Part 4 (1/2)
It was the month of Shebet, answering to the latter part of our January, and Palestine was already bright with the beauty of early spring. The purple mandrake was in flower, the crocus, tulip, and hyacinth enamelled the fields, with the blue lily contrasting with thousands of scarlet anemones. The almond-tree and the peach were in flower, and fragrant sighed the breeze over blossoms of lemon and citron. The winter had this year been mild, and some figs left from the last season still clung to the boughs yet bare of foliage. The vine on the terraced hills was bursting into leaf, and already in the fields the rising corn showed its young blades above the ground. But Judas was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to pay much attention to the landscape around him; with Israel the spiritual winter was not over, her time for the singing of birds had not come.
Onwards pressed the traveller without resting, till at about noonday he reached the valley of Ajalon. There was a fountain by the side of the road, and here the weary man slaked his thirst, and sat down for awhile to rest beneath the shade of some date-palms. The Asmonean took from the scrip which he carried his simple repast of dried figs, laved his brow and hands in the cooling water, blessed G.o.d for his food, and began to eat.
Ere many minutes had elapsed, a woman in the widow's garb of mourning, bearing a child of about six years old on her back, dragged her weary steps to the fountain by which the traveller was seated. She placed her boy on the ground, drank of the water herself, and gave to her son to drink. Her appearance denoted extreme poverty, and the child was evidently suffering from sickness.
Judas divided this slender supply of provisions into three portions, and with the courteous salutation of ”Peace be with you,” offered one to the widow, and one to the boy.
”The blessing of the G.o.d of Abraham be with you!” exclaimed the poor woman; ”your servant hath not tasted food since sunset.” And, seated on the turf not far from Judas, the widow and her son partook of the dried figs with the eagerness of those who are well-nigh famished.
”Your child looks ill,” observed the Asmonean, regarding with compa.s.sion the wasted shrunken frame of the boy.
”He will not suffer long,” replied the widow, with the calm apathy of despair. ”I laid his father's head in the grave last month, and I shall lay Terah's head beside him this month. The seal of death is upon him; I shall soon be alone in the world.”
”Nay, despair not, G.o.d is good; the child may yet live,” said Judas.
”Why should I wish him to live,” murmured the widow. ”His father was taken from the evil to come, the boy will be taken from the evil to come. Jerusalem is defiled, the land is in bondage, Israel is given a prey to the heathen! The faithful are few in the land, and persecution will sweep these few away. There is no resting-place but under the sod, no freedom but in the grave. The name of Judah will soon be blotted out from amongst the nations!”
”Never!” exclaimed Judas, with energy; ”never, while the G.o.d of Truth lives and reigns! Judah can never perish. The vine that was brought out of Egypt may be broken, her branches torn away, her fruit scattered, the boar out of the wood may waste it, and the wild beast of the field devour, but yet _Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit_ (Isa. xxvii. 6). Were but one man left of G.o.d's chosen people, yet from that one man should spring the Deliverer who shall yet speak peace to the nations, and reign for ever and ever!”
”Could I but hope--” faltered the widow.
”Can you not _believe_?” exclaimed the Asmonean. ”See yonder--look to the east--there is Gibeon, over which the sun stayed at the voice of Joshua; over this valley of Ajalon hung the moon arrested in her course in the day when the Amorites fled before Israel. He who raised up Moses, Joshua, and Gideon, can by human instruments, or without them, repeat the miracles wrought of old, and again deliver His people.”
As he concluded the last sentence, the Asmonean rose to continue his journey; he could give his weary limbs but little time for rest, for long was the distance which he yet had to traverse.
”My home is but a furlong further on,” said the widow, also rising, ”and I have again strength to go forward.”
She was about to lift up her boy, but Judas prevented her. ”I can relieve you of that burden,” he said, and raised the child on his shoulders.
They had proceeded for some way in silence, the widow pondering over the speech of the wayfaring man, when from behind was heard the clatter of hoofs and the jingle of steel. The child, whom the Asmonean was carrying, turned to gaze, and exclaimed in fear as he grasped the locks of his protector, ”See--hors.e.m.e.n in bright armour, with banners and spears! fly, fly!--the Syrians are coming!”
Judas did not turn nor alter his pace, he merely went closer to the side of the cactus-bordered road, to give more s.p.a.ce to the hors.e.m.e.n to pa.s.s him. On rode the Syrians in goodly array, their steel glittering in the sunlight, the dust rising like a cloud around the hoofs of their horses. In the centre of the line was a gorgeous arabah, or covered cart with curtains, to which the troop of soldiers appeared to form an escort. There was an opening in the roof of this arabah, evidently for the convenience of accommodating within it a figure too high to be otherwise carried in the conveyance, for out of the opening appeared a white marble head of Grecian statuary. Judas and his companion regarded it with the aversion and horror with which the sight of an idol always inspired pious Jews.
When the Syrians had pa.s.sed the travellers, and the clatter of their arms had died away in the distance, the widow wrung her hands and exclaimed, ”Yonder ride Apelles and his men of war to Modin, to do the bidding of the tyrant; and they bear the accursed thing with them, to be set up on high and wors.h.i.+pped. Alas! they will compel all the Hebrews at Modin to bow down to their idol of stone.”
”Perhaps not,” said Judas, calmly.
”All men will be forced to offer sacrifice,” cried the woman; ”there will be no way of escaping the pollution.”
”Solomona and her sons found one way,” observed the Asmonean, ”and G.o.d may provide yet another.”
The traveller had now reached the door of the widow's humble dwelling.
Judas set down his living burden, and the mother thanked the kind stranger, and asked him to come in and rest.
”I cannot abide here,” replied Judas; ”a long journey is yet before me; I must be at Modin this night.”
”At Modin!” exclaimed the astonished woman, glancing up at the worn weary countenance of the speaker. ”Why, the hors.e.m.e.n will scarcely reach Modin this night, unless, indeed, the king's business be urgent.”