Daisy in the Field Part 40

"Papa, it is the plain of Sharon!"

"You speak as if it were a place where you had played, when you were a child."

"Papa, in some measure it is like that; so often I have read about the old things that were done here."

Papa smiled at me? and asked what? But I could not tell him while we were going at a canter.

"It would be pretty in spring," he said. "Where are we to stop to-night, Daisy? I have left all that to you. I do not know the country as you do."

"Papa, we set off so late, we shall not be able to get further than Latron to-night."

"What place is that? is it any place?"

"Supposed to be the Modin of the Maccabees."

"Have you brought any books, Daisy?" was papa's next question.

"No, papa, except 'Murray' and the Bible."

"We ought to have more," he said. "We must see if we cannot supply that want at Jerusalem."

Papa's interest in the subject was thoroughly waking up. We lunched at Ramleh. How present it is to me, those hours we spent there. The olive groves and orchards and cornfields, the palms and figs, the p.r.i.c.kly-pear hedges, the sweet breath of the air. And after our luncheon we stayed to examine the ruins and the minaret. Our master of ceremonies, Suleiman, was a little impatient. But we got off in good time and reached our camping ground just before sunset. Tiere too, the sunlight flas.h.i.+ng on those rocks of ruin comes back to me, and the wide plain and sea view which the little hill commands. Papa and I climbed it to look at the ruins and see the view while dinner was getting ready.

"What is it, Daisy?" he said. "You must be my gazetteer and interpreter for the land; Suleiman will do for the people."

"It is an old Crusaders' fortress, papa; built to command the pa.s.s to Jerusalem."

That was enough for papa. He pored over the rough remains and their a.s.sociations; while I sat down on a stone and looked over the Philistine plain; scarce able to convince myself that I was so happy as to see it in reality. Papa and I had a most enjoyable dinner afterwards; he enjoyed it, I knew; and our night's rest was sweet, with a faint echo of the war storms of the ages breaking upon my ear.

To my great joy, there was no storm of the elements the next morning, and we were able to take up our march for Jerusalem.

The road soon was among the hills; rough, thickety, wild; from one glen into another, down and up steep ridge sides, always mounting of course by degrees. Rough as it all was, there were olives and vineyards sometimes to be seen; often terraced hillsides which spoke of what had been. At last we came up out of a deep glen and saw at a distance the white line of wall which tells of Jerusalem. I believe it was a dreary piece of country which lay between, but I could hardly know what it was. My thoughts were fixed on that white wall. I forgot even papa.

We had pouring rains again soon after we got to Jerusalem. I was half glad. So much to see and think of at once, it was almost a relief to be obliged to take things gradually. I had been given numerous good bits of counsel by the kind English ladies we had seen at Jaffa; and according to their advice, I persuaded papa that we should go down at once to Jericho and the Dead Sea, without waiting till the weather should grow too hot for it; then Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives and all the neighbourhood would be delightful. Now, they were very gray and forlorn to a stranger's eye. I wanted papa to be pleased.

_I_ could have enjoyed Jerusalem at any time. But I knew that by and by Jericho would be insupportable.

So papa and Suleiman made their arrangements. All that we wanted was a guard of Arabs; everything else we had already.

The rain ceased after the third day; and early in the morning we went out of the eastern gate of the city and moved slowly down the slope of the Kedron valley and up the side of Mount Olivet.

It was my first ride in the environs of Jerusalem; and I could hardly bear the thoughts it brought up. Yet there was scant time for thoughts; eyes had to be so busy. The valley of the Kedron! I searched its depths, only to find tombs everywhere, with olive trees sprinkled about among them. Life and death; for if anything is an emblem of life in Palestine, I suppose it is the olive. They looked sad to me at first, the olives; their blue-gray foliage had so little of the fresh cheer of our green woods. Afterwards I thought differently. But certainly the valley of the Kedron was desolate and mournful in the extreme, as we first saw it. Nor was Olivet less so.

The echo of forfeited promises seemed to fill my ear; the shades of lost glory seemed to tenant all those ways and hillsides. I could but think what feet had trod those paths; what hands of blessing had been held out on these hills; turned back and rejected, to the utter ruin of those who rejected them. The places of Solomon's splendour and David's honour, in the hands of the Moslem; or buried beneath the ruins of twenty desolations. And in the midst of such thoughts which possessed me constantly, came thrills of joy that I was there. So we mounted over the shoulder of the Mount of Olives, and the day cleared and brightened as we went on. Then came the ruins of Bethany. I would have liked to linger there; but this was not the time. I left it for the present.

"We must dismount here, Daisy," said papa the next minute. And he set me the example. "Our own feet will do this next piece of road most satisfactorily."

We scrambled down, over the loose stones and rock, the very steep pitch just below Bethany. I do not know how deep, but hundreds of feet certainly. Our mules and horses came on as they could.

"Is this to be taken as a specimen of Palestine roads, Daisy?"

"I believe they are pretty bad, papa."

"How do you like it?"

"Oh, papa," said I, stopping, "I like it. Look - look yonder - do you see that glimmer? do you know what that is, papa?"

"It is water -"

"It is the Dead Sea."

"Thirty-six hundred feet below. We have a sharp ride before us, Daisy."

"Not quite so much below us - we have come down some way.

Papa, don't you enjoy it?"

"I enjoy _you_," he said, smiling. "Yes, child, I enjoy it; only I don't enjoy such villainous roads."

"But then, papa, you know it is the only possible way the road can go, and always has been; and so we are sure that Christ was here many a time. _Here_, papa, where our feet are treading."

Papa looked at me and said nothing.

The way was so pleasant, that we walked on ahead of our mules, till we came to the spring about a mile from Bethany. It was strange to look at the water pouring out its never failing stream, and to remember it had been doing just so ever since nineteen hundred years ago.

"How often travellers have rested here and drunk of the water, papa; how often Christ was here."

"That arch was not over the spring in those days, though,"

said papa.

But papa stood and looked at the spring and at the ravine, and I saw that he was catching something of my feeling. We mounted there, and the rest of the way we had no more talk. I did not want to talk. There was too much to think about, as we wound down the rough valleys or watercourses among the desolate hills; while the air grew constantly warmer as we got lower.

No trees, no life, no vine terraces; and this was the way to Jericho. At the ruined khan, a good distance from the top, we dismounted and stopped to rest and take our lunch.

"Well, Daisy," said papa, "are you enjoying yet?"

"Every minute, papa."

"I am very glad. But I am very tired."

"Papa, you must take a good rest here; and here is an orange for you. I will give you something else directly."

Papa stretched himself out wearily on the stones.

"What is the source of your pleasure just now, Daisy? It is as barren a landscape as ever I traversed."

"Papa, David went this way when he fled from Absalom."

"Humph!" said papa, as if there were not much pleasure in that a.s.sociation.

"And Jesus and His apostles came this way, up from Jericho; up and down, I suppose, many a time; they have rested _here_, papa."

"And I see, Daisy, you love the ground where those feet have trod. I never could understand it before. I fancy, I could never attain power of realisation to get near enough to the subject."

"Do you now, papa?"