Vetal

“ Vesta.—The history of Vesta is perhaps less romantic, but it affords a more exact parallel between household and state. In the primitive community the king's hearth is not merely of symbolical importance, but of great practical utility, in that it is kept continually burning as the source of fire on which the individual householder may draw: hence it is the duty of the king's daughters to care for it and keep the flame perpetually alight. In Rome the temple of Vesta is the king's hearth, situated, as one would expect, in close proximity to the regia. ”

“ Manifestly you are telling the truth about your acts, your impulses and your thoughts, I judge you a pure-minded, clean-hearted Vestal, most suitable for her duties. Vesta understands and is glad of your good intentions and pleased with your struggles to master yourself. You are most acceptable to her. You will bring no curses on Rome, but your prayers will be heard and you will bring many blessings on the Empire. ”

“ Brinnaria flamed at him. “What in all the tragic, dramatic history of Rome is half so dramatic or a tenth so tragic as the burial of a Vestal? In all our centuries of ferocity, what seems half so cruel?
“I know that cruelty played no part in the invention of burial alive as a punishment for a convicted Vestal. I know that no caitiff could be found so vile as to dare to lay hands on a Vestal, no ruffian so reckless as to venture to end her life by sword or axe, by strangling or drowning. The most impious miscreant has too much fear of the gods to injure a consecrated priestess. ”

“ I speak as Chief Pontifex and as Emperor of Rome. I command you to forget your qualms and to banish your fears. Officially as Chief Pontifex I judge you a ministrant most acceptable to your Goddess, as a most fit and suitable Vestal. I judge that no girl naturally austere, frigid and self-contained could be half so pleasing to Vesta as a tempestuous child like you who curbs her temper and schools her outward behavior all she can in the effort to be all she ought to be; whose feelings even tame themselves without any effort of hers in the holy atmosphere of the Atrium. ”

“ In the afternoon Vytal sought Rouse at the fortress, which had been rebuilt.
“Where is Roger?”
“I know not,” replied Hugh. “He is mad in this new country, more addle-pated than before. An hour ago I saw him leading King Lud away into the woods, and, following him, Mistress Gyll Croyden, after whom he runs nowadays as the bear runs after him. They went, I think, to speed some friendly Indians on their homeward way. But he is mad with his pipe and tabor, his cittern and King Lud. I fear in his wagging head there is no sense left.”
Vytal smiled. He knew men. “Come, we will go in search of them. ”

“ I want you to understand that I like you, that I haven’t forgotten that you rescued the retiarius, whopped Bambilio and behaved like a trump when Father tested you. I’m for you. Your colts are the cream of Italian stud-farms. You are a wonderful woman, all round. But, as a Vestal, you have your weak points. I remember Father’s instructions about you and I have all that in mind. Besides, I know that I, as Chief Pontiff, have the right to make my own decision about any such matter and to brush aside anybody else’s opinion and anybody else’s interpretation of the evidence. ”

“ I’d keep my eyes cast down for a month or a year and then, right in the middle of a sacrifice, I’d see something funny, like the gander squawking under the feet of the pall-bearers at poor old Gibba’s funeral at the farm last summer, and I’d wink at the head Vestal or roll my eyes at the whole congregation and spoil the prayers; or, after keeping meek and mum for a year or so I’d be so wild to laugh that I’d roar right out and break up the whole service. I think I’m the last girl alive to be a Vestal. A Vestal mustn’t answer back or make a pun, no matter how good a chance she gets. ”

“ I need not describe to you the feelings of my colleagues, nor my own. To hint them is perhaps too much; to particularize them would be unseemly. I may say, however, that just as street-boys acclaim you by shouting:
“‘That’s the girl that saved the dog;’ just as all over the Empire you are talked of as the lady who rescued the retiarius; so at any festival or ceremonial in which the Vestals take part, many a dignitary is likely to nudge his neighbor, indicate you and whisper:
“‘That’s the priestess who walloped Bambilio!’ You are not infamous, you are famous. ”

“ Grasping her robe firmly with both hands, escaping by a hair’s-breadth the despairing clutch of the horrified Manlia, Brinnaria half vaulted, half rolled over the parapet, swung sailor-fashion to the rope her robe formed, went down it, hand over hand, raced across the sand and faced the victorious secutor.
He, although a foreigner and a savage, had been long enough in Rome to know perfectly what a Vestal was and he recoiled from her in a panic no less than he would have felt had the goddess Vesta herself come down from the sky to balk him of his prey. ”

“ We are all proud of you, from the Emperor down to the lowest slumgullion, every single Roman of us. You are certainly the most popular woman alive and your popularity is now of a sort to last as long as you live, complete and unqualified. You were popular before, but with considerable reservations. The hierarchy liked you, but were not sure that they ought to approve a Vestal who had perpetrated such exploits as yours, particularly your trouncing poor old Faltonius. The nobility admired you, but shook their heads over your stock-farming. ”

“ What will you have? I have growing fame, prosperity, an accomplished society woman for my wife. Was not that what you wished for me?" His words stung.
Vesty had her dim look; she had turned cold; her speech groped pitifully. "But I think I saw—I think I understood a little, after all—because I loved you—what are you doing it for, Notely?"
"Ah, there, indeed!—what for? I have lost my object, you know, Saint Vesta. For fame and frolic and the devil, I suppose—since we are talking face to face with an immortal Basin—and to fill up the time generally." ”

“ I return to my people, but I have learned among thine to interpret more than words. Thus, and by my own heart, I know that we are left behind. I have spoken.”
“You have spoken no lie.”
“I am Manteo, and lie not.”
“My brother,” rejoined Vytal, “listen.” And he told the chief the tale succinctly, omitting only the complicity of Ananias Dare. “An you learn more,” he said, in conclusion, “you will tell me, I trust, and none other.”
“Only to thee have I spoken, or shall speak. For thou art a chief, as I am, among men.”
There remains no more to be told concerning life on the fly-boat. ”

“ All earthly things fade and vanish, but that Crown fadeth not away. Ah! I am glad I am a Christian!”
And now the shadow of the Great Past closes over those whose lives, or rather the fragments of whose lives, we have followed through long years in this little story. The silence which throws its mantle like a veil over the ruins of the temple and the atrium of the Vestals cannot be broken.
The statues of the Vestales Maximæ stand like voiceless messengers from that time of darkness—a darkness which was, as we know, the darkness before the dawn. ”

“ Every human being in the audience was staring at the amazing spectacle of a Vestal virgin, clad only in her thin, clinging tunic, standing over a fallen retiarius and facing an appalled and dumbfounded secutor. ”

“ The Vestal Great-Mother left, and Domitia was glad to be alone.
The habitation of the Vestals was wonderfully peaceful, in the midst of busy, seething Rome, and in the centre of its greatest movement. As already said, it had no windows, and but one door that opened on the outer world. It drew all its air, all its light, from the patch of sky over the central court. Figures of Vestals glided about like spirits, and the white statues stood ghostlike on their pedestals.
But to be without flowers, without a peristyle commanding a landscape of garden and lake and trees and mountains! ”

“ I have seen men thus bewitched on the eve of battle. I have cursed, laughed, coaxed, scolded, all without avail. And I, you know, have great influence, both with sword and—and tabor, which is scarce less to be considered. But retreat gets into their quaking [202] hearts. The mischief is irreparable. Therefore, under your favor, acting for Captain Vytal, I will divide them as is my custom in a war—they who would go and they who would remain. ”

“ At all shows, whether of scenic artists, fighting men or speeding horses, the Vestals had specified seats, as good as the best.
Besides these formal pleasures, she took great delight in mixing in society merely for society’s sake. Moderns are likely to imagine that the Vestals of ancient Rome were nuns or something like nuns. They were nothing of the sort. They were maiden ladies of wealth and position whose routine duties brought them into familiar association with all the men important in the Roman government, hierarchy, nobility and gentry and with their wives and daughters. ”

“ St. Gris—even Sully was blinded. So far so good. It is much for a King to have gained a friend, and hark! if I am not mistaken, here is de Vitry.'
CHAPTER XX AT THE SIGN OF 'THE TOISON D'OR'
Turning, we beheld de Vitry at the open door, the small and narrow figure of Pantin at his elbow, and, close behind, the stern features of the Grand-Master, the anxiety on whose face cleared as he saw the King before him. He was about to speak, but Henry burst in rapidly:
'I know all, my lord. It is time to act, not talk. Arnidieu! ”

“ The six terra-cotta chests are so exactly alike and the five counterfeits are so like the real statue that I am afraid the precautions taken to baffle an intruding thief might confuse you Vestals in a crisis.
“Do you know the real Palladium from the five dummies?”
“I do,” said Brinnaria; “we all do. When I had been a Vestal five years Causidiena showed me the Palladium. No Vestal is ever shown it until she is over fifteen. Like all other young Vestals I was made to spend hours in the inner storeroom, blindfolded, learning to recognize the real Palladium by touch. ”

“ A Vestal should menace no man’s life, should not desire any man’s death. Far from it, her heart should be clean of hate, malice or envy.”
“Never mind what I have been,” said Brinnaria.
“No disasters have befallen Rome. There is no sign of any wrathfulness of the gods, or of their displeasure, and I am no longer as I was. That is all over, I am chastened. I desire harm to no one. Quite the reverse. What fills my mind now is the thought that, sooner or later, Alma must perish at the hand of some challenger. I long to save him. I would move earth and sea to save him. ”

“ Well I know him, for he is Vytal’s follower. As I live, the man has but few friends, yet those few would die for him.”
“Some day the opportunity may be theirs,” observed the other, smiling almost boyishly.
“Yes,” assented St. Magil, in a grimmer tone, “but now we must have patience. For the moment let us guard Vytal’s name as carefully as we conceal your own. Which reminds me—I’d almost forgot—what name dost go by now?”
“’Tis ‘Frazer’; but give heed! That tale of bear-flogging has set these louts at odds.” ”

“ Flavia Mamilia is happy to have your near neighbourhood. I must hasten, as the elder of the company who resort to the Circus Maximus, to collect my maidens. A chariot race is a grand thing to witness, but there are many who find it tame sport in comparison to that of former times, when Christians were thrown, as they deserved, to the lions.”
[230] A strong emphasis was laid on the word Christians, and a glance of hatred from the Vestal’s dark eyes, directed at Hyacintha, told its own story, as she made the usual obeisance to the Vestal Maxima, and went to the farther end of the atrium. ”

“ From the Admiral’s deck a young man watched her. “It is Elizabeth,” he said, “leaving Leicester for her people’s sake. Roseate love gives place to silver sovereignty. The woman is sacrificed that we may gain a queen. ’Tis well that Mistress Dare owes no such costly relinquishment to the state. Few compel the love of men like Vytal—and yet—and yet I would have—”
But a laugh at the poet’s side interrupted him, and a girl of comely figure thrust her arm through his own. “Moper,” said she. “Come now; Roger Prat hath brought his bear to show us, and there will be no end of merrymaking. ”

“ The privileges, too, of the Vestals were very highly prized, and of late years their table had been luxuriously appointed, and their life had been one of ease and refinement, so that the change to a more ordinary manner of living would have been far from acceptable to many who had severed the ties of earlier years, and who would have found themselves adrift in the great city, outside the walls of the Vestals’ House. ”

“ When the paper was unrolled to see what it contained, it was found to be the bond which Veit had drawn up and given to the Spirit of the Mountain, torn in half, and underneath was written—fully discharged. When Veit perceived this, he was deeply affected, and exclaimed, in great joy, “Dear wife and children, rejoice with me; he has seen us, heard our thanks; our benefactor, who invisibly floats around us, knows that Veit is an honest man. ”

“ What had once been received with childlike earnestness and simplicity of belief, was now but a hollow profession, and the old faith was dying.
Cœlia Concordia held the supreme office of Vestal Maxima for many years. She was a woman of keen intellect, and a great friend, we are told, of the famous champion of Polytheism, Vettius Agorius Prætextatus. [247] Her statue was set up in the house of that nobleman, and he received the unwonted honour of having his raised in the Vestals’ atrium. ”