"To spending your money, O patron!" growled the old man.
"Pshaw, never mind, graybeard! My money--it will soon be his money."
"May the Olympians--forgive me, the saints--forbid!"
"Put no restraint on yourself on my account. I prefer them too. They have the advantage of suiting the metre better, at least most of them. Where is Saturninus?"
"Gone already. He left word that you might follow: you could not miss the way. See, there are the helmets of the last men in his rear-guard. His countryman Decius commands them."
"I see. Forward! How beautifully the morning light smiles upon us. Help me, unconquered sun-god!"
He put spurs to his horse and, followed by a brilliant train of mounted men, dashed down the hill and through the Porta Principalis Dextra eastward, toward the sun. A guide had sought the best path at the earliest dawn, marking it by placing at certain spaces small stones carried in bags by the pioneers who accompanied and watched him. The Prefect of Gaul soon reached the path trodden by Adalo a few days before, which led to Suomar's lonely forest dwelling. With a throbbing heart he recognized the familiar spot: the little hill, the broad-branched oak, the neighboring spring: nothing had changed in the few years, except that another piece of tilled land had been wrested by fire from the primeval forest.
At the fence which inclosed the court-yard he sprang from his horse; he had ordered his escort to halt at the oak-tree. The blood suffused his face, so intense was his anxiety. The narrow gate in the palisade stood ajar. Entering the yard, he uttered a cry of joyful astonishment: a little flower garden had been laid out beside the door of the house; he recognized with emotion in the gay blossoms, now in the full bloom of summer, the seeds and slips which he had given the child in Arbor, nay, even ordered from Gaul. Italian and Gallic flowers and shrubs, evidently tended by loving hands, splendid roses and evergreen yews greeted him in thick beds, and also small fruit-trees. Pontine cherries, Picentinian apples, Aquitanian pears, had grown as high as the door.
"Yes, yes," said Ausonius, smiling, "how everything has grown and blossomed in five years!" Then something whirred over his head; from openings in the stable-roof a whole flock of dainty little blue-gray doves flew across the garden to the neighboring field of oats. "See," cried Ausonius, looking after them. "My Lycian rock-doves from Burdigala! How that one pair has multiplied!"
He hesitated to enter the house. Doubtless he told himself that the hope of finding her he sought was faint, nay futile. But here everything seemed to bear witness to her presence; there on the bench before the dwelling lay--he knew them well--the delicate garden shears which he had sent to her from Vindonissa. He did not wish to cross the threshold and rob himself of every hope.