CHAPTER XI.

JUNE, 313--THE FESTIVAL OF VESTA.

Years passed swiftly by, in the fourth century as in the nineteenth!

They brought with them as they came many changes, they bore away with them many hopes, and left behind the memory of many sorrows, and the soft radiance of many vanished joys!

The persecution of the Christians had in great measure ceased, and, with the abdication of Diocletian, the edicts for their arrest and slaughter had been revoked.

It was comparatively a time of peace, and the conflict between the old and the new faiths seemed for a season at rest.

Constantius Chlorus had put a stop to the persecution of the Christians in Britain in the year after Alban had suffered, and now, in the year 313, Constantine was Emperor, and well known to favour the religion of Christ.

But if the old faiths were shaken to their very foundations, every effort was made to put on an appearance of increased enthusiasm at public ceremonials, and to load the altars of the gods and goddesses with the choicest offerings and the most costly sacrifices.

The great festival in honour of Vesta was to be celebrated this year with excessive pomp and circumstance. The preparations were organised on a very large scale, and enormous offerings were continually pouring in to the vestals’ house and the temple, some time before the great day, which fell on the ninth of June.

The Vestal Maxima, Terentia Rufilla, was overwhelmed with all the arrangements which devolved upon her, and on the evening of the seventh of June was lying on a couch in her own chamber, weary and sad. A tall and most beautiful maiden was standing at a marble slab or table covered with evergreens and flowers, which she was weaving into wreaths and emblems with her long slender fingers.

“Come and rest, Hyacintha,” Terentia said; “come and sit near me, I have much to say. To-morrow is the day of your first ministration in the temple, and you will henceforth be a priestess, fully qualified for the service of the goddess. Surely, never had the goddess a more beautiful and more true-hearted servant.”

“Dearest lady,” Hyacintha said, “I feel but little worthy to take the honour upon me; but my heart rejoices to have the longing of years fulfilled.”

“And thou hast no sad misgivings, dear child--no longings for the ordinary lot of woman to trouble thee; the home of the matron, the prattle of children’s voices, the maternal joy and pride which we vestals can never know.”

Hyacintha’s pure untroubled face was raised to that of her friend as she answered--

“Nay, I have no such longings; I am contented, nay, thankful, to be free from all those cares which harass the life of many a woman.”

“Thou art very young yet, dear child, though by special permission thy ten years’ probation has been shortened. Although in the tenth year of thy discipleship, it was not till the time of Pomona that first thou camest hither. How my heart went out to thee then, dear child, and how much we have been to each other since!”

“Yes,” Hyacintha said, “I have known great happiness with thee, and my great ambition is, perhaps, too great to tell even to thy ear. It is a high aim indeed.”

Terentia smiled sadly as she laid her hand upon the beautiful rings of clustering gold which shadowed Hyacintha’s brow.

“Thy ambition,” she repeated. “Thy high aim--what is it?”

“I was wandering last evening in the atrium,” Hyacintha said, “and gazing, as I have done since I was quite a child, at the figures of the past Vestals which stand there. I have often spoken to them. I feel almost as if I knew them all and their histories, as you have told them. I do know Flavia Publicia who has all the praises, and I cannot wonder, so gracious, so beautiful is her face. But I love almost best the face of Vibidia, who, as you have told me, so generously protected poor Messalina. That is a grand deed of any one to be remembered--it is so beautiful, dearest lady, to protect the weak.”

“Is that thy ambition, then, my sweet one?”

“Yes, that is part of my ambition; but the _whole_ is to be a Vestal Maxima. Oh! do not think me foolish, dearest lady, but I should love to have my statue carved in marble, and stand for ever in our noble hall, and for those who pass to read my name, ‘Hyacintha Severa.’ Is it too much to think of?”

“Dear child!” Terentia said, “when I called you to rest by me, the thought was in my mind which you have put into words.

“To-morrow, as you know, you will take up your full duties in the temple. The sculptor is to unveil my likeness in the pure marble in which it was wrought. It will not be placed with my noble predecessors till I resign my high office or die while holding it. Then it will be placed in either case in the atrium, and my name will be followed by whatsoever it may please the priest and the emperor to inscribe on the pedestal. But I shall leave on record that it is my will that you should be elected in my room, and that day may not be far off.”

Hyacintha’s eyes sought those of Terentia anxiously. The joy of her announcement was tempered with sorrow.

“You must not leave us yet,” she said; “you must not speak of it. And I am young and untried, and I fear----”

“What dost thou fear, dear child?”

“That many would consider others should take place before me.”

“The future is hidden,” said Terentia. “I may live for years, instead of months; we will not speak more of this now. Hast thou any longing beside?”

“Nay; except to hear of those I best love: Casca my brother, and my faithful Ebba.”

“They are both converts to the Christian faith.”

“Yes,” Hyacintha said, “and they have had peaceful times at Alexandria, whither they went with old Ezra. I have been hoping for news from Britain to reach me on this occasion of my full profession in the temple, but none has come.”

“Thy father is now in the highest office in Verulam, and perchance may send a special messenger. He knows well that our festival is on the 9th of June, and it is possible some word may be sent.”

“Dearest lady,” Hyacintha said, “does not all life seem like a dream?--everything passing, nothing staying. While we say ‘This is beautiful,’ it is gone; while we exult, the cause of exultation is over; while we weep, the grief or the vexation is vanishing. Did you ever feel as I do--as if I could not lay hold of, or grasp anything?”

“Have I not felt it? Ah! child, a thousand times! But, sure, you have no grief to make you weep.”

“Nay, not grief,” Hyacintha said; “not deep heart-grief, but vexations that arise in a large community like ours; and sometimes if I try to stem a torrent of gossip and bitterness the shafts turn on me, from the young disciple, child though she be, Cœlia, in particular. Not often,” she said, smiling, “not often, but sometimes. And now that I shall have to instruct those beneath me I feel there will be more trial.”

“I do not think you will fail, dear one,” Terentia said; “you have had great success hitherto.”

“When I look back on the records of the priestesses,” Hyacintha said, “I can but feel that there must be something stronger and more potent than mere will which keeps us so secure. In all the long thousand years that have passed since we were first entrusted with the sacred fire, and Numa built us our first temple, to preserve the palladium of Troy, so few have failed to fulfil their vow. Surely this is a proof that what we profess is the true faith. When I first came hither, and Lucia told me of the punishment which befel the vestals who broke their vow, I dreamed of it, and used to fancy myself thrust into that dungeon to starve--so fearful it is to think of--and yet”----Hyacintha paused.

“Tell me what is in thy heart, my daughter; do not be afraid.”

“And yet,” Hyacintha continued, “the disciples of the new faith would cheerfully be shut into a dungeon and starved rather than deny the Man of Nazareth whom they worship. It must be a reality to them, though a false mirage to us. Is it not so?”

Terentia Rufilla was silent. The young maiden, standing at the eve of her full profession as a priestess of the goddess Vesta, had only given words to thoughts which seemed to crave for expression within her own heart.

It must often have been so. The multitude, who knew nothing beyond the old faith, and who were content with the outside show and splendid pageantry that marked a festival like that to be celebrated the next day but one, in honour of Vesta, might be content. But not the earnest, cultivated, highborn woman like Terentia Rufilla, who had read much, and thought much, and had put aside as beneath her consideration the story of the Cross of Christ.

Now that the Church of the Catacombs had been able to lift her head, and openly practise the rites and celebrate the worship of the religion of Christ, it was impossible that women like Terentia should fail to consider what was forced upon their attention. For the vestals did not lead a secluded life--the seniors amongst them were well acquainted with what passed in Rome, and it was impossible for them to be ignorant of the rapid advances which Christianity was making. It was all very well for the careless and idle to ignore the fact, and deny that the old temple was in danger, and the old ceremonies growing effete and languishing. To the thoughtful observer, the base and mean, the low and contemptible religion, was growing apace, and its branches were casting their shadows on every side.

“Yes,” Terentia said, “at least the delusion is apparently no delusion in the eyes of the poor misguided ones who follow it. As a child may try to reach the horizon line which meets the wide-spread Campagna, the sky seeming to touch the earth, and the child believes it does touch it, and runs fast and faster, and lies down at last exhausted, after a fruitless chase. Let us say no more of the Christians now, Hyacintha, but tell me if thy robe is ready for the morrow, and thy two-eared pitcher prepared for the first mission thou hast to perform?”

“Yes, dearest lady. I am to go alone to the fountain unattended, and bring the fresh water to the goddess’s shrine.”

“The lictor must attend thee to the gate of the garden, and await thy return. Then follows the choice of a new disciple. They become less and less numerous every year. I can recall the time when twice twenty young children were waiting to be chosen, and how those who were rejected were often sent away weeping. For the last two years the number has been small, and the noble houses have sent but few aspirants. I remember when thou first camest, dear child, a little wayworn maiden clinging to the hand of Clœlia, who brought thee to the atrium, timidly, and uncertain of thy reception. The daughter of Severus needed no introduction to me in any case, but how gladly I welcomed thee, my fair and lovely one!”

Hyacintha pressed her lips upon the hand which was wound round her neck, and then the two were silent--that silence of perfect sympathy and affection which is so sweet, sweeter far than any words.

The shadows deepened in the house of the vestals early in the evening of the glorious June day. Even at noontide the light in the atrium and state apartments was dim, for the Palatine cliff was behind them, and the wall really supported the road above it. The Imperial palace rose to the height of a hundred and fifty feet in the air; and it is not surprising that sunshine, even at midsummer, only touched the upper floor, and left the vast area below chill and dim with a mysterious light.

Damp must have been an enemy to the health of the vestals; but the recent discoveries have brought to light some curious devices by which the enemy was combated.

Double walls have been unearthed, and double floors, with skilfully diverted currents of hot air which flowed through the interstices, must have in some measure warmed and dried the atmosphere.

Hyacintha could hardly sleep, when at last she retired for the night. She feared so much that she should not be awake at dawn, that she begged Lucia to call her at the first cock-crow. But long before the old vestal had thought of going to her chamber to rouse her, Hyacintha was up and ready to start.

She was conducted by a lictor to the gate of the garden, where we saw her as a child, and went with the swift light foot of a young fawn to the spring on the Cælian Hill. She carried the two-eared vase or jug gracefully poised on her head, and she was leaning against the rock whence the spring flowed, the very type of youthful beauty and radiant health. The dim shadows of the vestals’ house had left her untouched; no damp had been enough to steal the rose-colour from her cheeks, nor the lustre from her beautiful eyes. She was indeed a vision of loveliness, and the tall athletic soldier who, scaling the hill, came all unawares upon her, as Ebba had done years before, might be forgiven, if, with a sudden start, he drew back, and exclaimed--

“The goddess herself, methinks!” He was about to bend the knee before Hyacintha, when he suddenly drew himself erect, and contenting himself with taking off his heavy helmet, he stood, with bowed head, transfixed.

Hyacintha’s cheeks grew crimson, her lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came. The long years which lay between her and the home of her childhood seemed bridged over. Memories of all that had passed in the little upper chamber at Verulam came thronging back, words spoken there, a promise made, all flashed upon her, and then with a voice that was like sound of silvery music, she said--

“Claudius! it is indeed Claudius!”

“Even so, fair and beautiful lady,” the soldier said. “I am Claudius, and had I not renounced the worship of the false gods, I should lie prostrate at your feet, and do you sacrifice.”

“Nay, do not speak like that, good Claudius,” Hyacintha said. “I pray you, let me hear if you bring me news from Verulam.”

“I have seen much foreign service since I left Verulam,” Claudius said; “I have led a battalion against the northern tribes. I have won my way, and I am now in Rome the commander of a legion of fine troops. Where is Casca?”

“Alas! he left Rome some years ago. He is, or was, when last I had tidings of him, at Alexandria, whither he accompanied Ezra and the faithful Ebba. My brother and Ebba are both Christians. Alas, that I should say it!”

“I well know that Ebba is a Christian,” Claudius said; “you have heard that I fulfilled my vow to you, and saved the British slave’s life?”

“Ah, yes! ah, yes! good Claudius, I thank you. Ebba has told me of the noble deed, and Casca, too, has spoken of you. But I have seen neither of them for years. I thank you now for your deed of valour, good Claudius.”

As she stood in the light of the early morning, Claudius could not have drawn nearer or taken her hand in his. An invisible but strong barrier seemed to keep him back.

“My father,” she asked, “is there news of him? I know my mother is dead, and the little Livia also. These tidings were brought me by Caius, whose galley has been several times to Londinium since those far-off days, when he brought us hither, Casca and me.”

“Your father, the noble Severus, has married my sister Junia. Has he never told you?”

“No,” Hyacintha said, the blush on her cheek fading. “No, I hear it now for the first time. I would I had never heard it; forgive me, for Junia is your sister.”

“There is no need to claim forgiveness. I think as hardly of my sister as any one, but I pray daily for her conversion, and I will believe not in vain, for the Lord can change the heart and bring sweetness out of bitterness.”

“Art thou too a Christian?” Hyacintha asked, with an almost imperceptible start backwards.

“A Christian,” Claudius said, “ay, verily, and I would to God you were one also.”

“I,” said Hyacintha, proudly. “Nay, this day is my happy day, the day when I, who have been for near ten years training under the care of the sacred virgins, have my lot appointed me to minister in the temple and sprinkle the shrine with this pure water, which I have been allowed to draw myself alone at dawn for the first time. To-morrow is our glad festival, and we shall walk through the city in a long procession, and to-night I shall for the first time keep watch alone in the temple. It is a great and wonderful thing to be a vestal! I would not exchange my lot for an Imperial diadem,” she said, with a proud dignified motion of her head. “I would I were more worthy to fulfil so high a destiny.”

Claudius, who had led a Roman phalanx against hordes of barbarians, and had never feared danger or shrunk from death, felt strangely timid in the presence of this beautiful friend of his early years.

He had kept her image before him, as the winning, lovely child, so full of earnestness of purpose, so gentle and tender to the slaves in her mother’s household, so full of sympathy with their pain and trouble, so devoted in her service of affection to her delicate and weakly brother. Claudius had preserved her image as a child, and loved her; now she was standing before him in the full beauty of her womanhood, and he felt his love was nearly worship. He was a Christian now. He had been won to embrace the faith by the example of a few who professed Christianity amongst Constantine’s army. Claudius had been with the Emperor’s force, when he went to repress an incursion of the Franks, one of the hardy Northern tribes on the banks of the Rhine. It was just at the time when the treacherous Maximian had taken advantage of Constantine’s absence to seize all the treasure at Arles, and dispensing it amongst the soldiers who were stationed in Southern Gaul, hoped to establish his authority by gifts and bribes. But before that was done Constantine had returned with extraordinary quickness, and Claudius had been with his army when he arrived at the gates of Arles with a force which it was impossible to resist, and which scarcely gave him time to take refuge in the nearest city of Marseilles.

Claudius had indeed seen much active service since he had gone out with Valens to pursue the little band of Christians in the forest near Radburn, and many a time the cries and tears of that innocent and inoffensive little band seemed to sound in his ears and reproach him.

“I think,” he said, “the first time I ever felt that the religion of Christ must be a reality was when I saw that brave woman Agatha quietly submit to receive the dead Jewish girl in the dark dungeon, and, faint and exhausted, as it proved, even to death, make no murmur at the lonely vigil with the dead to which I left her. I would not speak to you here,” Claudius continued, “of my deeds of prowess. Those scenes in which I have taken part are no theme for your ear, most beautiful Hyacintha, but I would fain tell you, that face to face with death a hundred times, I have felt the power of God within me was mighty to save.

“In the last great fight at Saxa Rubra, where we came unawares upon the army of Maxentius, I fought side by side with the friend who has so deeply influenced me. He was a Christian indeed, and though he defended himself valiantly, he indulged in no barbaric cruelty, such as we soldiers have often witnessed, and--I say it with shame--indulged in.”

“The story of that battle is well known amongst us,” Hyacintha said. “We have been rid of the tyrant Maxentius, and Rome may have rest.”

“There can be but little rest,” said Claudius. “I, for one, am weary of the clang of arms and fighting. Methinks I shall resign my high post, and try to find Casca in the far-off city where you say he is gone. The roar of the vanquished ones as they rushed to meet their fate in the swift-flowing Tiber sounds in my ear many a time and oft, and I would fain lay down my arms. I have had a glut of battles, and could almost take up Casca’s cry of--‘Anything but bloodshed.’ I am a rough fellow, I know, but Christianity can tame the roughest, and subdue the most ferocious nature. It would lift _you_,” he continued, in a voice faltering from deep emotion, “to the very height of the angelic host.”

A smile broke over Hyacintha’s face.

“Good Claudius,” she said; “I am in no need of exaltation, neither of humiliation. For when I think of all the great privileges which lie before me to-day--of the lonely watch before the altar of Vesta, and of the part which I shall take to-morrow in the great festival, I feel, methinks, as if my heart swelled with proud thankfulness.

“The time is come for me,” she continued, “to return, for the sun is getting high above the horizon.

“Ah!” she said, stretching out her arms to the lovely view before her. “How beautiful the city is! how grand! how like a queen! and surely I am highly favoured to be allowed to minister at the sacred altar, and keep alive the purifying flame which shall ensure the safety of thousands in Rome.”

“Little do you dream in your seclusion of all the wickedness that seethes like a turbid fountain whose waters cast up mire and dirt in Rome!” Claudius exclaimed. “It may be well that you, in your purity and innocence, should know but little--nay, nothing--of all that lies below the surface--greed, and lust, and murder, all those things which are the signs and token, or, rather, the fruits of the flesh.”

“Do not tell me more,” Hyacintha said. “I cannot amend what is wrong. I am content to believe, as those higher and nobler than I am have believed for a thousand years.”

“Are you indeed content to believe?” Claudius asked sadly. “I know that if I were to draw a picture of all, that after only a short residence, _I_ see in Rome, you would not be content. The wife and daughter of Diocletian have been foully murdered. Think you not that the blood of the Christian matrons and maidens who fell under the ban of the Emperor did not cry for vengeance, and that the cry was answered by their destruction?”

“The innocent suffering for the guilty? Nay,” said Hyacintha, with a light laugh; “if the God whom you worship decrees such judgment, He is not worthy of love.”

“And yet,” said Claudius, “and yet in the sufferings of Christ, the pure, the undefiled, for the sinner, rests our safety.”

“Nay! not your safety,” exclaimed Hyacintha; “or why did Christ leave so many to perish, torn by wild beasts, stoned, and tortured?”

“I am no scholar,” Claudius said. “I am not like Casca, learned in argument and reasoning, but there is in me a witness to the truth of what I say. The innocent suffered for the guilty, and there is salvation in that suffering for all who believe; and I _know_ in whom I believe!”

Hyacintha was silent. Claudius had always seemed to her in her childish days a brave and athletic youth, when feats of arms and success in the games had so often brought her father’s angry and contemptuous taunts on the head of her brother Casca.

Many a time had she heard him declare that Claudius ought to have been his son, and that the weakly Casca was scarcely better than a girl. Hyacintha had often shrunk from Claudius’s roughness, his boisterous laugh, his loud ringing voice as he rallied Casca on his depression. Now she could but tell herself there was a change. The face, bronzed by exposure, and scarred in two places by a sword-cut, was benign and gentle in its expression. The voice that came from under that mass of reddish hair was subdued and even musical. Claudius was changed--what had brought about that change? She was, I think, unconscious that as she stood there--the most winning and beautiful picture of womanhood--that she filled Claudius’s strong and noble heart with longing to possess her--to take her from this false faith, to bring her to the foot of the Cross, that she might live in the true light that lighteth every man.

Hyacintha’s was one of those pure and noble natures to whom service is a necessity, and who can know no selfish and ignoble aims.

There was never a little disciple in distress about a torn garment or a neglected lesson but she came to Hyacintha for help. There was not wanting the mean spirit of jealousies amongst the vestals; bitter tongues were often in motion; rivalries, and anxieties for the best places at the games, and for notice from those in power were rife; the choicest viands at the table were eagerly sought; and the weariness and lassitude which are born of the service which is not heart-service, and therefore becomes drudgery, continually produced ill-temper, which is so often the outcome of discontent. It was rare, indeed, to find Hyacintha cross or angry; she bore and forbare, and won her way through all the trials of her surroundings with a wonderful patience.

Her relationship to Terentia Rufilla, and the close friendship which existed between them, excited, as was only probable, the envy of many of her companions. But ill-will could not flourish near her. The bright serenity of her nature triumphed over every obstacle, and, like the sun, dispersed the clouds around her, as day by day she rose higher in the estimation of those with whom she shared the daily routine of the Vestals’ House.

That these noble characters were by no means uncommon in the days of which I write is beyond a question. They shine out amongst the records of those times like stars in the firmament, and many women like Hyacintha Severa have, when converted to the faith of Christ, shown that they were true as steel and steadfast as a rock, and glad to suffer and to die for the name of Christ.

The fountain rippled, and the falling of the water made a low, monotonous murmur; the sun rising above the hills turned every dew-drop into a diamond, and lay upon the turf, which was jewelled with flowers in golden bands.

Hyacintha stood lost in meditation, Claudius watching her.

He drew a step nearer, and she started, as if from a happy dream; then he spoke in low, earnest tones.

“Hyacintha, would that I could think you knew in whom you believe. Sweet friend, I will pray for you, and my prayers--rough and untaught soldier as I am--ascending continually, will be heard. I would not hurt a hair of your head,” he continued, earnestly. “I would not even bring the shadow of a cloud over you. I know that you have vowed to give up all loves of earth, and that the vow you have taken is the vow for life. Were you other than what you are, I might tell you of the love I bear you--a love which has kept me in the thickest onslaught of temptation! As you keep the sacred fire on the altar, so have I kept this love for you in my heart.

“It will burn there till I die, and after death it will still live on.... Nay,” he said, as he saw the swift blush mantle Hyacintha’s cheek--“nay, I would not awaken in you one troubled thought. I shall never possess you, but the love I bear you is deathless. I seem to see in the future a land more beautiful than mortal eye has ever looked upon, and there something tells me I shall find you, my beautiful one, in garments whiter even than that you now wear, and bought for you by the Innocent who suffered for the guilty.”

Claudius, like many another man who has loved as a pure, good man only can love, seemed carried into eloquence by the force of the feeling within him.

He knelt for a moment at Hyacintha’s feet, took her hand and kissed it, and the next moment he was gone.

The awakening had come for the Vestal on the very eve of her full admission to the duties she had so longed for: that awakening comes to most of us; and there was never a true and good woman who could lightly esteem the devotion of a noble-hearted man.

Hyacintha stood leaning against the rock whence the fountain flowed; for a few moments her heart beat fast, and her eyes were dim with unbidden tears, as she thought over all that Claudius had said.

He was, indeed, in earnest; truth was written on his fine face; and truth rang out in the tones of his voice.

For a few minutes a vague longing possessed her--a longing which could hardly be clothed in words. Then she smiled as she said, softly--

“Good Claudius! Brave, noble Claudius! May he find all the happiness he craves for me!”

The two-eared vase was raised by her unfaltering hand, so that not one crystal drop was spilled as she bore it on her stately head, and went down to the gate where the lictors had awaited her coming patiently, wondering much at her long delay.