The Gothic servants and Italian slaves were busy concluding the day's work.
The stable-man was fetching the young horses from the pasture; two other servants were bringing a herd of fine cattle home from the fields to the stable; while the goatherd, with Roman invectives, was driving forward his protégés, 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!"