he would; so something must be done. Who is in the wrong, boy—I or he?”“It’s this—I, father.”“Of course,” said Cracis, laughing; “but I think I am in the right. The master, if right, cannot humble himself to his man if he is in this position, Marcus. If he is in the wrong it is noble and brave to give way. Tell Serge to come to me at once. I will try to set him at one with me; the sooner this is set aside the better for us all.”“Thank you, father,” cried the boy, excitedly; and hurrying out he made for the back of the villa, where he found Serge in his own particular den, hard at work packing the various accoutrements, but evidently finding it difficult to make them fit.“Well, I’ve been and talked to father, Serge,” cried Marcus, quickly.“That’s right, boy,” said the old soldier, without turning his head.“I told him you were packing up the armour.”“Yes? Hard work. The things don’t lie easy one with another, and we mustn’t have the helmets bruised. The shields don’t lie so flat as I could wish, but—”“Father wants you, Serge.”“What for, boy? What for?”“To talk to you about you know what.”“Then you’ve told him I’m going away?”“Of course.”“Then it’s of no use for me to go and see him.”“But that’s what he wishes to speak about.”“Yes, and I know how he can talk and get round a man. Why, if I went to his place yonder he’d talk me into stopping, and I’m not going to do that now.”“Nonsense! Father only wants to say a few words more. He has forgiven you—I mean, us—and, after he has spoken, everything will be as it was before. He says it’s all nonsense about your going away.”Serge nodded.“Yes, I knew he’d say that, my boy. Of course he would.”“Well,” said Marcus, impatiently, “isn’t that what you want?”“No, not now, boy. Things can never be the same again.”“Why not?” cried Marcus.“Because they can’t, boy.”“Oh, Serge, don’t be so obstinate!”“No, my lad, not obstinate; only doing what’s right. I can’t help what’s done, nor what’s said.”“But don’t stop talking, Serge. Father wants to see you at once.”The old soldier shook his head and went on packing with increased vigour.“Well, why don’t you go?” cried Marcus, impatiently.“I daren’t,” said the man, frowning.“Then that’s because you feel you’re in the wrong, Serge.”“Yes, boy, that’s it; I’m in the wrong, and the master knows it, so it’s of no use for me to go.”“Oh, Serge,” cried Marcus, “you do make me so angry when you will keep on like this. Look here, Serge.”“No,” said the man, sourly, “and it’s of no use for you to talk, boy, because my mind’s made up. You want to talk me round, same as your father, the master, would. I’ve done wrong, and I told him so. It’s all because I tried to make a good soldier of you, as is what Nature meant you to be, and he can’t forgive me for that. He couldn’t even if he tried. There, that’s better—you lie there, and that’ll make more room for the boy’s helmet. Yes, that’ll do. Swords lie on each side under the shields and keep them steady,” he continued, apostrophising the different portions of the military equipment, as he worked very rapidly now in spite of Marcus’ words, till the whole of the war-like pieces were to his liking and the chest quite full, when he closed the lid and sat upon it as if to think, with his eyes fixed upon one corner of the place.“There, now are you satisfied?” cried Marcus. “Fortunately, father is reading, and he will not notice how long you have been. You’ve made me horribly impatient. Now go in to him at once and get it over.”“I shall only want a little bundle and my staff,” said Serge, as if to himself. “That is mine, for I cut it in the forest and shaped and trimmed it myself. Yes, that’s all.”“Aren’t you going to take the chest into father’s room?” said Marcus, quietly.“Eh? No, my lad.”“But he told you to.”“Yes, boy, but it was after all was over, and I can’t face him again.”“Then you are going off without saying good-bye to him?”The old soldier nodded.“And you are not going in to see him after he has sent for you to come?”“No, boy,” said the old soldier, with a sigh. “It’s the only way. I’m just going to take my bundle and my stick, and then I’m going off at once—alone,” he added, meaningly.“No, you’re not, Serge, for someone else can be stubborn too.”“What do you mean?” cried the man, sharply.“What I told you. I’m coming too.”“Nay, boy, you’re not; your father would stop that, and you must obey him,” cried Serge, angrily.“No, I mustn’t,” said Marcus.“What! Sons must obey their fathers.”“And soldiers must obey their officers.”“But he’s not my officer now.”“Yes, he is,” cried Marcus, angrily; “your officer as well as my father. If you go, Serge, I shall go, and I don’t care where it is.”“He’d never forgive you,” cried the old soldier, angrily.“Well, I should take my chance of that. You know me, Serge. When I say I’ll do a thing I do it; and I shall do this, for I don’t mean to let you go away from here alone. Now what have you got to say?”The old soldier got up from the shut-down lid of the chest, walked to the corner of the room, and took his crook-like staff, to which a rough bundle was already tied, and then he stepped back to where Marcus was seated upon the edge of the table which had so lately borne the armour carefully spread out.“Good-bye, Marcus, boy,” he said, holding out his hand.The lad sprang from the table and made for the door.“Won’t you say good-bye, Marcus?” cried Serge, pitifully.“No,” was the short, sharp reply. “What’s the good? But stop a moment. I’d better go and shut up Lupus, or he’ll come bounding after us and we shan’t get rid of him again.”“Oh!” roared the old soldier, angrily, and he dashed his bundle and staff across the room to the corner from which they had been taken. “You’re both of you too much for me.”“Come on, Serge, old fellow,” said Marcus, softly, as he took his old companion by the arm. “Shall I come in to father with you?”“No!” growled Serge. “I’m going to be beat, and I’ll go alone.”The next minute his steps were heard plodding heavily towards his master’s study, and, as he listened Marcus burst out into a merry, silent laugh.“Poor old Serge!” he said. “How father hurt his feelings! He’ll never leave us while he lives, but I believe if he had gone away it would have broken his heart. Well, that’s all over, and things will be all right again.”The boy stood thinking for a few minutes, and then he sighed.“My poor old sword and shield,” he said, half aloud; “and the helmet and armour too! Oh, how grand it was! When I had them on I used to feel as if I was marching with a successful army coming from the wars, and now it’s all over and I must sit and read and write, and the days will seem so dull with nothing exciting, nothing bright, no war in the future—Yes, there will be,” he cried; “there’ll be those boys. They’ll be coming on again as the grapes turn black. Yes,” he went on, with a merry laugh, “and if they come I’ll make some of them turn black. No war! I’ll make war with them, with old Serge and Lupus for allies. And then the winter will come again, and there’ll be the wolves. Why, there’ll be plenty to think of, after all.”
Cracis was deep in thought, seated by the open window, with the double roll of a volume in his hands, reading slowly line by line of the old papyrus Romano-Grecian writings of one of the philosophers, and, as he came to each line’s end, it slowly disappeared beneath the upper roll, while the nether was opened out to leave the next line visible to the reader’s eye.
Marcus dashed in loudly, but stopped short as he saw how his father was occupied, and waited for him to speak; but Cracis was deep in his studies and heard him not, so, bubbling over with impatience, the boy advanced and laid his hand upon the student’s arm.
Cracis looked up, wonderingly, and seemed to be obliged to drag his attention from the book, smiling pleasantly in the flushed face of his son, and with every trace of anger missing from his own.
“Well, boy,” he said, gently, “what is it? Something you can’t make out?”
“Yes, father—old Serge.”
“Ah, Serge!” said Cracis, with his brow clouding over. “I am sorry all that happened, but it was your fault, my boy. You regularly led the brave, old, honest fellow astray.”
“Yes, father, I did,” cried Marcus, eagerly, “and now he has taken all your angry words to heart.”
“Oh, tut, tut, tut! Nonsense! I have forgiven it all, my boy; but he has not yet brought in the chest.”
“No, father, I have left him packing it all now, and I have told him that all that is over, and that when we have time we must amuse ourselves in some other way than playing at soldiers and talking of war.”
Cracis laid his hand upon his son’s shoulder and, with his face growing sterner, looked proudly in the young, frank face.
“Thank you, my boy,” he said. “That is very brave and right of you. It shows great respect for me. Well, there! The past is all forgiven and forgotten—nay, I will not say forgotten; that can never be. Let it always stand in your memory as a stone of warning. Well, that is all over now.”
“But it isn’t all over, father,” cried the boy. “Old Serge says what you said has cut him to the heart, and that you didn’t forgive him properly, and that he is dishonoured and disgraced as a soldier.”
“Poor brave old Serge!” said Cracis, warmly.
“Hah!” cried Marcus, excitedly. “I wish he were here to hear you speak like that.”
“Oh, nonsense, boy. Time is too valuable to waste by thinking over such troubles as that. He must understand that I have reproved him for a fault and forgiven him.”
“But he won’t understand, father. He’s as obstinate as a bull.”
“He is, and always was, Marcus,” said Cracis, smiling; “but no man is perfect, and Serge’s good qualities more than balance all his bad. But there, boy, what does he want me to do?”
“I don’t know, father. He thinks what you have said can never be undone, that he can never be the same here again as he was, that he has lost your confidence and you won’t trust him again, and—”
“Well, and what?” said Cracis, smiling tolerantly.
“Oh, it’s too stupid to tell you, father.”
“One has to hear stupid things in life, my boy, as well as wise, so tell me all the same. You see, poor Serge, with all his noble qualities, has never been a man to read and learn wisdom from the works of the great. Simple, matter-of-fact and straightforward, he is not one who reflects and balances his acts before he makes them live. I don’t think Serge ever said to himself: ‘shall I? Shall I not?’ before he did a thing, and I suppose he has not been reflecting now. I am sorry I hurt his feelings, but I am the master. He is my servant, just as in old days I was his officer, he my legionary. It was his duty to obey. Now then, what is he doing?”
“Putting the armour together to go in the chest.”
“Well, quite right.”
“But it’s what he’s going to do next, father.”
“And what is he going to do next?”
“Pack up his bundle, and then tramp up into the mountains to lie down and die, for the wolves to pick his bones.”
It is impossible to put in words the young speaker’s tones, mingled, as they were, of sadness, ridicule and mirth, while Cracis drew a deep, long breath and said, softly:
“Brave as a lion, strong beyond the limits of ordinary men; and yet, poor faithful Serge, what a child he is at heart! Don’t tell him what I said, boy. That is a piece of confidence between ourselves.”
“But it’s all so real, father. If you are angry with me you scold me, and it’s soon all over. I forget it all.”
“Yes, too soon, my boy, sometimes.”
“Oh, but I do try to go on right, father. But, you see, with poor old Serge it all sticks. He’s regularly wounded.”
“Yes, my boy, I know, and it’s the sort of wound that will not heal. Well, of course, that’s all absurd. He mustn’t go.”
“He will, father, if something isn’t done.”
“Yes, I am afraid he would; so something must be done. Who is in the wrong, boy—I or he?”
“It’s this—I, father.”
“Of course,” said Cracis, laughing; “but I think I am in the right. The master, if right, cannot humble himself to his man if he is in this position, Marcus. If he is in the wrong it is noble and brave to give way. Tell Serge to come to me at once. I will try to set him at one with me; the sooner this is set aside the better for us all.”
“Thank you, father,” cried the boy, excitedly; and hurrying out he made for the back of the villa, where he found Serge in his own particular den, hard at work packing the various accoutrements, but evidently finding it difficult to make them fit.
“Well, I’ve been and talked to father, Serge,” cried Marcus, quickly.
“That’s right, boy,” said the old soldier, without turning his head.
“I told him you were packing up the armour.”
“Yes? Hard work. The things don’t lie easy one with another, and we mustn’t have the helmets bruised. The shields don’t lie so flat as I could wish, but—”
“Father wants you, Serge.”
“What for, boy? What for?”
“To talk to you about you know what.”
“Then you’ve told him I’m going away?”
“Of course.”
“Then it’s of no use for me to go and see him.”
“But that’s what he wishes to speak about.”
“Yes, and I know how he can talk and get round a man. Why, if I went to his place yonder he’d talk me into stopping, and I’m not going to do that now.”
“Nonsense! Father only wants to say a few words more. He has forgiven you—I mean, us—and, after he has spoken, everything will be as it was before. He says it’s all nonsense about your going away.”
Serge nodded.
“Yes, I knew he’d say that, my boy. Of course he would.”
“Well,” said Marcus, impatiently, “isn’t that what you want?”
“No, not now, boy. Things can never be the same again.”
“Why not?” cried Marcus.
“Because they can’t, boy.”
“Oh, Serge, don’t be so obstinate!”
“No, my lad, not obstinate; only doing what’s right. I can’t help what’s done, nor what’s said.”
“But don’t stop talking, Serge. Father wants to see you at once.”
The old soldier shook his head and went on packing with increased vigour.
“Well, why don’t you go?” cried Marcus, impatiently.
“I daren’t,” said the man, frowning.
“Then that’s because you feel you’re in the wrong, Serge.”
“Yes, boy, that’s it; I’m in the wrong, and the master knows it, so it’s of no use for me to go.”
“Oh, Serge,” cried Marcus, “you do make me so angry when you will keep on like this. Look here, Serge.”
“No,” said the man, sourly, “and it’s of no use for you to talk, boy, because my mind’s made up. You want to talk me round, same as your father, the master, would. I’ve done wrong, and I told him so. It’s all because I tried to make a good soldier of you, as is what Nature meant you to be, and he can’t forgive me for that. He couldn’t even if he tried. There, that’s better—you lie there, and that’ll make more room for the boy’s helmet. Yes, that’ll do. Swords lie on each side under the shields and keep them steady,” he continued, apostrophising the different portions of the military equipment, as he worked very rapidly now in spite of Marcus’ words, till the whole of the war-like pieces were to his liking and the chest quite full, when he closed the lid and sat upon it as if to think, with his eyes fixed upon one corner of the place.
“There, now are you satisfied?” cried Marcus. “Fortunately, father is reading, and he will not notice how long you have been. You’ve made me horribly impatient. Now go in to him at once and get it over.”
“I shall only want a little bundle and my staff,” said Serge, as if to himself. “That is mine, for I cut it in the forest and shaped and trimmed it myself. Yes, that’s all.”
“Aren’t you going to take the chest into father’s room?” said Marcus, quietly.
“Eh? No, my lad.”
“But he told you to.”
“Yes, boy, but it was after all was over, and I can’t face him again.”
“Then you are going off without saying good-bye to him?”
The old soldier nodded.
“And you are not going in to see him after he has sent for you to come?”
“No, boy,” said the old soldier, with a sigh. “It’s the only way. I’m just going to take my bundle and my stick, and then I’m going off at once—alone,” he added, meaningly.
“No, you’re not, Serge, for someone else can be stubborn too.”
“What do you mean?” cried the man, sharply.
“What I told you. I’m coming too.”
“Nay, boy, you’re not; your father would stop that, and you must obey him,” cried Serge, angrily.
“No, I mustn’t,” said Marcus.
“What! Sons must obey their fathers.”
“And soldiers must obey their officers.”
“But he’s not my officer now.”
“Yes, he is,” cried Marcus, angrily; “your officer as well as my father. If you go, Serge, I shall go, and I don’t care where it is.”
“He’d never forgive you,” cried the old soldier, angrily.
“Well, I should take my chance of that. You know me, Serge. When I say I’ll do a thing I do it; and I shall do this, for I don’t mean to let you go away from here alone. Now what have you got to say?”
The old soldier got up from the shut-down lid of the chest, walked to the corner of the room, and took his crook-like staff, to which a rough bundle was already tied, and then he stepped back to where Marcus was seated upon the edge of the table which had so lately borne the armour carefully spread out.
“Good-bye, Marcus, boy,” he said, holding out his hand.
The lad sprang from the table and made for the door.
“Won’t you say good-bye, Marcus?” cried Serge, pitifully.
“No,” was the short, sharp reply. “What’s the good? But stop a moment. I’d better go and shut up Lupus, or he’ll come bounding after us and we shan’t get rid of him again.”
“Oh!” roared the old soldier, angrily, and he dashed his bundle and staff across the room to the corner from which they had been taken. “You’re both of you too much for me.”
“Come on, Serge, old fellow,” said Marcus, softly, as he took his old companion by the arm. “Shall I come in to father with you?”
“No!” growled Serge. “I’m going to be beat, and I’ll go alone.”
The next minute his steps were heard plodding heavily towards his master’s study, and, as he listened Marcus burst out into a merry, silent laugh.
“Poor old Serge!” he said. “How father hurt his feelings! He’ll never leave us while he lives, but I believe if he had gone away it would have broken his heart. Well, that’s all over, and things will be all right again.”
The boy stood thinking for a few minutes, and then he sighed.
“My poor old sword and shield,” he said, half aloud; “and the helmet and armour too! Oh, how grand it was! When I had them on I used to feel as if I was marching with a successful army coming from the wars, and now it’s all over and I must sit and read and write, and the days will seem so dull with nothing exciting, nothing bright, no war in the future—Yes, there will be,” he cried; “there’ll be those boys. They’ll be coming on again as the grapes turn black. Yes,” he went on, with a merry laugh, “and if they come I’ll make some of them turn black. No war! I’ll make war with them, with old Serge and Lupus for allies. And then the winter will come again, and there’ll be the wolves. Why, there’ll be plenty to think of, after all.”
Chapter Seven.Company Comes.“I want to go out,” said Marcus to himself, one morning, as he sat at the little table exclusively his.There was a small volume, a double roll tied round by a band of silk, his tablets and stylus were before him, the latter quite blank, and the window was open, giving him a glorious view of the distant, sunlit mountains, while the air that was wafted in through the vine leaves was rich in delicious odours that came gratefully to his nostrils.“But I can’t go out,” he said; “I have all that writing to do, and the first thing when father comes back will be to ask me how much I have done. And here have I been sitting for long enough and have not scratched a word. I wonder how soon he will come?”The boy sat silently for a few minutes watching some twittering young birds that were playing in the garden trees, chasing one another from twig to twig in the full enjoyment of their life in the transparent atmosphere.“I wish I were a bird!” sighed the boy, and then half passionately: “Oh, what a lazy dog I am! I am always longing to be or do something else than what I am. But look at that,” he said, dropping into his dreamy way again. “How beautiful it must be to throw oneself off the very top of a tree and go floating and gliding about just where one likes, with no books to study, nothing to write, only play about in the sunshine, covered with clothes of the softest down; no bother about a house to live in or a bed, but just when the sun goes down sing a bit about how pleasant life is as one sits on a twig, and then tuck one’s head under one’s wing, stick one’s feathers up till one looks like a ball, and go to sleep till the Sun rises again. Oh, how glorious to be a bird! Ha, ha, ha!” he cried, with a merry laugh, “Old Serge is right. He says I am a young fool, when he’s in the grumps, and I suppose I am to think like that; but it seems a life so free from trouble to be a bird, till a cat comes, or a weasel, or perhaps a snake, and catches one on the ground, or a hawk when one’s flying in the air, or one of the noisy old owls when one’s roosting in the ivy at night. And then squeak—scrunch—and there’s no more bird. Everything has to work, I suppose, and nothing is able to do just as it pleases. That’s what father says, and, of course, it’s true; but somehow I should like to go out this morning, but I can’t; I have to stick here and write. There’s father gone off, and old Serge too. I wonder where he’s gone. Right away into the forest, of course, to look after the swine, or else into the fields to see whether something’s growing properly, and mind that the men keep to work and are not lying snoozing somewhere in the shade. Oh, how beautiful it looks out of doors!”Marcus sat gazing longingly out of the window, and then apparently, for no reason at all, raised his right hand and gave himself a sharp slap on the side of the head.“Take that, you lazy brute!” he cried. “Of course you can’t do your work if you sit staring out of the window. Turn your back to it, sir, and look inside where you will only see the wall. No wonder you can’t work.”He jumped up quickly, raised his stool, and was in the act of turning it round, giving a final glance through the window before he began to work in earnest, when he stopped short and set down the stool again.“There’s somebody coming along the road,” he said. “Who’s he? Dressed just like father, in his long, white toga. Wonder where he’s going, and who he is? Some traveller, I suppose, seeing the country and enjoying himself.”The boy stood watching the stranger for a few moments.“Why, where can he be going?” he said. “That path only leads here and to our fields. He can’t be coming here, because nobody ever comes to see us, and father doesn’t seem to have any friends. Perhaps he wants to see Serge about buying some pigs or corn, or to sell some young goats? Yes, that’s it, I should think. He wants to sell something. No; it can’t be that; he doesn’t look the sort of man. Look at that smooth-shaven face and short-cut hair. He seems quite a patrician, just like father. What can he want? Here, how stupid!” cried the boy, as he saw the stranger stop short a little distance from the villa front and begin to look about him as if admiring the beauty of the place and the distant scene. “I know; he’s a traveller, and he’s lost his way.”Excited by his new thought, Marcus hurried out and down the garden, catching the attention of the stranger at once, who smiled as he looked with the eyes of curiosity at the bright, frank lad, while he took out a handkerchief and stood wiping his dewy face.“Lost your way?” cried Marcus.“Well, not quite,” was the reply; “but I know very little of these parts.”“I do,” said Marcus, “laughing always, and have. I’ll show you if you tell me where you want to go.”“Thank you,” said the stranger, gravely and quietly; and the boy thought to himself once more that he was no dealer or trader, but some patrician on his travels, and he noted more particularly the clear skin, and clean-cut features of a man thoughtful and strong of brain, who spoke quietly, but in the tones of one accustomed to command.“You have a beautiful place here, my boy,” he continued, as he looked round and seemed to take in everything; “fields, woodlands, garden. Fruit too—vines and figs. An attractive house too. The calm and quiet of the country—a tired man could live very happily here.”“Yes, of course,” cried Marcus and with a merry laugh, “a boy too!”“Hah! Yes,” said the stranger, smiling also, as he gazed searchingly in the boy’s clear eyes. “So you lead a very happy life here, do you?”“Oh yes!”“But not alone?” said the stranger.“Oh no, of course not,” cried Marcus. “There’s father, and old Serge, and the labourers and servants.”“Yes, a very pleasant place,” said the stranger, as he once more wiped his dewy face.“You look hot,” said the boy. “Come in and sit down for a while and rest. It’s nice and shady in my room, and you get the cool breeze from the mountains.”“Thank you, my boy, I will,” said the stranger, and he followed Marcus through the shady garden and into the lately vacated room, where the boy placed a chair, and his visitor sank into it with a sigh of relief.“Have you walked far?” he asked.“Yes, some distance,” was the reply; “but the country is very beautiful, especially through the woodlands, and very pleasant to one who is fresh from the hot and crowded city.”“The city!” cried Marcus, eagerly. “You don’t mean Rome?”“I do mean Rome,” said the visitor, leaning back smiling, and with his eyes half closed, but keenly reading the boy the while. “Have you ever been there?”“Oh no,” said Marcus, quickly, “but I know all about it. My father often used to tell me about Rome.”“Your father? May I ask who your father is?”“Cracis,” said the boy, drawing himself up proudly, as if he felt it an honour to speak of such a man. “He used to live in Rome. You’ve come from there. Did you ever hear of him?”“Cracis? Cracis? Yes, I have heard the name. Is he at home?”“No; he went out this morning; but I daresay he will be back soon. Serge is out too.”“Serge?” said the stranger.“Yes; our man who superintends the farm. He was an old soldier, and knew Rome well. He was in the wars.”“Ha!” said the stranger. “And they are both away?”“Yes; but you are tired, sir, and look faint. I’ll come back directly.”Marcus hurried from the room, but returned almost immediately, laden with a cake of bread, a flask and cup, and a bunch or two of grapes lying in an open basket.“Ha, ha!” said the visitor, smiling. “Then you mean to play the host to a tired stranger?”“Of course,” said the boy. “That is what father would do if he were at home.”“And the son follows his father’s teaching, eh?”Marcus smiled, and busied himself in pouring out a cup of wine and breaking the bread, which he pressed upon his guest, who partook of both sparingly, keenly watching the boy the while.“The rest is good,” he said, as he caught the boy’s eye, “the room cool and pleasant, and these most refreshing. You will let me rest myself awhile? I might like to see your father when he comes.”“Oh, of course,” cried the boy. “Father will be very glad, I am sure. We so seldom have anyone to see us here.”Quite unconsciously the boy went on chatting, little realising that he was literally answering his visitor’s questions and giving him a full account of their life at the villa and farm.He noted how sparingly his visitor ate and drank, and pressed him hospitably to partake of more, but, after a few minutes, the guest responded by smilingly waving the bread and wine aside.“Quantum sufficit, my boy,” he said; “but I will eat a few of your grapes.”He broke off a tiny bunch, and went on talking as he glanced around.“Your studies?” he said, pointing to the tablets and stylus. “And you read?”“Oh yes,” said the boy. “My father teaches me. He is a great student.”“Indeed?” said the guest. “And are you a great student too?”“No,” cried Marcus, merrily; “only a great stupid boy!”“Very,” said the visitor, sarcastically. “Well, and what are you going to be when you grow up?”“Oh, a student too, and a farmer, I suppose.”“Indeed! Why, a big, healthy, young lad like you ought to be a soldier, and learn to fight for his country, like a true son of Rome.”“Hah!” cried Marcus, flushing up and frowning, while the visitor watched him intently.“I knew just such a boy as you who grew up to be a general, a great soldier as well as a student who could use his pen.”“Ah, that’s what I should like to be,” cried the boy, springing from his seat with his eyes flashing, as his imagination seemed fired. “That’s what Serge says.”“What does Serge say?” asked the visitor.“Just what you do,” cried the boy, boldly; “that I might grow up to be a great soldier, and still read and use my pen.”“Well, why not?” said the guest, as he slowly broke off and ate a grape.The boy frowned and shook his head.“It is a man’s duty to be ready to draw his sword for his country like a brave citizen, and that country’s son,” continued the guest, warmly, while the boy watched him eagerly, and leaned forward with one hand resting upon the table as if he was drinking in every word that fell from the other’s lips.“Yes, that’s what Serge says,” he cried, “and that it is a great and noble thing for a man to be ready to die for his country if there is any need.”“But it is pleasanter to live, my boy,” said the visitor, smiling, “and to be happy with those we love, with those whom we are ready to defend against the enemy. You must be a soldier, then—a defender of your land.”“No,” said the boy, quickly, and he gave his head a quick shake. “It can never be.”“Why?”“Because my father says ‘no.’”The visitor raised his brows a little, and then, leaning forward slightly to gaze into the boy’s eyes, he said, softly:“Why does your father say that?”“Because people are ungrateful and jealous and hard, and would ill-use me, the same as they did him and drove him away from Rome.”The visitor tightened his lips and was silent, sitting gazing past the boy and through the window, so full of thought that he broke off another grape, raised it to his lips, and then threw it through the opening into a tuft of flowers beyond.“Ah!” he said, at last, as his eyes were turned again towards the boy. “And so you are going to live here then, and only be a student?”“Of course,” said the boy, proudly. “It is my father’s wish.”“And you know nothing, then, about a soldier’s life?”“Oh, yes, I do,” cried the boy, with his face lighting up.“Hah! Then your father has taught you to be a soldier and man?”“Oh, no; he has taught me to read and write. It was some one else who taught me how to use a sword and spear.”“Hah!” cried the visitor, quickly. “Then you are not all a student?”“Oh, no.”“You know how to use a sword?”“Yes,” said Marcus, laughing, “and a spear and shield as well,” and, warming up, the boy began to talk quickly about all he had learned, ending, to his visitor’s great interest, with a full account of his training in secret and his father’s discovery and ending of his pursuits.“Well, boy,” said the guest, at last, “it seems a pity.”“For me to tell you all this?” cried Marcus, whose face was still flushed with excitement. “Yes, I oughtn’t to have spoken and said so much, but somehow you questioned me and seemed to make me talk.”“Did I?” said the visitor. “Well, I suppose I did; but what I meant was that it seems a pity that so promising a lad should only be kept to his books. But there, a good son is obedient to his father, and his duty is to follow out his commands.”“Yes,” said the boy, stoutly, “and that’s what Serge says.”“Then he doesn’t want you to be a soldier now?”“No,” cried the boy. “He says one of the first things a soldier learns is to obey.”“Ah!” said the visitor, looking at the boy with his quiet smile. “I should like to know this old soldier, Serge.”“You soon can,” said the boy, laughing. “Here he comes!” For at that moment there was the deep bark of a dog.“The dog?” said the visitor.“Oh, that’s our wolf-hound, Lupe. It means that Serge is coming back.”The boy had hardly spoken when the man’s step was heard outside, and, directly after, as Marcus’ guest sat watching the door, it was thrust open, and the old soldier entered, saying: “Has the master come back, my lad?” and started back, staring at the sight of the stranger.“Not yet, Serge. This is a gentleman, a traveller from Rome, who is sitting down to rest.”Serge drew himself up with a soldierly salute, which was received with dignity, and, as eyes met, the stranger looked the old warrior through and through, while Serge seemed puzzled and suspicious, as he slowly raised his hand and rubbed his head.“Yes,” said the visitor, “your young master has been playing the kindly host to a weary man. Why do you look at me so hard? You know my face?”“No,” said Serge, gruffly; “no. But I think I have seen someone like you before.”“And I,” said the visitor, “have seen many such like you, but few who bear such a character as your young master gives.”“Eh?” cried Serge, sharply. “Why, what’s he been saying about me?”“Told me what a brave old soldier you have been.”“Oh! Oh! Stuff!” growled Serge, sourly.“And of how carefully you have taught him the duties of a soldier, and told him all about the war.”“There!” cried Serge, angrily, stepping forward to bring his big, hairy fist down upon the table with a thump. “I don’t know you, or who you are, but you have come here tired, and been given refreshment and rest, and, instead of being thankful, you have been putting all sorts of things in this boy’s head again that he ought to have forgot.”“Serge! Serge!” cried Marcus, excitedly. “Mind what you are saying! This is a stranger, and a noble gentleman from Rome.”“I don’t care who he is,” replied the old soldier, fiercely. “He’s no business to be coming here and talking like this. Now, look here, sir,” he continued, turning upon the visitor, who sat smiling coldly with his eyes half closed, “this lad’s father, my old officer—and a better never stepped or led men against Rome’s enemies—gave me his commands, and they were these: that young Marcus here was to give up all thoughts of soldiering and war, and those commands, as his old follower, I am going to carry out. So, as you have eaten and are rested, the sooner you go on your journey the better, and leave us here at peace.”“Serge!” cried Marcus, firmly; and he drew himself up with his father’s angry look, “you mean well, and wish to do your duty, but this is not the way to speak to a stranger and my father’s guest.”“He’s not your father’s guest, my lad, but yours, and he’s taken upon himself to say to you what he shouldn’t say, and set you against your father’s commands.”“Even if he has, Serge, he must be treated as a guest—I don’t know your name, sir,” continued the boy, turning to the visitor, “but in my father’s name I ask you to forgive his true old servant’s blunt, honest speech.”The visitor rose, grave and stern.“It is forgiven, my boy,” he said; “for after hearing what he has said I can only respect him for his straightforward honesty. My man, I am an old soldier too. I regret that I have spoken as I did, and I respect you more and more. Rome lost a brave soldier when you left her ranks. Will you shake hands?”Serge drew back a little, and looked puzzled.“Yes, give me your hand,” said the visitor. “I am rested and refreshed, but I am not yet going away. I am going to stay and see Cracis, who was once my dear old friend.”“You knew my master?” cried Serge, with the puzzled look deepening in his eyes.“Thoroughly,” was the reply, “and we have fought together in the past. He will forgive me what I have said, as I do you, and I shall tell him when he comes how glad I am to see that he has such a son and is so bravely served.”For answer the old soldier hesitatingly took the proffered hand, and then gladly made his retreat, the pair following him slowly out into the shady piazza, where they stood watching till he disappeared, when the visitor, after glancing round, gathered his toga round him, and sank down into a stone seat, beside one of the shadow-flecked pillars, frowning heavily the while.“He means well, sir,” said Marcus, hastily; “but I’m sure my father would have been sorry if he had heard. I am glad, though, that I asked you in.”“Why?” said the visitor, with a peculiar look in his eyes.“Because you say you are an old friend of his, and, of course, I didn’t know. It was only out of civility that I did so.”“Yes, so I suppose,” was the reply. “Poor fellow! Your man meant well,” continued the visitor, with his whole manner changed, and he spoke in a half-mocking, cynical way which puzzled and annoyed the boy. “A poor, weak, foolish fellow, though, who hardly understands what he meant. Don’t you think he was very weak, bull-headed and absurd?”“Well—no,” said the boy, quickly, and his face began to flush, and grew the deeper in tint as he noticed a supercilious, mocking smile playing upon the visitor’s lips. “Serge is a very true, honest fellow, and thought he was doing right.”“Yes, of course,” said the other, “but some people in meaning to do right often commit themselves and do great wrong.”“But you knew my father well?” said Marcus, hastily, to change the conversation. “I never heard him mention you.”“No, I suppose not,” said the visitor, thoughtfully, but with a mocking smile upon his lip growing more marked as he went on. “I don’t suppose he would ever mention me. A very good, true fellow, Cracis, and, as I said, we were once great friends. But a weak and foolish man who got into very great trouble with the Senate and with me. There was great trouble at the time, and I had to defend him.”“You had to defend my father?” said Marcus, turning pale, and with a strange sensation rising in his breast. “What for?”“Why, there was that charge of cowardice—the retreat he headed from the Gaulish troops,” continued the visitor, watching the boy intently all the while. “He was charged with being a coward, and—”“It was a lie!” cried the boy, fiercely. “You know it was a lie. My father is the bravest, truest man that ever lived, and you who speak so can be no friend of his. Old Serge was right, for he saw at once what kind of man you are. How dare you speak to me like that! Go, sir! Leave this house at once.”“Go, boy?” said the visitor, coldly, and with a look of suppressed anger gathering in his eyes. “And suppose that I refuse to go at the bidding of such a boy as you?”“Refuse?” cried Marcus, fiercely. “You dare to refuse?”“Yes, boy, I refuse. And what then?”“This!” cried the boy, overcome with rage, and, raising his hand, he made a dash as if about to strike, just as a step was heard, and, calmly and thoughtfully, Cracis walked out into the piazza.
“I want to go out,” said Marcus to himself, one morning, as he sat at the little table exclusively his.
There was a small volume, a double roll tied round by a band of silk, his tablets and stylus were before him, the latter quite blank, and the window was open, giving him a glorious view of the distant, sunlit mountains, while the air that was wafted in through the vine leaves was rich in delicious odours that came gratefully to his nostrils.
“But I can’t go out,” he said; “I have all that writing to do, and the first thing when father comes back will be to ask me how much I have done. And here have I been sitting for long enough and have not scratched a word. I wonder how soon he will come?”
The boy sat silently for a few minutes watching some twittering young birds that were playing in the garden trees, chasing one another from twig to twig in the full enjoyment of their life in the transparent atmosphere.
“I wish I were a bird!” sighed the boy, and then half passionately: “Oh, what a lazy dog I am! I am always longing to be or do something else than what I am. But look at that,” he said, dropping into his dreamy way again. “How beautiful it must be to throw oneself off the very top of a tree and go floating and gliding about just where one likes, with no books to study, nothing to write, only play about in the sunshine, covered with clothes of the softest down; no bother about a house to live in or a bed, but just when the sun goes down sing a bit about how pleasant life is as one sits on a twig, and then tuck one’s head under one’s wing, stick one’s feathers up till one looks like a ball, and go to sleep till the Sun rises again. Oh, how glorious to be a bird! Ha, ha, ha!” he cried, with a merry laugh, “Old Serge is right. He says I am a young fool, when he’s in the grumps, and I suppose I am to think like that; but it seems a life so free from trouble to be a bird, till a cat comes, or a weasel, or perhaps a snake, and catches one on the ground, or a hawk when one’s flying in the air, or one of the noisy old owls when one’s roosting in the ivy at night. And then squeak—scrunch—and there’s no more bird. Everything has to work, I suppose, and nothing is able to do just as it pleases. That’s what father says, and, of course, it’s true; but somehow I should like to go out this morning, but I can’t; I have to stick here and write. There’s father gone off, and old Serge too. I wonder where he’s gone. Right away into the forest, of course, to look after the swine, or else into the fields to see whether something’s growing properly, and mind that the men keep to work and are not lying snoozing somewhere in the shade. Oh, how beautiful it looks out of doors!”
Marcus sat gazing longingly out of the window, and then apparently, for no reason at all, raised his right hand and gave himself a sharp slap on the side of the head.
“Take that, you lazy brute!” he cried. “Of course you can’t do your work if you sit staring out of the window. Turn your back to it, sir, and look inside where you will only see the wall. No wonder you can’t work.”
He jumped up quickly, raised his stool, and was in the act of turning it round, giving a final glance through the window before he began to work in earnest, when he stopped short and set down the stool again.
“There’s somebody coming along the road,” he said. “Who’s he? Dressed just like father, in his long, white toga. Wonder where he’s going, and who he is? Some traveller, I suppose, seeing the country and enjoying himself.”
The boy stood watching the stranger for a few moments.
“Why, where can he be going?” he said. “That path only leads here and to our fields. He can’t be coming here, because nobody ever comes to see us, and father doesn’t seem to have any friends. Perhaps he wants to see Serge about buying some pigs or corn, or to sell some young goats? Yes, that’s it, I should think. He wants to sell something. No; it can’t be that; he doesn’t look the sort of man. Look at that smooth-shaven face and short-cut hair. He seems quite a patrician, just like father. What can he want? Here, how stupid!” cried the boy, as he saw the stranger stop short a little distance from the villa front and begin to look about him as if admiring the beauty of the place and the distant scene. “I know; he’s a traveller, and he’s lost his way.”
Excited by his new thought, Marcus hurried out and down the garden, catching the attention of the stranger at once, who smiled as he looked with the eyes of curiosity at the bright, frank lad, while he took out a handkerchief and stood wiping his dewy face.
“Lost your way?” cried Marcus.
“Well, not quite,” was the reply; “but I know very little of these parts.”
“I do,” said Marcus, “laughing always, and have. I’ll show you if you tell me where you want to go.”
“Thank you,” said the stranger, gravely and quietly; and the boy thought to himself once more that he was no dealer or trader, but some patrician on his travels, and he noted more particularly the clear skin, and clean-cut features of a man thoughtful and strong of brain, who spoke quietly, but in the tones of one accustomed to command.
“You have a beautiful place here, my boy,” he continued, as he looked round and seemed to take in everything; “fields, woodlands, garden. Fruit too—vines and figs. An attractive house too. The calm and quiet of the country—a tired man could live very happily here.”
“Yes, of course,” cried Marcus and with a merry laugh, “a boy too!”
“Hah! Yes,” said the stranger, smiling also, as he gazed searchingly in the boy’s clear eyes. “So you lead a very happy life here, do you?”
“Oh yes!”
“But not alone?” said the stranger.
“Oh no, of course not,” cried Marcus. “There’s father, and old Serge, and the labourers and servants.”
“Yes, a very pleasant place,” said the stranger, as he once more wiped his dewy face.
“You look hot,” said the boy. “Come in and sit down for a while and rest. It’s nice and shady in my room, and you get the cool breeze from the mountains.”
“Thank you, my boy, I will,” said the stranger, and he followed Marcus through the shady garden and into the lately vacated room, where the boy placed a chair, and his visitor sank into it with a sigh of relief.
“Have you walked far?” he asked.
“Yes, some distance,” was the reply; “but the country is very beautiful, especially through the woodlands, and very pleasant to one who is fresh from the hot and crowded city.”
“The city!” cried Marcus, eagerly. “You don’t mean Rome?”
“I do mean Rome,” said the visitor, leaning back smiling, and with his eyes half closed, but keenly reading the boy the while. “Have you ever been there?”
“Oh no,” said Marcus, quickly, “but I know all about it. My father often used to tell me about Rome.”
“Your father? May I ask who your father is?”
“Cracis,” said the boy, drawing himself up proudly, as if he felt it an honour to speak of such a man. “He used to live in Rome. You’ve come from there. Did you ever hear of him?”
“Cracis? Cracis? Yes, I have heard the name. Is he at home?”
“No; he went out this morning; but I daresay he will be back soon. Serge is out too.”
“Serge?” said the stranger.
“Yes; our man who superintends the farm. He was an old soldier, and knew Rome well. He was in the wars.”
“Ha!” said the stranger. “And they are both away?”
“Yes; but you are tired, sir, and look faint. I’ll come back directly.”
Marcus hurried from the room, but returned almost immediately, laden with a cake of bread, a flask and cup, and a bunch or two of grapes lying in an open basket.
“Ha, ha!” said the visitor, smiling. “Then you mean to play the host to a tired stranger?”
“Of course,” said the boy. “That is what father would do if he were at home.”
“And the son follows his father’s teaching, eh?”
Marcus smiled, and busied himself in pouring out a cup of wine and breaking the bread, which he pressed upon his guest, who partook of both sparingly, keenly watching the boy the while.
“The rest is good,” he said, as he caught the boy’s eye, “the room cool and pleasant, and these most refreshing. You will let me rest myself awhile? I might like to see your father when he comes.”
“Oh, of course,” cried the boy. “Father will be very glad, I am sure. We so seldom have anyone to see us here.”
Quite unconsciously the boy went on chatting, little realising that he was literally answering his visitor’s questions and giving him a full account of their life at the villa and farm.
He noted how sparingly his visitor ate and drank, and pressed him hospitably to partake of more, but, after a few minutes, the guest responded by smilingly waving the bread and wine aside.
“Quantum sufficit, my boy,” he said; “but I will eat a few of your grapes.”
He broke off a tiny bunch, and went on talking as he glanced around.
“Your studies?” he said, pointing to the tablets and stylus. “And you read?”
“Oh yes,” said the boy. “My father teaches me. He is a great student.”
“Indeed?” said the guest. “And are you a great student too?”
“No,” cried Marcus, merrily; “only a great stupid boy!”
“Very,” said the visitor, sarcastically. “Well, and what are you going to be when you grow up?”
“Oh, a student too, and a farmer, I suppose.”
“Indeed! Why, a big, healthy, young lad like you ought to be a soldier, and learn to fight for his country, like a true son of Rome.”
“Hah!” cried Marcus, flushing up and frowning, while the visitor watched him intently.
“I knew just such a boy as you who grew up to be a general, a great soldier as well as a student who could use his pen.”
“Ah, that’s what I should like to be,” cried the boy, springing from his seat with his eyes flashing, as his imagination seemed fired. “That’s what Serge says.”
“What does Serge say?” asked the visitor.
“Just what you do,” cried the boy, boldly; “that I might grow up to be a great soldier, and still read and use my pen.”
“Well, why not?” said the guest, as he slowly broke off and ate a grape.
The boy frowned and shook his head.
“It is a man’s duty to be ready to draw his sword for his country like a brave citizen, and that country’s son,” continued the guest, warmly, while the boy watched him eagerly, and leaned forward with one hand resting upon the table as if he was drinking in every word that fell from the other’s lips.
“Yes, that’s what Serge says,” he cried, “and that it is a great and noble thing for a man to be ready to die for his country if there is any need.”
“But it is pleasanter to live, my boy,” said the visitor, smiling, “and to be happy with those we love, with those whom we are ready to defend against the enemy. You must be a soldier, then—a defender of your land.”
“No,” said the boy, quickly, and he gave his head a quick shake. “It can never be.”
“Why?”
“Because my father says ‘no.’”
The visitor raised his brows a little, and then, leaning forward slightly to gaze into the boy’s eyes, he said, softly:
“Why does your father say that?”
“Because people are ungrateful and jealous and hard, and would ill-use me, the same as they did him and drove him away from Rome.”
The visitor tightened his lips and was silent, sitting gazing past the boy and through the window, so full of thought that he broke off another grape, raised it to his lips, and then threw it through the opening into a tuft of flowers beyond.
“Ah!” he said, at last, as his eyes were turned again towards the boy. “And so you are going to live here then, and only be a student?”
“Of course,” said the boy, proudly. “It is my father’s wish.”
“And you know nothing, then, about a soldier’s life?”
“Oh, yes, I do,” cried the boy, with his face lighting up.
“Hah! Then your father has taught you to be a soldier and man?”
“Oh, no; he has taught me to read and write. It was some one else who taught me how to use a sword and spear.”
“Hah!” cried the visitor, quickly. “Then you are not all a student?”
“Oh, no.”
“You know how to use a sword?”
“Yes,” said Marcus, laughing, “and a spear and shield as well,” and, warming up, the boy began to talk quickly about all he had learned, ending, to his visitor’s great interest, with a full account of his training in secret and his father’s discovery and ending of his pursuits.
“Well, boy,” said the guest, at last, “it seems a pity.”
“For me to tell you all this?” cried Marcus, whose face was still flushed with excitement. “Yes, I oughtn’t to have spoken and said so much, but somehow you questioned me and seemed to make me talk.”
“Did I?” said the visitor. “Well, I suppose I did; but what I meant was that it seems a pity that so promising a lad should only be kept to his books. But there, a good son is obedient to his father, and his duty is to follow out his commands.”
“Yes,” said the boy, stoutly, “and that’s what Serge says.”
“Then he doesn’t want you to be a soldier now?”
“No,” cried the boy. “He says one of the first things a soldier learns is to obey.”
“Ah!” said the visitor, looking at the boy with his quiet smile. “I should like to know this old soldier, Serge.”
“You soon can,” said the boy, laughing. “Here he comes!” For at that moment there was the deep bark of a dog.
“The dog?” said the visitor.
“Oh, that’s our wolf-hound, Lupe. It means that Serge is coming back.”
The boy had hardly spoken when the man’s step was heard outside, and, directly after, as Marcus’ guest sat watching the door, it was thrust open, and the old soldier entered, saying: “Has the master come back, my lad?” and started back, staring at the sight of the stranger.
“Not yet, Serge. This is a gentleman, a traveller from Rome, who is sitting down to rest.”
Serge drew himself up with a soldierly salute, which was received with dignity, and, as eyes met, the stranger looked the old warrior through and through, while Serge seemed puzzled and suspicious, as he slowly raised his hand and rubbed his head.
“Yes,” said the visitor, “your young master has been playing the kindly host to a weary man. Why do you look at me so hard? You know my face?”
“No,” said Serge, gruffly; “no. But I think I have seen someone like you before.”
“And I,” said the visitor, “have seen many such like you, but few who bear such a character as your young master gives.”
“Eh?” cried Serge, sharply. “Why, what’s he been saying about me?”
“Told me what a brave old soldier you have been.”
“Oh! Oh! Stuff!” growled Serge, sourly.
“And of how carefully you have taught him the duties of a soldier, and told him all about the war.”
“There!” cried Serge, angrily, stepping forward to bring his big, hairy fist down upon the table with a thump. “I don’t know you, or who you are, but you have come here tired, and been given refreshment and rest, and, instead of being thankful, you have been putting all sorts of things in this boy’s head again that he ought to have forgot.”
“Serge! Serge!” cried Marcus, excitedly. “Mind what you are saying! This is a stranger, and a noble gentleman from Rome.”
“I don’t care who he is,” replied the old soldier, fiercely. “He’s no business to be coming here and talking like this. Now, look here, sir,” he continued, turning upon the visitor, who sat smiling coldly with his eyes half closed, “this lad’s father, my old officer—and a better never stepped or led men against Rome’s enemies—gave me his commands, and they were these: that young Marcus here was to give up all thoughts of soldiering and war, and those commands, as his old follower, I am going to carry out. So, as you have eaten and are rested, the sooner you go on your journey the better, and leave us here at peace.”
“Serge!” cried Marcus, firmly; and he drew himself up with his father’s angry look, “you mean well, and wish to do your duty, but this is not the way to speak to a stranger and my father’s guest.”
“He’s not your father’s guest, my lad, but yours, and he’s taken upon himself to say to you what he shouldn’t say, and set you against your father’s commands.”
“Even if he has, Serge, he must be treated as a guest—I don’t know your name, sir,” continued the boy, turning to the visitor, “but in my father’s name I ask you to forgive his true old servant’s blunt, honest speech.”
The visitor rose, grave and stern.
“It is forgiven, my boy,” he said; “for after hearing what he has said I can only respect him for his straightforward honesty. My man, I am an old soldier too. I regret that I have spoken as I did, and I respect you more and more. Rome lost a brave soldier when you left her ranks. Will you shake hands?”
Serge drew back a little, and looked puzzled.
“Yes, give me your hand,” said the visitor. “I am rested and refreshed, but I am not yet going away. I am going to stay and see Cracis, who was once my dear old friend.”
“You knew my master?” cried Serge, with the puzzled look deepening in his eyes.
“Thoroughly,” was the reply, “and we have fought together in the past. He will forgive me what I have said, as I do you, and I shall tell him when he comes how glad I am to see that he has such a son and is so bravely served.”
For answer the old soldier hesitatingly took the proffered hand, and then gladly made his retreat, the pair following him slowly out into the shady piazza, where they stood watching till he disappeared, when the visitor, after glancing round, gathered his toga round him, and sank down into a stone seat, beside one of the shadow-flecked pillars, frowning heavily the while.
“He means well, sir,” said Marcus, hastily; “but I’m sure my father would have been sorry if he had heard. I am glad, though, that I asked you in.”
“Why?” said the visitor, with a peculiar look in his eyes.
“Because you say you are an old friend of his, and, of course, I didn’t know. It was only out of civility that I did so.”
“Yes, so I suppose,” was the reply. “Poor fellow! Your man meant well,” continued the visitor, with his whole manner changed, and he spoke in a half-mocking, cynical way which puzzled and annoyed the boy. “A poor, weak, foolish fellow, though, who hardly understands what he meant. Don’t you think he was very weak, bull-headed and absurd?”
“Well—no,” said the boy, quickly, and his face began to flush, and grew the deeper in tint as he noticed a supercilious, mocking smile playing upon the visitor’s lips. “Serge is a very true, honest fellow, and thought he was doing right.”
“Yes, of course,” said the other, “but some people in meaning to do right often commit themselves and do great wrong.”
“But you knew my father well?” said Marcus, hastily, to change the conversation. “I never heard him mention you.”
“No, I suppose not,” said the visitor, thoughtfully, but with a mocking smile upon his lip growing more marked as he went on. “I don’t suppose he would ever mention me. A very good, true fellow, Cracis, and, as I said, we were once great friends. But a weak and foolish man who got into very great trouble with the Senate and with me. There was great trouble at the time, and I had to defend him.”
“You had to defend my father?” said Marcus, turning pale, and with a strange sensation rising in his breast. “What for?”
“Why, there was that charge of cowardice—the retreat he headed from the Gaulish troops,” continued the visitor, watching the boy intently all the while. “He was charged with being a coward, and—”
“It was a lie!” cried the boy, fiercely. “You know it was a lie. My father is the bravest, truest man that ever lived, and you who speak so can be no friend of his. Old Serge was right, for he saw at once what kind of man you are. How dare you speak to me like that! Go, sir! Leave this house at once.”
“Go, boy?” said the visitor, coldly, and with a look of suppressed anger gathering in his eyes. “And suppose that I refuse to go at the bidding of such a boy as you?”
“Refuse?” cried Marcus, fiercely. “You dare to refuse?”
“Yes, boy, I refuse. And what then?”
“This!” cried the boy, overcome with rage, and, raising his hand, he made a dash as if about to strike, just as a step was heard, and, calmly and thoughtfully, Cracis walked out into the piazza.