Rollo in Rome Part 17

"It is going to rain," said he, "and so we shall be obliged to ride. But we can make it longer by stopping to see something on the way."

"Well," said Allie, "let's do it. What shall we stop to see?"

"If there is going to be a shower," said Rollo, "it would be a good time to stop and see the Pantheon."

"What is the Pantheon?" asked Allie.

"It is an immense round church, with a great hole in the roof," replied Rollo.

"Why don't they mend the hole?" asked Charles.

"O, they made it so on purpose," said Rollo.

"Made it on purpose!" repeated Allie. "I never heard of such a thing. I should think the rain would come in."

"It does come in," said Rollo, "and that is the reason why I want to go and see the Pantheon in the time of a shower. It is so curious to see the rain falling down slowly to the pavement. You see, the church is round, and there is a dome over it, and in the centre of the dome they left a great round hole."

"How big?" asked Allie.

"It is twenty-eight feet across," said Rollo; "but you would not think it so big when you come to see it. It is up so high that it looks very small. We know how big it is by the size of the wet spot on the floor."

By the time that the party had arrived at this point in the conversation, Rollo saw a carriage standing in the street at a little distance before him, and he made a signal to the coachman to come to him. The coachman came. Rollo made his bargain with him, and they all got in. The coachman drove immediately to the Pantheon, and they arrived there just as the shower began to come on.

Before the church was an immense portico, supported by columns. The columns, and the whole entablature which they supported, were darkened by time, and cracked, and chipped, and broken in the most remarkable manner. Allie and Charles stood under the portico and looked around, while Rollo paid the coachman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON.]

There was a large open square before the Pantheon, with an ancient and very remarkable looking fountain in the centre of it. There was a basin around this fountain, into which monstrous mouths, carved in marble, were spouting water. When Rollo had paid the coachman, he led the way into the church. Allie and Charles followed him. They found themselves ushered into an immense circular interior, with rows of columns all around the sides, and chapels, and sculptures, and paintings, and beautiful panels of variegated marbles between them.

Overhead was an immense dome. This dome is nearly a hundred and fifty feet high, and the circular opening in the centre of it is about thirty feet across. Through this opening the rain was descending in a steady but gentle shower. It was very curious to look up and see the innumerable drops falling slowly from the bright opening above, down to the marble floor. This opening is the only window. There is no other place, as you will see by the engraving, where light can come in.

The margin of the opening is formed of an immense bra.s.s ring. Such a ring is necessary in a structure like this, and it must be of great thickness and strength, to resist the pressure of the stones crowding in upon it all around.

This Pantheon was built by the ancient Romans, two thousand years ago.

What it was built for originally n.o.body now knows. In modern times it has been changed into a church. It is immensely large, being nearly a hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and a hundred and fifty feet high.

If you will inquire and ascertain what is the size of some large building in your vicinity, and compare it with these dimensions, you will form a clearer idea of the magnitude of this ancient edifice than you can acquire in any other way.

Rollo and his party rambled about the Pantheon, looking at the statues, and paintings, and chapels, and observing the groups of pilgrims and of visitors that were continually coming and going, for nearly an hour. By this time the shower had entirely pa.s.sed away, and the sun having come out bright, they all walked home.

CHAPTER IX.

GOING TO OSTIA.

While Rollo was at Rome, he made the acquaintance of a boy named Copley.

Copley was an English boy, and he was about a year older than Rollo.

Rollo first saw him at the door of the hotel, as he, Copley, was dismounting from his horse, on his return from a ride which he had been taking into the country. He had been attended on his ride by a servant man named Thomas. Thomas dismounted from his horse first, and held the bridle of Copley's horse while Copley dismounted.

"There!" said Copley, walking off with a very grand air, and leaving his horse in Thomas's hands; "take the horse, Thomas, and never bring me such an animal as that again. Next time I ride I shall take Jessie."

"But Mr. William has forbidden me to give you Jessie," said Thomas. "He says she is not safe."

"It's none of his business," said Copley. "He thinks, because he is a little older than I am, and because he is married,--though he has not been married much more than a month,--that he has a right to order me about just as he pleases. And I am determined not to submit to it--would you?"

These last words were addressed to Rollo. Copley had been advancing towards the door of the hotel, while he had been speaking, and had now just reached the step where Rollo was standing.

"Who is he?" asked Rollo. "Who is William?"

"He is my brother," said Copley; "but that has nothing to do with it."

"Are you under his care?" asked Rollo.

"Why, I am travelling with him," said Copley; "but he has no business on that account to lord it over me. I have as good a right to have my way as he has to have his."

Some further conversation then followed between Copley and Rollo, in which the former said that he had been for several weeks in Rome, in company with his brother. He had an uncle, too, in town, he said, at another hotel.

"But I stay with my brother," said Copley, "because he is going to make a longer journey, and I want to go with him."

"Where is he going?" asked Rollo.

"Why, we have engaged a vetturino," replied Copley, "and are going to travel slowly to Florence, and from Florence into the northern part of Italy, to Milan and Venice, and all those places. Then, afterwards, we shall go over, by some of the pa.s.ses of the Alps, into Switzerland. I like to travel in that way, I have so much fun in seeing the towns and the country. Besides, when we travel with a vetturino, I almost always ride on the outside seat with him, and he lets me drive sometimes."

"Then your uncle is not going that way?" said Rollo.

"No," replied Copley; "he is going directly home by water. He is going down to Civita Vecchia, to take the steamer there for Ma.r.s.eilles, and I don't want to go that way."

Copley then asked Rollo to go out into the Corso with him. He said that he saw a shop there, as he was coming home, which had a great display of whips at the window, and he wanted to buy a whip, so that when they set out on their journey he could have a whip of his own.

"The vetturino never will let me have _his_ whip," said he. "The lash is so long that he says I shall get it entangled in the harness. That's no reason, for he is always getting it entangled himself. But that's his excuse, and so I am going to have a whip of my own."

"Well," said Rollo, "I rather think I will go with you; but you must wait here for me a minute or two. I must go up to my room first; but I will come directly down again."

Rollo wished to go up to his room to ask his uncle's permission to go with Copley. He made it an invariable rule never to go any where without his uncle's permission. Mr. George was always ready to give permission in such cases, unless there was some really good and substantial reason for withholding it. And whenever Mr. George withheld his consent from any of Rollo's proposals, Rollo always submitted at once, without making any difficulty, even when he thought that his uncle was wrong, and that he might have consented as well as not.

It was not altogether principle on the part of Rollo, that made him pursue this course; it was in a great measure policy.

"I like travelling about the world with uncle George," he used to say to himself, "and in order that I may travel with him a great deal, I must make it for his interest to take me. That is, I must manage so that he will have a better time when I am with him, than when he goes alone; and in order to do this, I must take care never to give him any trouble or concern of any kind on my account. I must comply with his wishes in every thing, and be satisfied with such pleasures and enjoyments as he fully approves."

Rollo did not think of this altogether of himself. It was his father that put the idea into his mind. He did it in a conversation that he had with Rollo the day before he set out on the journey.

"Rollo, my boy," said he, "in going on this journey into Italy with your uncle George, there is one danger that you will have to look out for very carefully."

"Getting robbed by the brigands?" asked Rollo.

"No," said Mr. Holiday; "it is something very different from that, and a great deal worse. That is to say, the evil that you have to fear from it is a great deal worse than any thing that would probably happen to you by being robbed. The danger is of your having too much independence, or, rather, a wrong kind of independence. What is independence?"