The day of the "little" or private Ambarvalia was come, to be
celebrated by a single family for 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