Nevertheless, the earth was two months further on in her swing around the sun, and that sun had kissed into life a thousand blushing flowers, where one had bloomed in February, when we really set out for the site of that venerable town. We had appointed many other seasons for the excursion, and been thwarted in design, crippled in execution. Mrs. Blimber’s avowal that she could go down to the grave in peace could she but once have seen Cicero in his villa at Tusculum, was worn into shreds among us. When we did meet, by appointment, our friends, the V——s at the station in time for the eleven o’clock train to Frascati, we had a story of an inopportune call that had nearly been the fortieth obstacle to the fruition of our scheme.
It was April, but the verdure of early summer was in trees and herbage. Nature never sleeps in Italy. At the worst, she only lapses into drowsiness on winter nights, and, next morning, confesses the breach of decorum with a bewitching smile that earns for her abundant pardon. The exuberance of her mood on this day was tropical and superb. The tall grasses of the Campagna were gleaming surges before the wind, laden with odors stolen from plains of tossing purple spikes—not balls—yet which were clover to taste and smell. Red rivulets of poppies twisted in and out of the corn-fields and splashed up to the edge of the railway, and ox-eyed daisies were foamy masses upon the scarlet streams. Even in Italy, and in spring-tide, the olive is the impersonation of calm melancholy. In all the voluptuous glory of this weather, the olive trees stood pale, passionless, patient, holding on to their hillsides, not for life’s, but for duty’s sake, sustaining resolution and disregarding gravitation, by casting backward, grappling roots above the soil, like anchors played out in rough seas. They could not make the landscape sad, but they chastened it into milder beauty. Between dark clumps of ilex, overtopped by stately stone pines—ruined towers and battlements told their tale of days and races now no more, as the white walls of modern villas, embosomed in groves of nectarine and almond, and flowering-chestnut trees—like sunset clouds for rosy softness—bespoke present affluence and tranquillity in which to enjoy it.
In half an hour we were at the Frascati station. A mile of steep carriage-drive that granted us, at every turn in the ascent, new and delightful views, brought us to the cathedral. It is very ugly and uninteresting except for the circumstance that just within it is the monument dedicated by Cardinal York to his brother, Charles Edward, better known by his sobriquet of “Young Pretender,” than by the string of Latin titles informing us of his inherited rights and claim. Vexatious emptiness though these were, the recitation of them appears to have been the pabulum of soul and spirit to the exiled Stuarts unto the third generation.
We lunched moderately well—being hungry—at the best inn in Frascati, and discarding the donkeys and donkey-boys clustering like flies in the cathedral piazza, we bargained for four “good horses” to take us up to Tusculum. Mrs. V—— was not well, and remained at the hotel while our cavalcade, attended by two guides, wound up the hill. The element of the ludicrous, never lacking upon such expeditions, came promptly and boldly to the front by the time we were fairly mounted, and hung about the party until we alighted in the same spot on our return. Dr. V—— stands six feet, four, in low-heeled slippers, and to him, as seemed fit, was awarded the tallest steed. Prima’s was a gaunt beast, whose sleepy eyes and depressed head bore out the master’s asseveration that he was quiet as a lamb. Caput’s horse was of medium height and abounding in capers, a matter of no moment until it was discovered that my lamb objected to be mounted, and refused to be guided by a woman. After a due amount of prancing and curveting had demonstrated this idiosyncrasy to be no mere notion on my part, a general exchange, leaving out Prima, was effected. I was lifted to the back of the lofty creature who had borne Dr. V——. Caput demanded the privilege of subduing the misogynist. To the lot of our amiable son of Anak fell a Rosinante, who, as respectable perhaps in his way as his rider was in his, became, by the conjunction of the twain, an absurd hexaped that provoked the spectators to roars of laughter, his rider leading and exceeding the rest.
“The tomb of Lucullus!” he sobered us by exclaiming, pointing to a circular mass of masonry by the roadside. “That is to say, the reputed tomb. We know that he was Cicero’s neighbor—that they borrowed one another’s books in person.”
The books that, Cicero tells Atticus, “gave a soul to his house!” The brief, every-day phrase indicative of the neighborliness of the two celebrated Romans made real men of them, and the region familiar ground. The road lay between oaks, chestnuts, laurels, and thickets of laurestinus, the leaves shining as with fresh varnish—straight up the mountain, until it became a shaded lane, paved with polygonal blocks of lava. This is, incontestably, the ancient road to Tusculum, discovered and opened within fifty years. The banks were a mosaic of wild flowers;—the largest daisies and anemones we had yet seen, cyclamen, violets, and scores of others unknown by sight or name to us. In response to our cry of delight, both gentlemen reined in their horses, and Dr. V—— alighted to collect a bouquet. The tightening of Caput’s rein brought his horse’s ears so near his own, he had to throw his head back suddenly to save his face. The animal had a camel’s neck in length and suppleness,—a mule’s in stubbornness, and put upon, or off, his mettle by the abrupt jerk, he gave marvelous illustrations of these qualities. He could waltz upon four legs or upon two; dance fast or slow; rear and kick at once, or stand like a petrifaction under whip, spur, and an enfilading fire of Italian and American expletives; but his neck was ever the feature of the performance. Whether he made of it a rail, an inclined iron plane, the handle of a jug, or a double bow-knot, it was true to one purpose—not to obey rein or rider.
“The wretched brute has no martingale on!” cried the latter, at length. “See, here! you scamp! Ecco! Voilà! V——! what is the Italian for martingale? Ask that fellow what he means by giving such a horse to a lady, or to any one whose life is of any value, without putting curb or martingale upon him?”
The doctor, who, by the way, was once described to me by a Roman shopkeeper as the “tall American, with the long beard, and who speaks Italian so beautifully,” opened parley, when he could control his risibles, with the owner of the “molto buono” animal.
“He says he could not put upon him what he does not possess,” was the epitome of the reply. “That he has but three martingales. And there are four horses. Supply inadequate to demand, my dear fellow! He implores the signore Americano to be reasonable.”
“Reasonable!” The signore swung himself to the ground. “Say to him, with my compliments, that I implore him to take charge of a horse that is altogether worthy,—if that could be—of his master! I shall walk! He ought to be made to ride!”