CHAPTER XXVI.
What matter, whether through delight, Or led through vale of tears, Or seen at once, or hid from sight, The glorious way appears? If step by step the path we see, That leads, my Saviour, up to Thee!
'I could not help it,' said Dr. May; 'that little witch--'
'Meta Rivers? Oh! what, papa?'
'It seems that Wednesday is her birthday, and nothing will serve her but to eat her dinner in the old Roman camp.'
'And are we to go? Oh, which of us?'
'Every one of anything like rational years. Blanche is especially invited.'
There were transports till it was recollected that on Thursday morning school would recommence, and that on Friday Harry must join his ship.
However, the Roman camp had long been an object of their desires, and Margaret was glad that the last day should have a brilliancy, so she would not hear of any one remaining to keep her company, talked of the profit she should gain by a leisure day, and took ardent interest in every one's preparations and expectations, in Ethel's researches into county histories and classical dictionaries, Flora's sketching intentions, Norman's promises of campanula glomerata, and a secret whispered into her ear by Mary and Harry.
'Meta's weather,' as they said, when the August sun rose fresh and joyous; and great was the unnecessary bustle, and happy confusion from six o'clock till eleven, when Dr. May, who was going to visit patients some way farther on the same road, carried off Harry and Mary, to set them down at the place.
The rest were called for by Mr. Rivers's carriage and brake. Mrs. Charles Wilmot and her little girl were the only additions to the party, and Meta, putting Blanche into the carriage to keep company with her contemporary, went herself in the brake. What a brilliant little fairy she was, in her pink summer robes, fluttering like a butterfly, and with the same apparent felicity in basking in joy, all gaiety, glee, and light-heartedness in making others happy. On they went, through honeysuckled lanes, catching glimpses of sunny fields of corn falling before the reaper, and happy knots of harvest folks dining beneath the shelter of their sheaves, with the sturdy old green umbrella sheltering them from the sun.
Snatches of song, peals of laughter, merry nonsense, passed from one to the other; Norman, roused into blitheness, found wit, the young ladies found laughter, and Richard's eyes and mouth looked very pretty, as they smiled their quiet diversion.
At last, his face drawn all into one silent laugh, he directed the eyes of the rest to a high green mound, rising immediately before them, where stood two little figures, one with a spy-glass, intently gazing the opposite way.
At the same time came the halt, and Norman, bounding out, sprang lightly and nimbly up the side of the mound, and, while the spy-glass was yet pointed full at Wales, had hold of a pair of stout legs, and with the words, 'Keep a good lockout!' had tumbled Mr. May headforemost down the grassy slope, with Mary rolling after.
Harry's first outcry was for his precious glass--his second was, not at his fall, but that they should have come from the east, when, by the compass, Stoneborough was north-north-west. And then the boys took to tumbling over one another, while Meta frolicked joyously, with Nipen after her, up and down the mounds, chased by Mary and Blanche, who were wild with glee.
By-and-by she joined Ethel, and Norman was summoned to help them to trace out the old lines of encampment, ditch, rampart, and gates-- happy work on those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute blossom of the moor--thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow- banded dumbledores, the breezy wind blowing softly in their faces, and the expanse of country--wooded hill, verdant pasture, amber harvest-field, winding river, smoke-canopied town, and brown moor, melting grayly away to the mountain heads.
Now in sun, now in shade, the bright young antiquaries surveyed the old banks, and talked wisely of vallum and fossa, of legion and cohort, of Agricola and Suetonius, and discussed the delightful probability, that this might have been raised in the war with Caractacus, whence, argued Ethel, since Caractacus was certainly Arviragus, it must have been the very spot where Imogen met Posthumus again. Was not yonder the very high-road to Milford Haven, and thus must not 'fair Fidele's grassy tomb' be in the immediate neighbourhood?
Then followed the suggestion that the mound in the middle was a good deal like an ancient tomb, where, as Blanche interposed with some of the lore lately caught from Ethel's studies, 'they used to bury their tears in wheelbarrows,' while Norman observed it was the more probable, as fair Fidele never was buried at all.
The idea of a search enchanted the young ladies. 'It was the right sort of vehicle, evidently,' said Norman, looking at Harry, who had been particularly earnest in recommending that it should be explored; and Meta declared that if they could but find the least trace, her papa would be delighted to go regularly to work, and reveal all the treasures.
Richard seemed a little afraid of the responsibility of treasure- trove, but he was overruled by a chorus of eager voices, and dispossessed of the trowel, which he had brought to dig up some down- gentians for the garden. While Norman set to work as pioneer, some skipped about in wild ecstasy, and Ethel knelt down to peer into the hole.
Very soon there was a discovery--an eager outcry--some pottery! Roman vessels--a red thing that might have been a lamp, another that might have been a lachrymatory.
'Well,' said Ethel, 'you know, Norman, I always told you that the children's pots and pans in the clay ditch were very like Roman pottery.'
'Posthumus's patty pan!' said Norman, holding it up. 'No doubt this was the bottle filled with the old queen's tears when Cloten was killed.'
'You see it is very small,' added Harry; 'she could not squeeze out many.'
'Come now, I do believe you are laughing at it!' said Meta, taking the derided vessels into her hands. 'Now, they really are genuine, and very curious things, are not they, Flora?'
Flora and Ethel admired and speculated till there was a fresh, and still more exciting discovery--a coin, actually a medal, with the head of an emperor upon it--not a doubt of his high nose being Roman. Meta was certain that she knew one exactly like him among her father's gems. Ethel was resolved that he should be Claudius, and began decyphering the defaced inscription THVRVS. She tried Claudius's whole torrent of names, and, at last, made it into a contraction of Tiberius, which highly satisfied her.
Then Meta, in her turn, read D.V.X., which, as Ethel said, was all she could wish--of course it was dux et imperator, and Harry muttered into Norman's ear, 'ducks and geese!' and then heaved a sigh, as he thought of the dux no longer. 'V.V.,' continued Meta; 'what can that mean?'
'Five, five, of course,' said Flora.
'No, no! I have it, Venus Victrix' said Ethel, 'the ancestral Venus! Ha! don't you see? there she is on the other side, crowning Claudius.'
'Then there is an E.'
'Something about Aeneas,' suggested Norman gravely. But Ethel was sure that could not be, because there was no diphthong; and a fresh theory was just being started, when Blanche's head was thrust in to know what made them all so busy.
'Why, Ethel, what are you doing with Harry's old medal of the Duke of Wellington?'
Poor Meta and Ethel, what a downfall! Meta was sure that Norman had known it the whole time, and he owned to having guessed it from Harry's importunity for the search. Harry and Mary had certainly made good use of their time, and great was the mirth over the trap so cleverly set--the more when it was disclosed that Dr. May had been a full participator in the scheme, had suggested the addition of the pottery, had helped Harry to some liquid to efface part of the inscription, and had even come up with them to plant the snare in the most plausible corner for researches.
Meta, enchanted with the joke, flew off to try to take in her governess and Mrs. Wilmot, whom she found completing their leisurely promenade, and considering where they should spread the dinner.
The sight of those great baskets of good fare was appetising, and the company soon collected on the shady turf, where Richard made himself extremely useful, and the feast was spread without any worse mishap than Nipen's running away with half a chicken, of which he was robbed, as Tom reported, by a surly-looking dog that
