Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the CrusadesHolt, Emily Sarah
History
Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the Crusades
Holt, Emily Sarah
Crusades -- Fiction; Historical fiction
"Ah, my Damoiselle is young and blithe!" she said, and smiled. "It is
long, long since I was a young mother like our Lady, and longer still
since I was a little child. But the bare old well in the stony
valley—that came home to me. He was weary! Yet He was God. He is
rested now, on the throne of His glory: yet He cares for me, that am
weary still. So I just knelt down at the old well, and I said to Him,
in my ignorant way,—’Fair Father,[#] Jesu Christ, I thank Thee that Thou
wert weary, and that by Thy weariness thou hast given me rest.’ It felt
to rest me,—a visit to the place where He sat, tired and hungry. But my
Damoiselle cannot understand."
[#] "Bel Père"—one of the invocations then usual.
"No, Margot, I don’t at all," said I.
"Ah, no! It takes a tired man to know the sweetness of rest."
Three days’ journey through the Val de Luna, which used to be called the
Vale of Ajalon, brought us to the city of Gran David, which was of old
named Gibeon. The valley is styled De Luna because it was here that
Monseigneur Saint Joshua commanded the sun and moon to stand still while
he vanquished the Paynims. From Gran David it is only one day’s journey
to the Holy City.
"To-morrow, Margot!" said I, in great glee. "Only to-morrow, we shall
see the Holy Sepulchre!"
"Ha! Thanks be to the good God. And we need not wait till to-morrow to
see Him that rose from it."
"Why, Marguerite, dost thou ever have visions?"
"Visions? Oh no! Those are for the holy saints; not for a poor
ignorant villein woman like me."
"Then what didst thou mean, just now?"
"Ah, my Damoiselle cannot understand."
"Margot, I don’t like that. Thou art always saying it. I want to
understand."
"Then she must ask the good God to show her."
And that is all I can get out of her.
Short of a league from the Holy City is the little hill called Mont
Joie, because from it the palmers catch the first glimpse of the blessed
Jerusalem. We were mounting, as it seemed to me, a low hillock, when
Amaury rode up beside me, and parting the curtains, said—
"Now, Elaine, look out, for we are on the Mont Joie. Wilt thou light
down?"
"Certainly," I answered.
So Amaury stopped the litter, and gave me his hand, and I jumped out.
He took me to the place where the palmers kneel in thanksgiving for
being brought thus far on their journey: and here I had my first sight
of the Holy City.
It is but a small city, yet strongly fortified, having three walls. No
Paynim is permitted to enter it, nor of course any heathen Jew. I
cannot imagine how it was that the good God ever suffered the Holy City,
even for an hour, to be in the hands of those wicked people. Yet last
night, in the tent, if Marguerite did not ask me whether Monseigneur
Saint Paul was not a Jew! I was shocked.
"Oh dear, no!" said I.
"I heard somebody say so," she replied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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