About three weeks ago, a few days after he had been sent to the estate to manage it for his master, who had gone to the marble quarries of Luna, there came from Tifernum a noble Roman with a troop of slaves and workmen and heavily-packed wagons. He inquired if this was the estate bought by the sculptor Corbulo of Perusia for the widow of Boëthius. Upon being answered in the affirmative, he had introduced himself as the Hortulanus Princeps, that is, the superior intendant of the gardens at Ravenna. An old friend of Boëthius--who wished not to tell his name, for fear of the Gothic tyrants--desired to care for his family in secret, and had given orders that their summer residence should be improved and embellished with all possible art. He (Cappadox) was by no means to spoil the intended surprise, and, half-kindly, half by force, they had kept him fast in the villa. Then the intendant had immediately made his plan, and set his men to work. Many neighbouring fields were bought at a high price; and there began such a pulling-down and building-up, such a planting and digging, hammering and knocking, such a cleaning and painting, that it had made him both blind and deaf. When he ventured to meddle or ask questions the workmen laughed in his face.
"And," concluded Cappadox, "it went on in this way till the day before yesterday. Then they had finished, and went away. At first I was afraid, and trembled when I saw all these splendid things growing out of the earth. I thought, if Master Corbulo has to pay for all this, then mercy on my poor back! and I wanted to come and tell you. But they would not let me go; and besides, I knew you were not at home. And when I saw what a ridiculous amount of money the intendant had with him, and how he threw the gold pieces about, as children throw pebbles, I got easier by degrees, and let things go on as they would. Now, master, I know well that you can set me in the stocks, and have me whipped with the vine-branch or even with the scorpion; for you are the master, and Cappadox the servant. But, master, it would scarcely be just! By all the saints and all the gods! For you set me over a few cabbage-fields, and see! they have become an Emperor's garden under my care!"
Camilla had long since dismounted and disappeared, when the servant ended his account.
Her heart beating with joy, she hurried through the garden, the bowers, the house; she flew as if on wings; the active Daphnidion could scarcely follow her. Repeated cries of astonishment and pleasure escaped her lips. Whenever she turned the corner of a path, or round a group of trees, a new picture of the garden at Ravenna met her delighted eyes.
But when she entered the house, and in it found a small room painted, furnished, and decorated exactly like the room in the Imperial Palace, in which she had played away the last days of her childhood, and dreamed the first dreams of her maidenhood; the same pictures upon the hempen tapestry; the same vases and delicate citrean-wood[2] boxes; and, upon the same small tortoise-shell table, her pretty little harp with its swan's wings; overpowered by so many remembrances, and still more by the feeling of gratitude for such tender friendship, she sank sobbing on the soft cushions of the lectus.
Scarcely could Daphnidion calm her.
"There are still noble hearts in the world; there are still friends of the house of Boëthius!" and she breathed a prayer of deep thankfulness to Heaven.
When her mother arrived the next day, she was scarcely less moved by the strange surprise. She wrote at once to Cethegus in Rome, and asked: "In which of her husband's friends she should seek this secret benefactor?" Within her heart she hoped that it might turn out to be himself.
But the Prefect shook his head over her letter and wrote back: "He knew no one of whom this delicate mode of proceeding reminded him. She should carefully watch for every trace that might lead to the solving of the riddle."
It was not long ere it was solved. Camilla was never tired of traversing the garden, and continually discovering resemblances to its well-known original.