England -- Fiction; Love stories; Scholars -- Fiction
"'Praise undeserved is satire in disguise,'" said Mr. Cruse, not
quite understanding, himself, why he made the quotation. But it did
exceedingly well. Mrs. Hunter smiled sweetly on him, said that he was
a dangerous man, and that no one would take him to be a clergyman;
upon which Mr. Cruse begged that she would spare his character.
And now they had come to the fountain of Enrogel, and having
dismounted from their steeds, stood clustering about the low wall
which surrounds the little pool of water.
"This, Sir Lionel," said Miss Todd, acting cicerone, "is the fountain
of Enrogel, which you know so well by name."
"Ah!" said Sir Lionel. "It seems rather dirty at present; doesn't
it?"
"That is because the water is so low. When there has been much rain,
there is quite a flood here. Those little gardens and fields there
are the most fertile spot round Jerusalem, because there is so much
irrigation here."
"That's where the Jerusalem artichokes are grown, I suppose."
"It is a singular fact, that though there are plenty of artichokes,
that special plant is unknown," said Mr. M'Gabbery. "Do you remember,
Miss Waddington--"
But Miss Waddington had craftily slipped round the corner of the
wall, and was now admiring Mrs. Hunter's costume, on the other side
of the fountain.
"And that is the village of Siloam," continued Miss Todd, pointing to
a range of cabins, some of which seemed to be cut out of the rock on
the hill-side, on her right hand as she looked up towards the valley
of Jehoshaphat. "And that is the pool of Siloam, Sir Lionel; we shall
go up there."
"Ah!" said Sir Lionel again.
"Is it not interesting?" said Miss Todd; and a smiling gleam of
satisfaction spread itself across her jovial ruddy face.
"Very," said Sir Lionel. "But don't you find it rather hot?"
"Yes, it is warm. But one gets accustomed to that. I do so like to
find myself among these names which used to torment me so when I
was a child. I had all manner of mysterious ideas about the pool of
Bethesda and the beautiful gate, about the hill of Sion, and Gehenna,
and the brook Cedron. I had a sort of belief that these places were
scattered wide over the unknown deserts of Asia; and now, Sir Lionel,
I am going to show them all to you in one day."
"Would they were scattered wider, that the pleasure might last the
longer," said Sir Lionel, taking off his hat as he bowed to Miss
Todd, but putting it on again very quickly, as he felt the heat.
"Yes; but the mystery, the beautiful mystery, is all gone," said Miss
Jones. "I shall never feel again about these places as I used to do."
"Nor I either, I hope," said Mr. Pott. "I always used to catch it for
scripture geography."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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