“‘_Arno mio_, you are in a tremendous hurry to get to the sea, and all the more so because you have just had an _accessit_—a remittance of rain from the mountain-banks. _Buon pro vi faccia_—much good may it do you! So every shopman hurries to become a great merchant when he gets some money, and every farmer a signore, and every signore a great lord, and every great lord a ruler at court and over all the land—_prorsum et sursum_. And when they get there—or when you get to the sea—then ye are all swallowed up in greater lives, interests, and actions, and so the rivers run for ever on, larger yet ever seeming less unto yourselves. And so—_ad altiora tendunt omnes_—the flower-edged torrent and the Florentine.’ . . . “When he suddenly heard above his head a spirit voice, clear, sweet and strange, ringing, not in words, but tones of unearthly music—of which languages there are many among the Unearthlies, all being wordless songs or airs suggesting speech, and yet conveying ideas far more rapidly. It was the Goblin of the Tower calling to him of the tower next beyond on the farther hill, and he said: “‘How many ghosts there are out to-night!’ “‘Yes; it is a fine night for ghosting. Moonlight is mid-summer for them, poor souls! But I say, brother, who is yonder _frate_, the dark monk-spectre who always haunts your tower, lingering here and there about it? What is the spell upon that _spirito_?’ “‘He is one to be pitied,’ replied the Goblin of the Trinità. ‘He was a good fellow while he lived, but a little too fond of money. He was afflicted with what doctors called, when I was young in Rome, the _amor sceleratus habendi_. So it came to pass that he died leaving a treasure—_mille aureos_—a thousand gold crowns buried in my tower unknown to any one, and for that he must walk the earth until some one living wins the money.’ “Flaxius pricked up his ears. He understood all that the spirits said, but they had no idea that the man in a scholar’s robe who sat below knew Goblinese. “‘What must a mortal do to get the gold?’ inquired the second goblin. “‘Truly he must do what is well-nigh impossible,’ replied the Elf of the Tower; ‘for he must, without magic aid—note that—bring to me here in this month of January a fresh full-blown rose.’ “The voices were silent; a cloud passed over the face of the moon; the river rushed and roared on; Flaxius sat in a Vandyke-brown study, thinking how he could obtain peace and repose for the ghostly monk, and also get the _pecuniam_. “‘Here is,’ he thought, ‘_aliquid laborare_—something to be worked out. Now is the time, and here is a chance—_ingirlandarsi di lauro_—to win the laurel wreath. A rose in January! What a pity that it is not four hundred years later, when people will have green-houses, and blue-nosed vagabonds will be selling red roses all the winter long in the Tornabuoni! Truly it is sometimes inconvenient to be in advance of or behind the age.