or the welfare of all belonging to it,
as the great college of the Arval Brothers officiated at Rome in the
interest of the whole state. At the appointed time all work ceases;
the instruments of labour lie untouched, hung with wreaths of flowers,
while masters and servants together go in solemn procession along the
dry paths of vineyard and cornfield, conducting the victims whose blood
is presently to be shed for the purification from all natural or
supernatural taint of the lands they have "gone about." The old Latin
words of the liturgy, to be said as the procession moved on its way,
though their precise meaning was long [7] since become unintelligible,
were recited from an ancient illuminated roll, kept in the painted
chest in the hall, together with the family records. Early on that day
the girls of the farm had been busy in the great portico, filling large
baskets with flowers plucked short from branches of apple and cherry,
then in spacious bloom, to strew before the quaint images of the
gods--Ceres and Bacchus and the yet more mysterious Dea Dia--as they
passed through the fields, carried in their little houses on the
shoulders of white-clad youths, who were understood to proceed to this
office in perfect temperance, as pure in soul and body as the air they
breathed in the firm weather of that early summer-time. The clean
lustral water and the full incense-box were carried after them. The
altars were gay with garlands of wool and the more sumptuous sort of
blossom and green herbs to be thrown into the sacrificial fire,
fresh-gathered this morning from a particular plot in the old garden,
set apart for the purpose. Just then the young leaves were almost as
fragrant as flowers, and the scent of the bean-fields mingled
pleasantly with the cloud of incense. But for the monotonous
intonation of the liturgy by the priests, clad in their strange, stiff,
antique vestments, and bearing ears of green corn upon their heads,
secured by flowing bands of white, the procession moved in absolute
stillness, all persons, even the children, abstaining from [8] speech
after the utterance of the pontifical formula, Favete
linguis!--Silence! Propitious Silence!--lest any words save those
proper to the occasion should hinder the religious efficacy of the rite.

With the lad Marius, who, as the head of his house, took a leading part
in the ceremonies of the day, there was a devout effort to complete
this impressive outward silenc