The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 25 April 1918, Page 3

The Storyteller

(By Cardinal Wiseman.)

FAB I OLA;

~.r ■ OR, • ... ■ '. THE CHURCH OF THE CATACOMBS

Part First—Peace CHAPTER XVIII.—TEMPTATION. Very early next morning a mule and guide came to the door of Chromatius’s villa. On it was packed a moderate pair of saddle-bags, the whole known property of Torquatus. Many friends were up to see him off, and receive from him the kiss of peace ere he departed. May it not prove like that of Gethsemani! Some whispered a kind, soft word in his ear, exhorting him to be faithful to the graces he had received; and he earnestly, and probably sincerely, promised that he would. Others, knowing his poverty, put a little present into his hand, and entreated him to avoid his old haunts and acquaintances. Polycarp, however, the director of the community, called him aside; and with fervent words, and flowing tears, conjured him to correct the irregularities, slight, perhaps, but threatening, which had appeared in his conduct, repress the levity which had manifested itself in his bearing, and cultivate more all Christian virtues. Torquatus, also with tears, promised obedience, knelt down, kissed the good priest’s hand, and obtained his blessing; then received from him letters of recommendation for his journey, and a small sum for his moderate expenses. At length all was ready; the last farewell was spoken, the last good wish expressed; and Torquatus, mounted on his mule, with his guide at its bridle, proceeded slowly along the straight avenue which led to the gate. Long after every one else had re-entered the house, Chromatius was standing at the door, looking wistfully, with a moist eye, after him. It was just " such a look as the prodigal’s father kept fixed on his, departing son. " As the villa was not on the high road, this modest quadrupedal conveyance had been hired to take him across the country to Fundi (now Fondi), as the nearest point where he could reach it. There he was to find what means he could for prosecuting his journey. Fabiola’s purse, however, had set him very much at ease on that score. The road by which he travelled was varied in its beauties. . Sometimes it wound along the banks of the Liris, gay with villas and cottages. Then it plunged into a miniature ravine, in the skirts of the Apennines, walled in by rocks, matted with myrtle, aloes, and the wild vine amidst which white goats shone like spots of snow; while beside the path gurgled and wriggled on a tiny brook, that seemed to have worked itself into the bright conceit that it was a mountain torrent; so great was the bustle and noise with which it pushed on, and pretended to foam, and appeared to congratulate itself loudly on having achieved a waterfall by • leaping down two stones at a time, and plunging into an abyss concealed by a wide acanthus-leaf. Then the road emerged, to. enjoy a wide prospect of the vast garden of Campania, with the blue bay of Cajeta, in the background, speckled by the white sails of its craft, that looked at that distance like flocks of bright-plumed waterfowl, basking and fluttering on a lake. What were the traveller’s thoughts amidst these shifting scenes of a new act in his life’s drama? Did they amuse him ? did they delight him ? did they elevate him, or did they depress ? His eye scarcely noted them. It had run on far beyond them, to the shady porticoes and noisy streets of the capital. The dusty garden and the artificial fountain, the marble bath and. the painted vault, were more beautiful in his eyes than fresh autumn vineyards, pure streams, purple : > ocean, and azure sky. He did not, of course, for a moment turn’ his thoughts towards its foul, deeds and impious practices, it a—luxury,' its debauchery, its pro-

faneness, its dishonesties, its treacheries, its uncleannesses. Oh, no ! what would he, a Christian, have again to do with these Sometimes, as his mind became abstracted, it saw, in-a dark nook of a hall in the Thermae, a table, round which moody but eager gamesters were casting their knuckle-bone dice; and he felt a quivering creep over him of an excitement long suppressed ; but a pair of mild eyes, like Polycarp’s, loomed on him from behind the table, and aroused him. Then he caught himself, in fancy, seated at a maple board, with a ruby gem of Falernian wine, set in the rim of a golden goblet, and discourse, ungirded by inebriety, going round with the cup; when the reproving countenance of Chromatins would seem placed opposite, repelling with a scowl the approach of either. He was, in fact, returning only to the innocent enjoyments of the imperial city, to its walks, its music, its paintings, its magnificence, its beauty. He forgot that all these were but the accessories to a living and panting mass of human beings, whose passions they enkindled, whose evil desires they inflamed, whose ambition they fanned, whose resolutions they melted, and whose minds they enervated. Poor youth! he thought he could walk through that fire, and not be scorched!! Poor moth ! he imagined he could fly through that flame, and have his wings unscathed ! It was in one of his abstracted moods that he journeyed through a narrow overhung defile, when suddenly he found himself at its opening, with an inlet of the sea before him, and in it one solitary and motionless skiff. The sight at once brought to ins memory a story of his childhood, true or false, ii mattered not; but he almost fancied its scene was before him. Once upon a time there was a bold young fisherman living on the coast of southern Italy. One night, stormy and dark, he found that his father and brothers would not venture out in their tight and strong smack ; so he determined, in spite of every remonstrance, to go alone in the little cockle-shell attached to it. ’ It blew a gale, but he rode it out in his tiny buoyant barque, till the sun rose, warm and bright, upon a placid, glassy sea. Overcome by fatigue and heat, he fell asleep; but, after some time, was awakened by a loud shouting at a distance. He looked round, and saw the family-boat, the crew of which were cry in <T aloud, and waving their hands to invite him back; but they made no effort to reach him. What could they want ? What could they mean ? He seized his oars, and began to pull lustily towards them ; but he was soon amazed to find that the fishing-boat, towards which he had turned the prow of his skiff, appeared upon his -quarter; and soon, though he righted his craft, it was on the opposite side. Evidently he had been making a circle; but the end came within its beginning, in a spiral curve, and now he was commencing another and a narrower one. A horrible suspicion flashed upon his mind: he threw off his tunic, and pulled like a madman at his oars. But though he broke the circle a bit here and a bit there, still round he went, and every time nearer to the centre, in which he could see a downward funnel of hissing and foaming water. Then, in despair, he threw down his oars, and standing, he flung up his arms frantically; and a sea-bird, screaming near, heard him cry out as loud as itself, “Charybdis !” And now the circle his boat went spinning round was only a few times longer than itself; and he cast himself flat down, and shut his ears and- eyes with his hands, and held his breath, till he felt the waters gurgling above him, and he was whirled down into the abyss." “I wonder,” Torquatus said to himself, ” did any one ever perish in this way ? or is it a mere allegory if so, of what Can a person be drawn on gradually in this manner to spiritual destruction ? Are my present thoughts, by any chance, an outer circle, which has caught me, and ” - “Fundi exclaimed the muleteer, . pointing to . a town before them; and presently the mule was sliding along the broad flags of its pavement.

Torquatus . looked over his letters, and drew one out for the town. He- was taken to a little inn of the poorest class by his guide, who was paid handsomely, and retired swearing and grumbling at the niggardliness of the traveller. He then inquired the way to the house of Cassianus, the schoolmaster, found it, and delivered his letter. He received as : kind a welcome as if he had arrived at home, joined his ; host in a frugal meal, during which he learned the master’s history. A native of Fundi, he had started the school in Rome, with which we became acquainted at an early period of our history, and had proved eminently suecessful.' But finding a persecution imminent, and his Christianity discovered, he had disposed of his school, and retired to his small native town, where he was promised, after the vacation, the children of the principal inhabitants. In a fellow -Christian he saw nothing but a brother, and as such he talked freely with him of his past . adventures and his future prospects. A strange idea dashed through the mind of Torquatus, that some day that information might be turned into money. It was still early when Torquatus took his leave, and, pretending to have some business in the town, he would not allow his host to accompany him. He bought himself some more respectable apparel, went to the best inn, and ordered a couple of horses, with a postillion to accompany him;- for, to» fulfil Fabiola’s commission, it was necessary to ride forward quick, change his horses at each relay, and travel through the night. He did so, till he reached Bovillae, on the skirts of the Alban hills. Here he rested, changed his travelling suit, and rode on gaily between the lines of tombs, which brought him to the gate of that city within whose walls there was more of good and more of evil contained than in any province of the empire.

(To be continued.)