“Let us alone regret, ... ... Sorrow humanizes our race.
Tears are the showers that fertilize the world;
And memory of things precious keepeth warm
The heart that once did hold them.
They are poor that have lost nothing; they are far more poor
Who, losing, have forgotten; they most poor
Of all who lose and wish they might forget.”
—Jean Ingelow.
 
Under Miriamne’s adroit and patient guidance Sir Charleroy and his attendants made goodly progress until they reached ancient Jabbock, bordering Giant Bashan; but at that point the knight made a stubborn stand, persisting that he would proceed no further Bozrah-ward.
 
“I smell Mohammedanism coming to me from the East, and, having had enough of the Saracens in my day, I’ll tarry away from their haunts——
 
“I must go, beloved, to the tomb of my dear defender, Ichabod. I must go to Gerash to do the pious offices of a mourner.”
 
The maiden brought forward every reason her ingenuity could invent opposed to the proposed deflection in course. She enlisted the Druses guides, whom she had employed to accompany them hitherto, to aid[438] her in raising objections, and they magnified the obstacles in the way to Gerash with commendable loyalty to their employer, the maiden, if not with strict regard to truth. They all encamped, and the debate was the sole occupation for hours.
 
“Now, Miriamne, hitherto my good spirit, thou wouldst lure me to perdition! I’ve been in the Lejah. I’m certain that black lava-sea is hell’s mouth, and Bozrah’s its porch!”
 
“So be it; but if we go carrying the heavenly consciousness of doing our Father’s will, we may carry heaven to those gates.”
 
“It’s not my duty to go thither. I passed through that purgatory once. Its horrors blasted my life! To return thither would be presumption.”
 
“But you have forgotten the sunrise coming to you. Each day, for months, as you have journeyed eastward, you have gained in health of body and mind.”
 
“Dost thou mean that God blesses those who plunge headlong to destruction, as the possessed swine that ran violently into the sea?”
 
“Can not my father let faith silence the disquietings of his wild fancies? The memory of a past pain, though a persistent, is often a false teacher.”
 
“Oh, I do remember. Some memories seem to scorch the very substance of my brain! I pray when such come that God give me eternal forgetfulness. I’d rather be an idiot than have the power of coherent thinking filled with such reminiscences!”
 
“Ah, if we all, always, had the wisdom, while gazing into our dark, deep pools, to gaze until we saw at their bottoms the image of the sky above!”
 
[439]
 
“Well said, daughter! Bozrah is a dark pool! I saw there only an image of the sky, and that very far away!”
 
The day of the foregoing they were wandering along the flowery banks and over the forest-covered hills that undulated away from Jabbock’s ravine. As they moved along the maiden plucked a hyacinth blossom and affectionately fastened it on her father’s bosom; just where he was wont to wear, when in England, his knight’s cross.
 
“Rizpah once placed a lotus there; it made me drunk; a votary of pleasure, mad; but Miriamne, her daughter, places there the flower of serene, deathless affection! Sweet, thou art my good angel, the flower says to Gerash!”
 
“Why, father! I do not understand!”
 
“Apollo unwittingly caused the death of a beautiful youth, the friend of his heart, whose name was Hyacinthus. So says tradition, and it’s so charming, I more than half believe it! Apollo, in loyal love, made a flower grow from the grave of his friend. This is it! See; here’s the color of the dead youth’s blood. This blossom is the flower of deathless friendship and I love it.”
 
“A touching story, I’ll remember it; but it seems to me the flower says, ‘Bozrah,’ my father.”
 
“Take this leaf, girl; here.”
 
“And what of this?”
 
“There, on that leaf, behold those signs, ‘Ai’ ‘Ai’.”
 
“I think some markings are there like what you say, though never ’till now did I so trace them.”
 
“That’s the Greek cry of woe. The perfumes of these flowers, in every field of Gerash, remind me of[440] my duty. I must go to the tomb of the man that died in my defense.”
 
“A pious sentiment; but duty to the living can not be pushed aside by such a call. You have other and living friends?”
 
“Yes, thou art my friend, lover, angel; but I’ll keep thee with me, my lamb.”
 
“Rizpah and your sons!”
 
“Rizpah my friend? that would be amusing, if it were not such a grim sarcasm. Oh, what a miserable race she led me!”
 
“Misery, like joy, in wedded life, is won or lost by the deed of two; not one. I shall not acquit my mother; but were not there two to blame?”
 
“Two? no; only one. I could not be peaceful with a panther.”
 
“Be not too severe, and think a little; did not you, after all, do much to make your wedded wife what she was at her worst?”
 
“What, I? Thou dost not think that?”
 
“Yes; I know the story of your espousal; your flight from Gerash, and then your after conflicts. You knew before you determined against all opposing, in the face of reasons most grave, and without any thought of your adaptation to each other, to wed, that your tempers, tastes, and trainings were in almost every thing apart.”
 
“Well, we loved each other sincerely; our marriage vows were honestly taken.”
 
“Marriage; that settled it forever! Did you as honestly keep as you took the vows, for better or worse?”
 
“Now that were impossible. Did you ever see your[441] mother in rage, her muscles rising in a sort of serpentine wavings from her feet upward? Ugh! I hear her sibilant, hissing words of scorn, now. They’ll haunt me forever. She was a lotus in love, and a boa in wrath.”
 
“I may have seen her so, but out on the love that lets such visions displace memories of the best things; a daughter, nurtured by her, can not; a husband sworn on hymen’s altar, dare not forget.”
 
“I tried to set her right, Miriamne.”
 
“Not always with kindness unfailing. I’ve seen the scourge-marks on her heart. I’ve heard her moan as a wounded dove; no, more piteously, as a deserted wife and mother. You tried to set her right by forcing her to your faith, that, too, when the girl-wife was weak and exhausted by early maternity. You have been wont ever to pity profoundly the holy mother who recoiled fainting from the spectacle of her son scourged to crucifixion. That pity is a fine feeling; but since Mary’s day is passed, it is finer to evince a manly tenderness for living women moving toward their Calvary. How you waste your emotions on the dead! Mary Hyacinthus, Ichabod, have all, Rizpah nothing.”
 
“See here, daughter; let me look down into thy eyes. I’m of a mind to think the sun has gotten into thy brain. It gets into every body’s in this country.” So saying, he turned her face toward his own. It was a bungling effort on his part to parry her thrusts with ridicule, the last weapon of the defeated.
 
She was a little indignant, but yet too earnest to be diverted, and so followed up her advantage.
 
“You were the stronger, every way, and fenced well against your other self. The woman erred, sometimes[442] grievously, perhaps, and you had your sweet retaliations. How sweet you can tell. Each blow at her, fell on me, my brothers and yourself. Oh, it’s the climax-revenge to lay open with giant thrusts, monstrous and keen, vein and nerve. One may mar a good purpose by pursuing it cruelly. Were not your efforts to set my mother right severe, sometimes?”
 
“Did the eloquent Hospitaler put these fine words together for thee, girl?” testily questioned Sir Charleroy.
 
“No matter who sent them, if they be true words. If you get angry, I’ll be wounded. You need not try hard to hurt me. I will strive to be all filial, while all loyal; but not more so to father than to mother.”
 
“Well, but she was a rheumatism to me.”
 
“So be it; still she was part of you. Does one dismember a limb that aches, or give it tenderer care than all others?”
 
“‘It is better,’ said Solomon, ‘to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and angry woman.’ I got heartily weary of an ache that ached because it ached.”
 
“I’ll place Joseph by Solomon.”
 
“Pray, how?”
 
“He espoused Mary and was with her, yet apart; thus showing God’s idea of the needs of weary mothers in their trying hours, when giving their strength to another being. Joseph was kept as a lover only, until after Jesus was born, that his services might have a lover’s tenderness. I have heard that the manhood of Jesus reflected the sweetness of Mary; Joseph kept his wife in those days sweet, so the kindness of that noble spouse lived after all, an immortal influence. Joseph,[443] through Mary in part, determined the bodily traits of the child Jesus; the latter influences all time.”
 
“Why, truly, thou hast found a beautiful flower, Miriamne, and I’m wondering that I never saw it before in Mary’s life. But, finally, I tell thee I loved Rizpah as my soul at first.”
 
“Oh, yes; you both loved with almost volcanic ardor. My mother told me so; but this very power and inclination of passionate loving gave you each for the other power of dreadfully hurting.”
 
“Well, we’ll speak further of this, perhaps, another time. The hyacinth lures me to Ichabod’s tomb.”
 
“The rose, emblem of Mary, flower of wedded love, is sweeter than the hyacinth. Go home to Bozrah, father, I beseech you, so you may prove yourself still a Knight of Saint Mary.”
 
“Home? I’ve none! Bozrah is grim ruins within, without. There, as only fit and in fit dwellings, abide the cormorant and hyena. All hopes that ever centred in that place for me were but dancing satyrs at the last; all loves but eagles with hot-iron beaks, which devoured the hearts that fed them, then fled away! I hate Bozrah!”
 
“You have a wife and children there. I a mother. Where the brood is, there is home. Bozrah has no gloom for us, save such as we make for it. It may be a glad place yet. Remember that Kidron and Golgotha were made all beautiful by the fidelity of Mary and the cross-bearing of Jesus.”
 
“Miriamne, this parley is useless. Once for all, hear me. Before I wed thy mother I took upon my soul an impious, almost desperate, vow, that I’d possess her though the possessing ruined me. The strong,[444] hopeful Knight of the Cross was domineered over by his love. Before this I had some commendable principles and a little piety. What am I now, after long driftings about through wasted years of prime? I’m the wreck of a man; less! a part of a wreck, trying to get made over in a meaner pattern out of the fragments left. Thy mother unmade me!”
 
“Adam said something like that of Eve.”
 
“Don’t interrupt me, Miriamne. The Jewish maiden Zainab gave Mohammed, of Bozrah, the poisoned lamp which ruined his health; the Jewish Rizpah has such a lamp. See me, wrinkled, hair whitened, all too soon; chivalry, morality and piety dragged out of me bit by bit. I stand here the caricature of what I was or what I should be. I’m fit for neither war nor courtship. I’d make a pretty show attempting to court Rizpah! I’ve forgotten how such things are done, and, besides, I’m not the original Sir Charleroy she wed. Let her find him, or his counterfeit, and be happy. The original Sir Charleroy and Rizpah loved each other desperately, but these that I know hate each other as desperately. I tell thee it would be legalized adultery for these latter two to live under the same roof, pleading as justification the vows of the other two! Miriamne, I tell thee that thou mayst tell it on the house tops, or hill tops, as I’ll cry it through eternity, if permitted, Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, of Gerash and Bozrah, died long ago! The devil stole their bodies, put an imp’s sp............