Chapter 2

Round turned he, as not deigning Those craven ranks to see; Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, To Sextus naught spake he; But he saw on Palatinus[18-22] The white porch of his home; And he spake to the noble river That rolls by the towers of Rome.

"O Tiber! father Tiber![18-23] To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, Take thou in charge this day!" So he spake, and speaking sheathed The good sword by his side, And with his harness on his back Plunged headlong in the tide.

No sound of joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank; But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank; And when above the surges They saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer.

But fiercely ran the current, Swollen high by months of rain: And fast his blood was flowing, And he was sore in pain, And heavy with his armor, And spent with changing blows: And oft they thought him sinking, But still again he rose.

Never, I ween, did swimmer, In such an evil case, Struggle through such a raging flood Safe to the landing-place: But his limbs were borne up bravely By the brave heart within, And our good father Tiber Bore bravely up his chin.

"Curse on him!" quoth false Sextus; "Will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day We should have sacked the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porsena, "And bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never seen before."

And now he feels the bottom; Now on dry earth he stands; Now round him throng the Fathers To press his gory hands; And now, with shouts and clapping, And noise of weeping loud, He enters through the River-Gate, Borne by the joyous crowd.

They gave him of the corn-land, That was of public right, As much as two strong oxen Could plow from morn till night; And they made a molten image, And set it up on high, And there it stands unto this day To witness if I lie.

It stands in the Comitium,[20-24] Plain for all folk to see; Horatius in his harness, Halting upon one knee: And underneath is written, In letters all of gold, How valiantly he kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

And still his name sounds stirring Unto the men of Rome, As the trumpet-blast that cries to them To charge the Volscian[20-25] home; And wives still pray to Juno[20-26] For boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well In the brave days of old.

And in the nights of winter, When the cold north-winds blow, And the long howling of the wolves Is heard amidst the snow; When round the lonely cottage Roars loud the tempest's din, And the good logs of Algidus Roar louder yet within:

When the oldest cask is opened, And the largest lamp is lit; When the chestnuts glow in the embers, And the kid turns on the spit; When young and old in circle Around the firebrands close; And the girls are weaving baskets, And the lads are shaping bows;

When the goodman mends his armor, And trims his helmet's plume; When the goodwife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom,-- With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.[22-27]

FOOTNOTES:

[1-1] Clusium was a powerful town in Etruria.

[1-2] According to the religion of the Etruscans there were nine great gods. An oath by them was considered the most binding oath that a man could take.

[2-3] This line shows us that the writing of the Etruscans was done backwards, as we should consider it; that is, they wrote from right to left instead of from left to right.

[3-4] Nurscia was a city of the Sabines.

[3-5] _Tale_ here means _number_.

[3-6] Sutrium was an Etruscan town twenty-nine miles from Rome.

[3-7] The Latins were an Italian race who, even before the dawn of history, dwelt on the plains south of the Tiber. Rome was supposed to be a colony of Alba Longa, the chief Latin city, but the Latin peoples were in the fourth century brought into complete subjection to Rome.

[3-8] _Champaign_, or _campagna_, means any open, level tract of country. The name is specifically applied to the extensive plains about Rome.

[4-9] A part of the Capitoline, one of the seven hills on which Rome is built, was called the Tarpeian Rock, after Tarpeia, daughter of an early governor of the citadel on the Capitoline. According to the popular legend, when the Sabines came against Rome, Tarpeia promised to open the gate of the fortress to them if they would give her what they wore on their left arms. It was their jewelry which she coveted, but she was punished for her greed and treachery, for when the soldiers had entered the fortress they hurled their shields upon her, crushing her to death.

[5-10] _Fathers of the City_ was the name given to the members of the Roman Senate.

[5-11] Ostia was the port of Rome, situated at the mouth of the Tiber.

[5-12] Janiculum is a hill on the west bank of the Tiber at Rome. It was strongly fortified, and commanded the approach to Rome.

[5-13] _Iwis_ is an obsolete word meaning _truly_.

[5-14] When the kings were banished from Rome the people vowed that never again should one man hold the supreme power. Two chief rulers were therefore chosen, and were given the name of _consuls_.

[7-15] Sextus was the son of the last king of Rome. It was a shameful deed of his which finally roused the people against the Tarquin family.

[8-16] In the temple of the goddess Vesta a sacred flame was kept burning constantly, and it was thought that the consequences to the city would be most dire if the fire were allowed to go out. The Vestal virgins, priestesses who tended the flame, were held in the highest honor.

[10-17] The Roman people were divided into two classes, the patricians, to whom belonged all the privileges of citizenship, and the plebeians, who were not allowed to hold office or even to own property. Macaulay gives the English name _Commons_ to the plebeians.

[11-18] A discussion as to who these chiefs were, or as to where the places mentioned were located, would be profitless. The notes attempt to give only such information as will aid in understanding the story.

[12-19] _Campania_ is another name for the campagna.

[12-20] _Hinds_ here means _peasants_.

[14-21] Romulus, the founder of Rome, and Remus, his brother, were, according to the legend, rescued and brought up by a she-wolf, after they had been cast into the Tiber to die.

[18-22] The Palatine is one of the seven hills of Rome.

[18-23] The Romans personified the Tiber River, and even offered prayers to it.

[20-24] The Comitium was the old Roman polling-place, a square situated between the Forum and the Senate House.

[20-25] The Volscians were among the most determined of the Italian enemies of Rome.

[20-26] Juno was the goddess who was thought of as presiding over marriage and the birth of children.

[22-27] You can tell from these last three stanzas, that Macaulay is writing his poem, not as an Englishman of the nineteenth century, but as if he were a Roman in the days when Rome, though powerful, had not yet become the luxurious city which it afterward was. That is, he thought of himself as writing in the days of the Republic, not in the days of the Empire.

LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER

_By_ THOMAS CAMPBELL

A chieftain, to the Highlands bound, Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry! And I'll give thee a silver pound, To row us o'er the ferry."

"Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, This dark and stormy water?" "O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, And this Lord Ullin's daughter.

"And fast before her father's men Three days we've fled together, For should he find us in the glen, My blood would stain the heather.

"His horsemen hard behind us ride; Should they our steps discover, Then who will cheer my bonny bride When they have slain her lover?"

Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, "I'll go, my chief--I'm ready; It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady:

"And by my word! the bonny bird In danger shall not tarry; So though the waves are raging white, I'll row you o'er the ferry."

By this the storm grew loud apace, The water-wraith was shrieking; And in the scowl of heaven each face Grew dark as they were speaking.

But still as wilder blew the wind, And as the night grew drearer, Adown the glen rode armed men, Their trampling sounded nearer.

"O haste thee, haste!" the lady cries, "Though tempests round us gather; I'll meet the raging of the skies, But not an angry father."

The boat had left a stormy land, A stormy sea before her,-- When, oh! too strong for human hand, The tempest gather'd o'er her.

And still they row'd amidst the roar Of waters fast prevailing: Lord Ullin reach'd that fatal shore, His wrath was changed to wailing.

For sore dismay'd, through storm and shade, His child he did discover:-- One lovely hand she stretch'd for aid, And one was round her lover.

"Come back! come back!" he cried in grief, "Across this stormy water: And I'll forgive your Highland chief, My daughter!--oh my daughter!"

'Twas vain: the loud waves lashed the shore, Return or aid preventing; The waters wild went o'er his child, And he was left lamenting.

SIR WALTER SCOTT

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Of the old and honorable families of Scotland there are perhaps none more worthy than those from which were descended the parents of Sir Walter Scott. In the long line of ancestors on either side were fearless knights and bold chiefs of the Scottish Border whose adventures became a delightful heritage to the little boy born into the Edinburgh family of Scott in 1771. Perhaps his natural liking for strange and exciting events would have made him even more eager than other children to be told fairy stories and tales of real heroes of his own land. But even had this not been so, the way in which he was forced to spend his early childhood was such that entertainment of this kind was about all that he could enjoy. He was not two years old when, after a brief illness, he lost the use of one of his legs and thus became unable to run about as before, or even to stand. Soon afterward he was sent to his grandfather's farm at Sandy-Knowe, where it was thought that the country life would help him. There he spent his days in listening to lively stories of Scotsmen who had lived in the brave and rollicking fashion of Robin Hood, in being read to by his aunt or in lying out among the rocks, cared for by his grandfather's old shepherd. When thus out of doors he found so much of interest about him that he could not lie still and would try so hard to move himself about that at length he became able to rise to his feet and even to walk and run.

Except for his lameness, he grew so well and strong that when he was about eight years old he was placed with his brothers in the upper class of the Edinburgh grammar school, known as the High School. Though he had had some lessons in Latin with a private tutor, he was behind his class in this subject, and being a high-spirited and sensitive boy, he felt rather keenly this disadvantage. Perhaps the fact that he could not be one of the leaders of his class made him careless; at any rate, he could never be depended upon to prepare his lesson, and at no time did he make a consistently good record. However, he found not a little comfort for his failure as a student in his popularity as a storyteller and kind-hearted comrade. Among the boys of his own rank in the school he won great admiration for his never-ending supply of exciting narratives and his willingness to give help upon lessons that he would otherwise have left undone.

At the end of three years his class was promoted, and he found the new teacher much more to his liking. Indeed, his ability to appreciate the meaning and beauty of the Latin works studied became recognized: he began to make translations in verse that won praise, and, with a new feeling of distinction, he was thus urged on to earnest efforts. After leaving this school, he continued his excellent progress in the study of Latin for a short time under a teacher in the village of Kelso, where he had gone to visit an aunt.

Meanwhile his hours out of school were spent in ways most pleasing to his lively imagination. His lameness did not debar him from the most active sports, nor even from the vigorous encounters in which, either with a single opponent or with company set against company, the Scotch schoolboys defended their reputation as hard fighters. One of these skirmishes that made a lasting impression upon Walter Scott he himself tells us of, and his biographer, Lockhart, has quoted it in describing the hardy boyhood days of the great writer. It frequently happened that bands of children from different parts of Edinburgh would wage war with each other, fighting with stones and clubs and other like weapons. Perhaps the city authorities thought that these miniature battles afforded good training: at least the police seem not to have interfered. The boys in the neighborhood where Walter lived had formed a company that had been given a beautiful standard by a young noblewoman. This company fought every week with a band composed of boys of the poorer classes. The leader of the latter was a fine-looking young fellow who bore himself as bravely as any chieftain. In the midst of a hotly fought contest, this boy had all but captured the enemy's proudly erected standard when he was struck severely to the ground with a cruelly heavy weapon. The dismayed companies fled in all directions, and the lad was taken to the hospital. In a few days, however, he recovered; and then it was that through a friendly baker Walter Scott and his brothers were able to get word to their mistreated opponent and to offer a sum of money in token of their regret. But Green-breeks, as the young leader had been dubbed, refused to accept this, and said besides that they might be sure of his not telling what he knew of the affair in which he had been hurt, for he felt it a disgrace to be a talebearer. This generous conduct so impressed young Scott and his companions that always afterward the fighting was fair.

It must have been with not a little difficulty that this warlike spirit was subdued and made obedient to the strict rules observed in the Presbyterian home on Sunday. To a boy whose mind was filled with stirring deeds of adventure and all sorts of vivid legends and romances, the long, gloomy services seemed a tiresome burden. Monday, however, brought new opportunities for reading favorite poets and works of history and travel, and many were the spare moments through the week that were spent thus. The marvelous characters and incidents in Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ were a never-ending source of enjoyment, and later Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ was discovered by the young reader with a gladness that made him forget everything else in the world. "I remember well," he has written, "the spot where I read these volumes for the first time. It was beneath a huge platanus tree, in the ruins of what had been intended for an old-fashioned arbor in the garden I have mentioned. The summer day sped onward so fast that, notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was found still entranced in my intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was in this instance the same thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed my schoolfellows, and all who would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads of Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I could scrape a few shillings together, which were not common occurrences with me, I bought unto myself a copy of these beloved volumes; nor do I believe I ever read a book half so frequently, or with half the enthusiasm."

After his return from Kelso, Walter was sent to college, but with no better results than in the early years at the High School. The Latin teacher was so mild in his requirements that it was easy to neglect the lessons, and in beginning the study of Greek the boy was again at a disadvantage, for nearly all his classmates, unlike himself, knew a little of the language. He was scarcely more successful in a private course in mathematics, but did well in his classes in moral philosophy. History and civil and municipal law completed his list of studies. So meager did this education seem that in later years Scott wrote in a brief autobiography, "If, however, it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages--let such a reader remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth: that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance: and that I would at this moment give half the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by doing so I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science."

It had been decided that Walter should follow his father's profession, that of the law, and accordingly he entered his father's office, to serve a five years' apprenticeship. Though it may seem surprising, in view of his former indolence, it is true that he gave himself to his work with great industry. At the same time, however, he continued to read stories of adventure and history and other similar works with as much zest as ever, and entered into an agreement with a friend whereby each was to entertain the other with original romances. The monotony of office duties was also relieved by many trips about the country, in which the keenest delight was felt in natural beauties and in the historical associations of old ruins and battlefields and other places of like interest. Then, too, there were literary societies that advanced the young law-apprentice both intellectually and socially. Thus the years with his father passed. Then, as he was to prepare himself for admission to the bar, he entered law classes in the University of Edinburgh, with the result that in 1792 he was admitted into the Faculty of Advocates.

The first years of his practice, though not without profit, might have seemed dull and irksome to the young lawyer, had not his summers been spent in journeys about Scotland in which he came into possession of a wealth of popular legends and ballads. It was during one of these excursions, made in 1797, that he met the attractive young French woman, Charlotte Carpenter, who a few months later became his wife. A previous and unfortunate love affair had considerably sobered Scott's ardent nature, but his friendship and marriage with Miss Carpenter brought him much of the happiness of which he had believed himself to have been deprived.

The young couple spent their winters in Edinburgh and their summers at the suburb Lasswade. During the resting time passed in the country cottage, Scott found enjoyment in composing poems based upon some of the legends and superstitions with which he had become familiar in his jaunts among ruined castles and scenes in the Highlands. Some of these verses, shown in an offhand manner to James Ballantyne, who was the head of a printing establishment in Kelso, met with such favorable recognition that Scott was encouraged to lay bare to his friend a plan that had been forming in his mind for publishing a great collection of Scotch ballads. As a result Scott entered upon the work of editing them and by 1803 had published the three volumes of his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. So successful was this venture that shortly afterward he began the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, a lengthy poem in which his keen interest in the thrilling history of the Scottish Border found full expression. This poem, published in 1805, was heartily welcomed, and opened to its author the career for which he was best fitted.

The popularity of the _Lay_, together with the fact that the young poet had won no honors as an advocate, doubtless accounts for his retiring from the bar in 1806. He had been made sheriff of Selkirkshire in 1799, and to the income thus received was added that of a clerk of the Court of Sessions, an office to which he was appointed in 1806. More than this, he had in the preceding year become a partner in the Ballantyne printing establishment, which had moved to Edinburgh, and his growing fame as a writer seemed to promise that his association with this firm would bring considerable profit.

With a good income thus assured, Scott was able within the following four years to produce besides minor works, two other great poems, _Marmion, a Tale of Flodden Field_, and _The Lady of the Lake_. These rank with the most stirring and richly colored narrative poems in our language. So vivid, indeed, are the pictures of Scottish scenery found in _The Lady of the Lake_, that, according to a writer who was living when it was published, "The whole country rang with the praises of the poet--crowds set off to view the scenery of Loch Katrine, till then comparatively unknown; and as the book came out just before the season for excursions, every house and inn in that neighborhood was crammed with a constant succession of visitors."

This lively and pleasing story, with its graceful verse form, has become such a favorite for children's reading, that it seems very amusing to be told of the answer given by one of Scott's little daughters to a family friend who had asked her how she liked the poem: "Oh, I have not read it; papa says there's nothing so bad for young people as reading bad poetry." The biographer Lockhart recounts also a little incident in which young Walter Scott, returning from school with the marks of battle showing plainly on his face, was asked why he had been fighting, and replied, looking down in shame, that he had been called a _lassie_. Never having heard of even the title of his father's poem, the boy had fiercely resented being named, by some of his playmates, _The Lady of the Lake_.

In order to fulfil his duties as sheriff, Scott had in 1804 leased the estate of Ashestiel, and in this wild and beautiful stretch of country on the Tweed River had spent his summers. When his lease expired in 1811, he bought a farm of one hundred acres extending along the same river, and in the following year removed with his family to the cottage on this new property. This was the simple beginning of the magnificent Abbotsford home. Year after year changes were made, and land was added to the estate until by the close of 1824 a great castle had been erected. The building and furnishing of this mansion were of the keenest interest to its owner, an interest that was expressed probably with most delight in the two wonderful armories containing weapons borne by many heroes of history, and in the library with its carved oak ceiling, its bookcases filled with from fifteen to twenty thousand volumes, among which are some of unusual value, and its handsome portrait of the eldest of Scott's sons.