Daisy in the Field Part 50

"What do you mean, Daisy?"

I hesitated; it was not very easy to tell.

"She is right though," said Mr. Dinwiddie; "it is the very core of the world's history, round which the other is slowly gathering and maturing, to the perfected fruit. Or to take it another way, - ever since G.o.d at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take put of them a people for His name, His dealings with that people have been an earnest and an image of His course with His Church at large. We may cut down to the heart of the world and find the perfect flower here - as we do in bulbs."

"A blossoming to destruction then, it seems," said my father.

"No!" said Mr. Dinwiddie - "to restoration and glory. The history of this land is not yet finished."

"And you think _that_ is in store for it yet?"

Mr. Dinwiddie answered, - " 'Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the hosts of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.' "

"Who spoke that?"

"The prophet Jeremiah."

"And when, pray?"

"When Nebuchadnezzar and his army were just upon the point of completing the destruction of the city - and of the people."

"Then it refers to their return from captivity, does it not?"

"As the type of the other restoration," said Mr. Dinwiddie.

"For 'In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.' Moreover, in Ezekiel's vision of a new temple and city, he gives the dimensions of the temple large enough to take in all Jerusalem, and the holy city as many times exceeding its utmost actual limits; and he says, 'The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.' Jehovah shammah. I wish the day were come."

"You take it as entirely figurative!" said papa. "I thought just now you made it entirely literal."

"What is a figure?" said Mr. Dinwiddie. "And if you take away the literal, where will the spiritual be?"

"True," said papa. "These are things I have not studied."

And then we mounted to the height of Neby Samwil and sat down for a good long look. Mr. Dinwiddie was here as elsewhere invaluable. He told us everything and pointed out everything to us, that we ought to see or know. The seacoast plain lay below; - spread out for many a mile, with here a height and there a cl.u.s.ter of buildings, and the blue sea washing its western border. We could easily see Jaffa, Ramleh and Lydda; we picked those spots out first which we knew. Then Mr.

Dinwiddie pointed us to Ashdod, and to Ekron, a little to the left of Ramleh.

"And that is where Nebuchadnezzar was with his army, before he went up to Jerusalem," I said.

"The first time," said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Yes; there his hosts of Chaldeans lay in the plain; and there after the place was taken he impaled the chiefs of the town; and then flushed with power, came up to Jerusalem and cast banks against it. So he says; and we know that so Isaiah prophesied he would do; and we know that Hezekiah bought him off."

"Did he come up this way of the Beth-horons?" I asked.

"I suppose so. And down this way, Joshua chased the fleeing kings and their followers and overthrew them as they fled down the pa.s.s - what a rush it must have been! - and down there, down where the green sweeps into the hills from the plain, there is Ajalon."

"Papa, do you see?"

"I see; but I do not understand quite so well as you do, Daisy, what you are talking about."

"It is Miss Randolph's own country," remarked Mr. Dinwiddie.

"She is not a Jewess," said papa.

"Pardon me - we have it on authority that 'he is a Jew which is one inwardly;' - an Israelite indeed," Mr . Dinwiddie muttered to himself.

I saw papa was puzzled and half displeased. I hastened to turn the conversation, and showed him where Bethel lay and the mountains of Ephraim; and finally ordered our luncheon basket to be brought forward. But we had to leave our position and choose a shaded place, the sun was growing so hot.

"How long do you expect to remain here - in Palestine, Mr.

Dinwiddie?" something prompted me to ask. He hesitated a moment or two and then replied -

"I cannot tell - probably as long as I stay anywhere on this scene of action."

"You do not mean ever to come home?" I said.

"What is 'home,' Miss Daisy?" he replied, looking at me.

"It is where we were born," said papa.

"Would your daughter say so?"

"No," I answered; for I was born at Magnolia. "But I think home is where we have lived, - is it not?"

"Melbourne?" Mr. Dinwiddie suggested.

"No," said I; "it is not Melbourne now, to be sure; but neither could it be possibly any place in Europe, or Asia."

"Are you sure? Not in _any_ circ.u.mstances?"

I cannot tell what, in his tone or look, drove his meaning home. But I felt the colour rise in my face and I could not answer.

"It is where the heart is, after all," Mr. Dinwiddie resumed.

"The Syrian sky does not make much difference. _My_ home is waiting for me."

"But we speak of home here, and properly."

"Properly, for those who have it."

"I think, Mr. Dinwiddie, that we say 'home' sometimes, when we speak only of where the heart was."

"Better not," he said. "Let us have a living home, not a dead one. And that we can, always."

"What do you know of places where the heart _was?_" said papa, looking at me curiously.

"Not much, papa; but I was thinking; and I think people mean that sometimes."

"We will both trust she will never come nearer to the knowledge," said Mr. Dinwiddie, with one of his bright looks at papa and at me. It was a.s.suming a little more interest in our affairs than I feared papa would like; but he took it quietly. More quietly than I could, though my reason for disquietude was different. Mr. Dinwiddie's words had set vibrating a chord in my heart which could not just then give a note of pleasure. I wanted it to lie still. The wide fair landscape took a look to me instantly, which indeed belonged to it, of "places where the heart was;" and the echo of broken hopes came up to my ear from the gray ruins near and far. Yet the flowers of spring were laughing and shouting under my feet. Was it hope, or mockery?

"What are you questioning, Miss Daisy ?" said Mr. Dinwiddie, as he offered me some fruit.

"I seemed to hear two voices in nature, Mr. Dinwiddie; - I wanted to find out which was the true."