Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the latter, who loved best
to be alone with his young countrywoman) had wandered beyond the throng
of promenaders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the music. They
strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian Hill, and leaned
over the parapet, looking down upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragment
of the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down
by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work
that men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rose Soracte,
and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but
look scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so
much, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream.
These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome,
and its wide surrounding Campagna,--no land of dreams, but the broadest
page of history, crowded so full with memorable events that one
obliterates another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own
records till they grew illegible.
But, not to meddle with history,--with which our narrative is no
otherwise concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, and
inevitably settles on our page and mingles with our ink,--we will return
to our two friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath them
lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amid
which appeared the white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash of
an upspringing fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the
year by the thicker growth of foliage.
The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt than
the inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe. Beginning
earlier,--even in February,--Spring is not compelled to burst into
Summer with such headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each
opening beauty, and to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, the
sweet youth and freshness of the year; it gives us its maiden charm,
before, settling into the married Summer, which, again, does not so soon
sober itself into matronly Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Spring
hastens to its bridal too abruptly. But here, after a month or two of
kindly growth, the leaves of the young trees, which cover that portion
of the Borghese grounds nearest the city wall, were still in their
tender half-development.
In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-trees, Hilda and
Kenyon heard the faint sound of music, laughter, and mingling voices. It
was probably the uproar--spreading even so far as the walls of Rome,
and growing faded and melancholy in its passage--of that wild sylvan
merriment, which we have already attempted to describe. By and by it
ceased--although the two listeners still tried to distinguish it between
the bursts of nearer music from the military band. But there was no
renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards they saw a solitary
figure advancing along one of the paths that lead from the obscurer part
of the ground towards the gateway.