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One of the stones on its pavement, from its extraordinary blackness, was called the tombstone of Romulus, and a number of statues adorned its sides, including the three Sibyls, which gave the name of "In Tria Fata" down to medieval times to this part of the Forum. From its rostra, or stone platform, addresses were delivered by political agitators to open-air assemblies of the people.
Bands of music and merry-go-rounds in all the open places and squares; open-air bakeries of pancakes and waffles; theatrical exhibitions, raree-shows, jugglers, and mountebanks at every corner all these phenomena which had been at every kermis for centuries, and were to repeat themselves for centuries afterwards, now enlivened the atmosphere of the grey, episcopal city.
We had an excellent open-air swimming pool, made out of a branch of the river Kenneth, and were allowed one bathe a day, besides the dip before morning chapel, which only the few took, and which did not count as a bathe. The punishment for breaking the rule was severe, involving a week off for a first offence.
Facing down the main thoroughfare "Central Avenue," as it was ticketed I saw an open-air temple, with benches and sounding-board, as though for an orchestra. The houses were all tightly shuttered; there was no smoke, no sound but of the waves, no moving thing. I have never been in any place that seemed so dreamlike.
But though far different from the pictures which writers, desirous of exhibiting the sufferings of the Puritan confessor in the most telling form, have drawn if not "a damp and dreary cell" into which "a narrow chink admits a few scanty rays of light to render visible the prisoner, pale and emaciated, seated on the humid earth, pursuing his daily task to earn the morsel which prolongs his existence and his confinement together," "the common gaol" of Bedford must have been a sufficiently strait and unwholesome abode, especially for one, like the travelling tinker, accustomed to spend the greater part of his days in the open-air in unrestricted freedom.
"However, what I was about to say was this: My party is not to be in a house. It is an open-air party. We are to meet at the Omnibus House, to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock. Two very distinguished gentlemen have also been invited Mr. Reddy Brooks and Mr. Hippy Wingate." A shout of laughter went up from the girls "Distinguished, indeed," cried Nora. "It will be a delightful party I am sure."
Even the doctors could hardly believe it, when the first open-air enthusiasts began to claim that they had actually cured cases of genuine consumption. For long there was a tendency to mutter in the beard, "Well, it wasn't genuine consumption, or it wouldn't have got better." But after a period of incredulity this gave way to delighted confidence.
It is interesting to note that whereas a few years ago the Indians were reproved for placing their sick in canvas tents and arbors, and in every way discouraged from any attempt to get out of their stifling houses into the life-giving air, sleeping-porches are now being added to their hospitals, and open-air schools and sanatoria established for their children.
We realized that like so many of our writers, actors, and even our thinkers, of to-day, he was an open-air man in every sense of the word. But we shook our heads. Bulls, we explained, were not a department of research for which we were equipped. What we wanted, we said, was to learn something of his methods of work. "My methods of work?" he answered, as we turned up the path again.
He had answered firmly: "Not before Christmas," modifying this since Nicholas's visit to "Not before the House-Warming." But one morning the Boy was found pouring the fruit out of the jars into some empty cans. "What you up to?" "Wait an' see." He went to O'Flynn, who was dish-washer that week, got him to melt a couple of buckets of snow over the open-air campfire and wash the fruit-jars clean.
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