of fine cattle home from the fields
to the stable; while the goatherd, with Roman invectives, was driving
forward his _proteges_, which stopped here and there to nibble the
salty saxifrage which grew upon the broken walls of the road.

Other labourers were housing the agricultural implements in the large
yard, and a Roman freedman, a very learned and superior personage, the
upper gardener himself, left, with a contented look, the place where he
practised his blooming and sweet-scented science.

Our little friend Athalwin, with his crown of bright golden hair, was
just issuing from the stables.

"Don't forget, Kakus," he cried, "to throw a rusty nail into the
water-bucket. Wachis spoke of it particularly. Then he need not beat
thee when he comes home."

And he banged the door to.

"Nothing but trouble with these Italian servants," said the little
master, with an air of importance. "Since father went away, and Wachis
joined him in the camp, everything lies upon my shoulders; for mother
is enough for the maids, but the men need a master."

And the little lad marched with great gravity across the yard.

"And they have no proper respect for me," he continued, pouting his
cherry lips and ruffing his white forehead. "How should they? At the
next equinox I shall be fully nine years old, and they still let me go
about with a thing like a kitchen spoon;" and he pulled contemptuously
at the little wooden sword hanging to his belt.

"They ought to give me a hunting-knife, a real weapon. With this I can
do nothing, and I look like nothing!"

Yet he looked very lovely, like an angry Cupid, in his short sleeveless
coat of the finest white linen, which the loving hand of his mother had
spun, sewed, and embroidered with an ornamental red stripe.

"I should like very much to run into the fields and get the wild
flowers for mother which she loves so much, far more than our finest
garden flowers; but I must look round before they shut the doors, for,
'Athalwin,' said father, as he left us, 'take good care of the place,
and protect thy mother. I rely upon thee;' and I shook hands upon it,
so I must keep my word."

So saying, he went across the yard, past the front of the
dwelling-house, looked into all the offices on the left, and was just
about to turn to the back of the square court, when he was attracted by
the loud barking of some young dogs at a noise which was heard behind
the wooden fence which enclosed the whole.

He