Chapter XXVII: Leo and the Vandals

For three days no news from Rome reached the villa on the Sabine hills. To Damaris and Ethne they were days of solitude spent in prayer for their beloved and for Rome. They prayed the “Our Father,” the great prayer of Christendom, over and over, engraving the unfathomable meanings of its simplicity deeper and deeper into their hearts. And “after that manner they prayed always,” every petition pervaded by the “Our Father.” And so the childlike asking for the daily bread and daily forgiveness became possible and real; the solitude of the prayer to “_My Father Who seeth in secret_,” ordained in the Divine ritual, expanded into Our Father’s all-embracing heaven, into the boundlessness of the One Family, into the _Our_ of the most solitary Christian prayer. Also, they prayed the collects of Leo, humble, grand, and simple, the “Grant us the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful;” the prayer to the Pilot of the Church and of each faithful soul, sure to be at the helm through every storm—“Grant that the course of this world may be so peacefully ordered by Thy governance, that Thy Church may serve Thee in all godly quietness.”

These especially for this earth, and then looking beyond to the results in heaven—“Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that Thy faithful people do unto Thee true and laudable service, grant, we beseech Thee, that we may so faithfully serve Thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain Thy heavenly promises, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And perhaps oftenest of all they offered up that prayer of Leo’s which, intertwining commands and promises, unfolds the depths of both command and promise for earth and heaven—“Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain that which Thou dost promise, make us to love that which Thou dost command.”

Thus, often resting their hearts on the staff of Leo’s faithful words, the two women lived through those days of terrible suspense. And on the fourth came the good tidings, that once more, as far as possible, Leo had saved Rome. The messenger told how the peaceful procession of the clergy, the great Bishop leading them, had gone forth from the gates of the defenceless city, along the Ostian Way, and had met the Vandal king.

Less merciful than the Huns, Genseric had yet been moved as never before by that stately, saintly presence, and although he would not relinquish the plunder of the city, he gave orders to his soldiers that there should be no torture of the captives, no slaughter of the unresisting, nor any setting of the buildings on fire.

Marius and Fabricius were still determined that they must not leave as long as they had any chance of helping the miserable, plundered citizens, or were able in any way to mediate, counsel, or sustain.

Ethne could scarcely wish them to do otherwise, and the anguish of suspense had to be borne. It was reported that the nobles were to be taken captive, and sold into slavery in Africa; and who could say that Marius and Fabricius would escape?

A necessity for fresh air and movement came over Ethne; child of the hills and woods, for her the companionship of the mountains and the streams was as that of familiar friends. At first she hesitated to leave Damaris alone, until persuaded by her entreaties.

“Go forth, my daughter,” she said, “among the hills and brooks; thine eyes are always opened to see the well-springs, as thou liftest up the thirsting.”

And Ethne went, usually accompanied by the two people of her own race in the household, Nurse Fedelm and Dewi, and by the great deer-hound. The first day she sought and found no companionship save the streams and the rivers rushing down the crags; the very sound of the water seemed to refresh her like a draught from the cup of life. But the next day she ventured to the ruins of Nero’s villa, to the place whence they had seen the pagan temple crowning the heights and the rude cross of torture planted on the little hill.

It was evening again, as when she went there before with her husband. The temple shone golden in the evening glow, and the cross was reddened with the rays of the dying sun. Ethne was half hoping to see the hermit again once more, when to her delight she perceived the kneeling form in the dark robe with the sheepskin capote, the arms clasped around the cross. She went forward and knelt beside him, whilst Fedelm and Dewi stood at some distance behind. After a time the hermit rose. His face lit up as he recognized Ethne.

“But where is thy husband, my daughter?” he asked.

“In Rome, father!” she said.

“But they say those savages, the Arian Vandals, are plundering and sacking Rome, my child, and that the city lies a defenceless prey in their hands.”

“He stays because Rome _is_ defenceless. Pray for him!” she implored.

“I will pray for him night and day,” was the reply.

“You are a priest?” she said.

“A deacon and servant of Christ and His Christians, as far as may be,” he replied. “Bishop Leo wrote to the Bishops of Campagna, that the priesthood should not be degraded by the ordination of slaves, and I, as thou knowest, was a slave and a fugitive.”

“Bishop Leo has once more saved Rome,” Ethne said, “as far as Rome can be saved.”

“I know,” the hermit said; “I pray for the Bishop constantly, often in his own words. It is not because he despises the slave, but because he honours the ministry of the Lord, that he refuses a slave the priesthood. For, alas! often slavery does degrade the slave unutterably; and also,” he added, in a low, deep voice, “the master.”

“Our Master took the form of a slave,” she said, “and He knows the heart of a slave. I also, father, was once a captive and in bondage. I think nothing teaches like suffering; and that kind of suffering I suppose Leo does not know.”

The hermit was silent a few moments, and then once more, as on that other evening, looking up at the rude weather-beaten cross, he said, with tears in his eyes—

“_Lady, thou hast understood._” Then, seeing her worn, wearied look, he added, “Wilt thou come with thy people into my cave? I have bread and raisins, if thou wilt deign to partake of them; the peasants around are good to me and bring me food; and close beside is a spring of pure water.”

She went with him. An abundant fountain gushed out of the rock just outside the cave, afterwards plashing in a waterfall over the rocks.

“It is one of the springs which feed the Aqua Claudia,” he said.

She smiled.

“Then it has baptized my little Paul,” she said. “Thou hast sent forth thy contribution to the sacred font of the Lateran.”

“Thou hast a little Paul?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “a little Paul, who is, I trust, to tread in the steps of the great Paul, who wrote the letter about the fugitive slave, ‘his own son in the faith, his brother beloved.’”

His voice quivered as he replied—

“I shall pray every evening and morning for that little Paul.”

“As we pray night and morning for the slaves,” she said, “that they may be gathered into the Church as brothers beloved by Christ and by us.”

Then he told her that his cave was supposed to be a haunted cave.

“The peasants think it is the oracle of a faun,” he said, “one of their old forest gods. And still sometimes they come to consult the old deities here. They seek to know the future, if perchance there is any escape for them out of their miseries, which are many. They think they are seeking the old dethroned gods whom their fathers worshipped, in what they think were happier times. But their poor hearts are really thirsting, not for the dead heroes, but for the living God; not for the unhuman fauns, but for the human Saviour. And often they will listen to me when I speak to them of the Christ Who died and is not dead. And I tell them His words, ‘Come unto Me, all that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ And they, being often wearied sore, and overladen, come, and coming, they find rest, for they find Him.”

“I also came here to-day weary and heavy-laden,” she said, “and I go away comforted and at rest.”

“Thou hast not only come to Him, my daughter,” he said, “but thou hast taken His yoke upon thee, which is ‘not my will but Thine!’ His yoke,” he added, “is not indeed always easy, but it is always good. It is the yoke of the plough which shall make thy fields fruitful; the yoke of the water-carrier who brings refreshment wherever he goes. His burdens are not always light, as we understand lightness; but they are burdens which do not hinder, but help. They make the feet ‘swifter,’ not slower, on His ways.”

He spoke with a Greek accent that reminded her of Damaris.

“Thou, like myself, art not of this land,” she said.

“I was from Athens,” he replied. “My mother-tongue was the language in which the great Paul wrote.”

“Thou speakest the words of the gospels as in a mother-tongue,” she said. “From thy lips they seem to drop into my heart fresh from the fountain, with no aqueduct between.”

And as she rose to go away, he said—

“I shall pray constantly for thy little Paul, and for thy husband, and for thee.”

When she returned, Damaris rejoiced at the light in her face.

“Thou hast been among thy fountains!” she said with a smile.

“I have been among _thy_ fountains,” Ethne replied. “I have had water given me to drink from the fountain of thy mother-tongue.”

Another day Ethne resolved to visit once more the farm among the hills, where she had seen the ruddy, happy children, the free, frank, soldierly man with the graceful, dark-eyed young wife, whose face seemed to her familiar, as a strain of music heard long ago. She found the young mother drawing water with a pitcher from the well near the house, her children laughing around her, and helping her to pour the water into a trough for the sheep which were clustering near. Her dark eyes brightened in kindly recognition, and all at once the likeness in her face flashed upon Ethne.

“Rachel!” she exclaimed, “Rachel at the well!”

“Rachel is my name,” the stranger said; “but how couldst thou know me?”

“I did not know thee,” Ethne said, “but I knew thy mother, Miriam, the wife of Eleazar.”

The young mother laid her pitcher on the brim of the well, and knelt down by its side, and clasping her hands in adoration, she looked up to heaven.

“God of our fathers—Father of our Christ,” she said, “Thou hast heard me at last.”

“He has heard thee all the time,” said Ethne, “thee, and thy father and mother, who have sought thee from land to land, and prayed for thee day and night.”

“Where are they?” Rachel asked.

“Alas! they are in wretched, captive, plundered Rome,” Ethne said; “but pray on. The God of thy fathers, the Father of thy Christ and ours, is hearing still.”

Rachel insisted on Ethne’s coming into the cottage with the nurse and Dewi and the dog, and nothing could satisfy her till they had all partaken of her goat’s-milk cheeses, and the flat, Oriental loaves which she baked on the wood fire.

As they were eating, the soldierly husband came in from the fields, and then all their story unfolded itself.

There had been a rising of the people in the city in Asia Minor where Rachel was born, in consequence of some wild calumny about the massacre of a Christian child, and a Roman force had come to restore order. All the Jews in the place had been banished, and some of them had been sold into captivity. Among the captives, Rachel, then a child of twelve, had fallen to the share of a Roman centurion, a brave, simple man, whose mother was of Gothic race.

“He had compassion on me,” Rachel said; “he is the gentlest and bravest of men. He had a little sister about my age. He brought me home to his father’s house and lands among these hills. They were Christians, and welcomed me as one of the people of their Christ, and I also became a Christian, and was baptized. In a few years I became the wife of their son, my deliverer.”

Then Ethne told her all she knew of Miriam and Eleazar; and with the promise that Rachel would come to see her in her own home, she returned to Damaris and her little Paul.