Meanwhile a season of rain had begun; heavy skies warned me that I must not hope for a renewal of sunny idleness on this mountain top; it would be well if intervals of cheerful weather lighted my further course by the Ionian Sea.  Reluctantly, I made ready to depart.

CHAPTER XIV

SQUILLACE

In meditating my southern ramble I had lingered on the thought that I should see Squillace.  For Squillace (Virgil’s “ship-wrecking Scylaceum”) was the ancestral home of Cassiodorus, and his retreat when he became a monk; Cassiodorus, the delightful pedant, the liberal statesman and patriot, who stands upon the far limit of his old Roman world and bids a sad farewell to its glories.  He had niched himself in my imagination.  Once when I was spending a silent winter upon the shore of Devon, I had with me the two folio volumes of his works, and patiently read the better part of them; it was more fruitful than a study of all the modern historians who have written about his time.  I saw the man; caught many a glimpse of his mind and heart, and names which had been to me but symbols in a period of obscure history became things living and recognizable.

I could have travelled from Catanzaro by railway to the sea-coast station called Squillace, but the town itself is perched upon a mountain some miles inland, and it was simpler to perform the whole journey by road, a drive of four hours, which, if the weather favoured me, would be thoroughly enjoyable.  On my last evening Don Pasquale gave a good account of the sky; he thought I might hopefully set forth on the morrow, and, though I was to leave at eight o’clock, promised to come and see me off.  Very early I looked forth, and the prospect seemed doubtful; I had half a mind to postpone departure.  But about seven came Don Pasquale’s servant, sent by his master to inquire whether I should start or not, and, after asking the man’s opinion, I decided to take courage.  The sun rose; I saw the streets of Catanzaro brighten in its pale gleams, and the rack above interspaced with blue.

Luckily my carriage-owner was a man of prudence; at the appointed hour he sent a covered vehicle—­not the open carozzella in which I should have cheerfully set forth had it depended upon myself.  Don Pasquale, too, though unwilling to perturb me, could not altogether disguise his misgivings.  At my last sight of him, he stood on the pavement before the hotel gazing anxiously upwards.  But the sun still shone, and as we began the descent of the mountain-side I felt annoyed at having to view the landscape through loopholes.

Of a sudden—­we were near the little station down in the valley—­ there arose a mighty roaring, and all the trees of the wayside bent as if they would break.  The sky blackened, the wind howled, and presently, as I peered through the window for some hope that this would only be a passing storm, rain beat violently upon my face.  Then the carriage stopped, and my driver, a lad of about seventeen, jumped down to put something right in the horses’ harness.