“My lord,” said the good man, when the Count renewed his offer in its fresh shape on the following day, “your determined generosity has overcome me. Books I cannot refuse either for my own sake or my people’s. I sometimes feel that they are starved, or at the best ill-fed with spiritual food. I can speak to them of their every-day duties, but I cannot build them up in their faith for lack of knowledge in myself, and where is the knowledge to come from? Of books I have none but my Bible and my Service-book, and two small books of homilies. If I had some of the commentaries and homilies of the two great doctors of our Church, Hieronymus[41] and Augustine, I should be well content. I have heard of the great preacher of Antioch and Constantinople, John the Golden Mouth,[42] but, alas, I cannot read Greek.”
“You shall have them as soon as they can be got,” said the Count.
In the course of the day the search party sent back from Sorbiodunum returned. They had found one of the stragglers still alive, and had brought him on to the village where the first halt had been made. There he was being carefully tended, but there was no chance of his being restored to health for many weeks to come. Of the other two they had a terrible [pg 181]account to give. Only a few mangled remains could be discovered, the poor creatures having been manifestly devoured by wolves. All that could be hoped was that they had expired before they were attacked.
The Count had now nothing to detain him, and as he was for many reasons anxious to be at home, where a multiplicity of duties were awaiting him, he determined to start on the following day. His route was first to Sorbiodunum. There he would be on the main road leading to Venta Belgarum.[43] From Venta, by following another main road he and his party would make their way easily to the Camp of the Great Harbour.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PICTS.
The journey to Venta Belgarum was accomplished in safety, and, by dint of starting long before sunrise, in a single day. The distance was a little more than twenty miles, and the road, which was so straight that the end of the journey might almost have been seen from the beginning, lay almost through an open country. This was favourable for speed, as there was little or no need to reconnoitre the ground in advance. It was just after sunrise when the party reached the spot where the traces of the great camp of Constantius Chlorus may still be seen. It had even then ceased to be occupied, but the soldiers’ huts were still standing, and the avenues, though overgrown with grass, looked as if they might easily be thronged again with all the busy life of a camp. The Count called a halt for a few minutes, and pointed out the locality to Carna.
“See,” said he, with a sigh, “there Constantius had [pg 183]his camp, the great Constantius to whom we owe so much.”
“And was Constantine himself ever there?” cried the girl, to whom the first Christian Emperor was the object of an admiration which we, knowing as we do more about him, can hardly share.