IN the House of Abner the usual household scenes mocked the sorrowing man who beheld them. “Empty, empty, empty!” he moaned. “My Rose of Sharon have I plucked from its stem and cast aside. Ah, woe is my portion!”
Striding down the village street long before the morning mists had faded, he paused in front of Sarah’s house, thereby startling a beautiful girl in foreign raiment who had just stepped over the threshold and surprising himself scarcely less. Then he recalled the conversation of his excited servants the day before, tidings which had been unheeded in his own grief. This must be Miriam!
“Nay,” she replied to his question, “my mother and I are quite alone. Very early this morning did Benjamin take Rachel and their little son to the house of her parents, whom she saw but briefly yesterday. Eli and Nathan soon afterward took the path down the hill to the camp of the soldiers, and Judith departed likewise. Nay, I know not where.”
He was hastening away when she ran and prostrated herself in his path. “My lord hath been good to his servant. I thank thee for the pearl which thou didst send to Syria by the hand of Eli for my ransom.”
Abner listened dully. “A pearl, thou sayest?” And then the significance of her speech dawned upon him. “Rise thou,” he commanded, suavely, “it was but a small gift. Happy am I that it hath helped to purchase thy freedom.”
A tenderly reminiscent smile played around Miriam’s mouth. “Nay,” she said, “I have returned to Israel because of a jewel more precious than any found in earth or sea: the love of my master and mistress. Naught would they accept but gave me freedom and sent me to my mother with a gift in mine hand.”
“But the pearl,” inquired Abner, eagerly. “What hath become of the jewel?”
“Eli hath already given it back to Judith, from whom he received it,” she answered, and with cool adieux turned and left him.
He passed a hand over his brow, made as if to turn back, hesitated and then went on, groping his way down the hill and through the fields, wet with the night dews. The camp of the soldiers, so busy a scene at sunset, was now deserted, and huddled over the still warm ashes of what had recently been a fire was the figure he sought.
“I—arrived—too—late. They—were—already—gone,” she said, slowly, in response to his excited inquiry.
Abner laid a shaking hand upon her shoulder. A crimson flush crept into the pale cheek. Rising suddenly she wrenched herself from his grasp and thrust something into his hand. “Take it,” she cried. “I should have known thou wouldst have followed me even to Damascus to get it back. Lo, thou hast that which thou seekest,” and turning, she fled.
He glanced hastily at the object she had given him. It was the pearl. With sudden passion he threw it into the unsearchable depths of the canyon and swiftly followed Judith, but a loose stone ended the pursuit. With a cry of pain she stumbled and fell, and when he bent over the prostrate figure a moment later her eyes were closed. It was Eli who answered Abner’s hail and helped him carry his burden up the hill. Stopping for a moment’s rest they met Miriam on her way to the spring.
With anxious questions and practical sympathy the girl knelt beside her cousin, slipping off the sandal and examining the rapidly swelling ankle. “Straight to my mother’s house,” she suggested. “It is so near,” but Abner objected.
“To her own home,” he commanded, sharply, preparing to resume his load.
Judith’s eyes flew open. “Nay,” she protested feebly. “Thou shouldst know that truth is not my companion nor hath ever been. I stole the pearl. It is that for which Caleb, brother to my father, was slain, and which Sarah, who hath been a mother to me, cast away in her despair. I found it and used it to serve my own ends. Then, when it had long been a coal of fire in my bosom I gave it to Eli to help with the little maid’s ransom. Yet sin reapeth sorrow as surely as harvest followeth the time of sowing. Because of the pearl my husband hath divorced me, and lest my disgrace be known to those to whom it would bring grief, I determined to use the jewel to purchase my way to Damascus with the soldiers.”
Miriam’s amazed look encountered Eli’s stern one. “I knew not,” he began, but Miriam was stroking Judith’s forehead and speaking tenderly. “Always hast thou been unhappy in Hannathon, for wast not thy sadness mine? Yea, but come thou. Behold, our home is thine also.”
“Nay,” said Abner with decision, “we take thee to thine own house, thine and mine. As for the pearl, I knew not it belonged to Sarah. I hated it for the trouble it hath caused thee and me and just now I flung it into the gorge.”
Eli gasped. “But thou wilt pay,” he insisted. “Its value shalt thou redeem, that the widow and the orphan be not robbed.”
Miriam was quite as decided. “Nay, it hath ever been an evil thing, and with the gift sent by Naaman my master, my mother will not miss the pearl. Rather would she wish it counted dead now that it hath been buried. Her anxiety will be for Judith. Take her to our house, I pray thee.”
But he would not and the little procession resumed its slow march to his abode.
An hour later Miriam remembered the abandoned water jar, and bidding her cousin an affectionate farewell, hastened to reclaim her forgotten property. The sun had finally conquered the fog and sweet-scented breezes played with her hair, but the sight of Eli, dolorously gazing into the distance, hushed the song in her heart.
He broke the news without preamble. “Nathan hath returned to Damascus with the soldiers.”
The water jar came near crashing to the earth in Miriam’s consternation.
“Oft have we talked of our future plans now that thou art provided for,” went on Eli, sure of understanding, “but only this morning, when we visited the camp, did he tell me of his resolve. Then I could not say him nay, knowing that here he must work for Abner, whom we like not, and I was the more persuaded when Isaac, chief of the band which brought us on our way, promised to be surety for the lad.”
Miriam was staring wild-eyed into the valley at their feet. “Gone, thou sayest? The soldiers gone? And Isaac came not to my mother’s house, came not to tell me that he goeth—”
Eli nodded impatiently. “Thinkest thou he would have said more to thee than to me? A likable young man and one in whom remorse hath kindled the fires of penitence which alone purifieth. He hath restored thee to the home from which thou wert stolen, and he saith that when the rains are over and the roads passable once more he will return to see if thou dost wish to go back to Damascus. As if thou wouldst again be bound by the cords of bondage!”
But Miriam was half-way down the hill, sobbing bitterly, leaving Eli to gaze after her in great and growing bewilderment.
The same sun which had kissed into bloom the wild flowers of Israel shone with dazzling brightness upon the white walls of Damascus, warming youth into gayety and age into contentment, but its rays were futile to coax into cheerfulness the great House of Naaman. There was an inexplicable sense of loss. The maid servants grumbled among themselves at the uncertainty of Milcah’s temper and longed for Miriam, their ever-sympathetic mediator. The men servants hoped they would see her bright face again.
“Not that she ever had much to say,” explained the old gatekeeper, “and few were the smiles she had for the young men, as most maids have, but the lowest servant and the grandest visitor were alike to her. Well do I remember—” and the garrulous tongue would run on as long as it had an audience.
Nor were the servants the only ones who missed Miriam. With light fingers Adah smoothed the creases from between her brows. “The maid servants drive me frantic,” she moaned. “‘Do I want this?’ and ‘how will I have that?’ The little maid would have known without asking and seen that it was done without confusion. My heart yearneth over the maiden.”
The soldier standing respectfully on the other side of the room nodded. “The young man Eli, to whom I talked long, saith that the mother faileth fast. Peradventure Miriam will be free to return to Syria if she so desire.”
Adah’s irritation increased. “The young man Eli! Admire him I must, but like him I cannot, for would he not rob thy master and me of the sunbeam which hath gladdened our hearts—the little maid we have come to love as a daughter? Nay, but not for always. One year, Isaac, shalt thou remain in Syria, then shalt thou return to Israel with a gift in thine hand, bringing Miriam and her mother gently and by slow degrees if the woman be feeble. Here shall the household delight to do her honor. One year, Isaac, from the time our little maid went away shall she come back to us!”
With this decree of its mistress, the House of Naaman entered, with what patience it could, upon its period of waiting.
But Miriam did not return at the end of a year. The wild flowers faded in Israel; the figs ripened and were gone; the hills grew bare and yellow under the sun’s persistent glare; the grapes turned dusky and filled with liquid sweetness; the olive trees blossomed and bore and were denuded; the rains came and went; barley and wheat were sowed and matured and were harvested and wild flowers bloomed a second time in Israel. It was another spring, the time Isaac had said he would come, but though Miriam strained her eyes day after day gazing afar, no foreign horsemen, no chariot, no Syrian camels bestirred the dust of the Valley of Jiptha-el.
Rachel touched her lightly on the shoulder as she stood in the doorway. There was yearning tenderness in the older woman’s tones: “Still waitest thou, little maid? Peradventure they think thy mother hath need of thee, knowing not that she sleepeth long months in the sepulcher of thy people. Ample time hath there been since the rains ceased to take even the long journey from Damascus.”
Miriam turned a musing countenance. “But when Isaac talked last with Eli he said he would return when the rains were over to see how it fareth with me and to bring me tidings of my home.”
Rachel sighed and drew the girl close. “Is not thy mother’s dwelling ‘home’? And behold how Benjamin and little Caleb and I have loved thee. Are we not dearer than any in the House of Naaman?”
Miriam smiled and returned the caress. “The love light in thine eyes is beautiful and it filleth me with delight when it shineth upon me, but mostly doth it shine for thy husband and babe and for joy in thy home, not for thy sister.”
“It is the way with a woman,” was the answer, “as some day thou wilt know for thyself, for I have seen a look in eyes that followed thee, such a look as a man giveth to but one maid, though peradventure thou knowest—”
She paused, but as there was no reply and Miriam’s face was turned away, she hurried on: “And so thou wilt soon have a home of thine own if that is what thou desirest.”
Miriam at last found voice: “‘Home’ is where thou art needed, Rachel, where thou hast a place no other can fill. Here in Israel, now that my mother hath left me—” there was a choking pause—“I am not necessary as I am to the household in Syria. Milcah groweth feeble in body and impatient in mind. The maid servants resent her sharpness, and my mistress is distressed when things go not well. But most of all do they need help to walk in the way of Jehovah, for him only do they serve since the healing of my master at his word. So do I wait until my mistress sendeth. Nay,” as Rachel affectionately protested, “nay, I shall not be disappointed, for did not Isaac say he would come?”
And so she waited. Again the wild flowers faded and the figs ripened and the hills grew sere and brown. It was midsummer. This time a pilgrim approached Hannathon, but he was alone and on foot, taking the steep hills and fertile vales with an easy, swinging stride as none but a Highlander, born and bred, could have taken them. From the flat roof where she was spreading linen to dry, Miriam saw him while yet a great way off and called to Rachel exultantly:
“Eli cometh.”
She did not go to meet him. Instead, she hastily descended the stairs and retreated within the house, excitement in her manner and an unwonted color in her cheeks. When he entered, though they spoke only commonplaces, neither of them observed that Rachel took the child and slipped quietly out of the house with a smiling glance backward. Quite absorbed in each other, they sat on one of the low benches which lined three sides of the room.
“Two years hath it been, Miriam, since I joined myself to the young men, the Sons of the Prophet. Two full years have I hung upon the words of our great master, Elisha, learning much concerning our Law and its interpretation, and things of lesser importance such as music and sacred poetry. Thinkest thou not my mother would be pleased to know that I am of this company, even as was my father?”
The girl’s face was glowing with enthusiasm. “It is as thou and I have dreamed from childhood, Eli.”
“A little while shall I spend with thee and with Benjamin, for I have a mind to learn the care of a flock. Then, with the treasure not needed for thy ransom will I purchase sheep and goats, which will supply my living while I preach the word of Jehovah to this froward people. Beyond that thou knowest—thou must know—my heart’s desire.”
He took her hand in his and although it trembled slightly it was not withdrawn.
“I think there will be no objection from thy brother, for long hath he known me, so I shall speak to him in due time without dread, but concerned am I to know if thou wouldst be satisfied so to spend thy life.”
Her face paled under his anxious scrutiny, “Nay, I could not,” she faltered.
He was silent a long moment, and when he spoke his voice betrayed profound sorrow. “It is even as I feared. In Damascus, where thy impressionable years were spent, thou hast learned the luxury which belongeth alone to kings’ courts. Thou wouldst not be willing to toil as do the women of Israel, where there is neither man servant nor maid servant. Have I not been in Syria and do I not know how different are the ways there and here?”
She disengaged her hand and faced him earnestly: “Not because of its riches, Eli, must I return to the House of Naaman, but because of its poverty. Except through me they know not Jehovah.”
“And except we of prophetic vision teach him in Israel, the people are altogether turned unto idols,” he answered, in his eyes the fanatical gleam of the zealot.
“Yea, but there be many Sons of the Prophet in Israel. There be none in Syria. Save as tidings of the healing of my master hath been scattered abroad and praise given to the God by whose hand it was performed, none knoweth Jehovah. He is merely the God of Israel, their sometimes-enemies in the south, and Rimmon and Baal and a host of others are more real to them. Come thou with me to Damascus, where thou art needed, and instead of a shepherd, thou shalt be a scribe, and being diligent in the business of Naaman, thou shalt also instruct the household and preach the word of the Lord to those who know it not otherwise. Say thou wilt come,” she pleaded, but he only gazed at her pityingly.
“I pray thee, Miriam, deceive not thyself. For more than a year hast thou waited for a messenger from Syria and grown pale and thin with disappointment. Rachel hath told me, and have I not seen for myself when I came to visit thee? Nay, for if one were coming, there hath been time and to spare.” His brow clouded. “Yet had I hoped to hear from Nathan through that same messenger. Both thou and I didst trust the soldier, and thou more than I.”
The color sprang again to Miriam’s cheek. “My trust will not be in vain,” she declared, quietly. “Something of ill hath happened in Damascus, else my mistress would have sent, but Isaac will yet come.”
The conversation was interrupted by Rachel’s entrance, and Miriam, making an excuse of the linen on the roof, ran quickly up the stairs to a task which consumed a vast amount of time even in the leisurely East, where time counted for little.