swelling sweet; and, these scarce blown,
Forth flourishes the clustering vine, forth creeps
The swelling gourd, up stands the corny reed
Embattled in her fields, and the humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit; last
Rise, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gem
Their blossoms; with high woods the hills are crowned
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side
With borders long the rivers; that earth now
Seems like to heaven, a seat where gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades."

A snatch from some old Greek chant, with something of plaintiveness in the
tone, issues from the thicket just across the mule-path, cut deep in the
earth, which reaches from the city gate to the streamlet; and a youth, who
had the appearance of the assistant bailiff or _procurator_ of the farm,
leaped from it, and went over to the labourers, who were busy with the
vines. His eyes and hair and the cast of his features spoke of Europe; his
manner had something of shyness and reserve, rather than of rusticity; and
he wore a simple red tunic with half sleeves, descending to the knee, and
tightened round him by a belt. His legs and feet were protected by boots
which came half up his calf. He addressed one of the slaves, and his voice
was gentle and cheerful.

"Ah, Sansar!" he cried, "I don't like your way of managing these branches
so well as my own; but it is a difficult thing to move an old fellow like
you. You never fasten together the shoots which you don't cut off, they
are flying about quite wild, and the first ox that passes through the
field next month for the ploughing will break them off."

He spoke in Latin; the man understood it, and answered him in the same
language, though with deviations from purity of accent and syntax, not
without parallel in the _talkee-talkee_ of the West Indian negro.

"Ay, ay, master," he said, "ay, ay; but it's all a mistake to use the
plough at all. The fork does the work much better, and no fear for the
grape. I hide the tendril under the leaf against the sun, which is the
only enemy we have to consider."

"Ah! but the fork does not raise so much dust as the plough and the heavy
cattle which draw it," returned Agellius; "and the said dust does more for
the protection of the tendril than the shade of the leaf."

"But those huge beasts," retorted the slave, "turn up great ridges, a