The Bertrams Part 17

"So it was, Mr. M'Gabbery; and I beg your pardon. It is Mr. Cruse whose soul is among the potatoes. But, if I remember right, it was you who were so angry when the milk ran out." Then Mr. M'Gabbery again receded, and talked to Mrs. Jones about his a.s.sociations.

"How thoroughly the Turks and Arabs beat us in point of costume,"

said Mrs. Hunter to Mr. Cruse.

"It will be very hard, at any rate, for any of them to beat you,"

said the tutor. "Since I have been out here, I have seen no one adopt their ways with half as much grace as you do."

Mrs. Hunter looked down well pleased to her ancles, which were covered, and needed to be covered, by no riding-habit. "I was not thinking so much of myself as of Mr. Hunter. Women, you know, Mr.

Cruse, are nothing in this land."

"Except when imported from Christendom, Mrs. Hunter."

"But I was speaking of gentlemen's toilets. Don't you think the Turkish dress very becoming? I declare, I shall never bear to see Charles again in a coat and waistcoat and trousers."

"Nor he you in an ordinary silk gown, puffed out with crinoline."

"Well, I suppose we must live in the East altogether then. I am sure I should not object. I know one thing--I shall never endure to put a bonnet on my head again. By-the-by, Mr. Cruse, who is this Sir Lionel Bertram that has just come? Is he a baronet?"

"Oh dear, no; nothing of that sort, I imagine. I don't quite know who he is; but that young man is his son."

"They say he's very clever, don't they?"

"He has that sort of boy's cleverness, I dare say, which goes towards taking a good degree." Mr. Cruse himself had not shone very brightly at the University.

"Miss Waddington seems very much smitten with him; don't you think so?"

"Miss Waddington is a beautiful girl; and variable--as beautiful girls sometimes are."

"Mr. Cruse, don't be satirical."

"'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 cl.u.s.tering 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."

"Yes, the mystery of your childhood will be gone, Miss Jones," said Mr. M'Gabbery, who, in his present state of hopelessness as regarded Miss Waddington, was ill-naturedly interfering with young Pott. "The mystery of your childhood will be gone; but another mystery, a more matured mystery, will be created in your imagination. Your a.s.sociations will henceforth bear a richer tint."

"I don't know that," said Miss Jones, who did not approve of being interfered with a bit better than did Mr. Pott.

And then they remounted, and the cavalcade moved on. They turned up the rising ground towards the city wall, and leaving on the left the gardens in which Jerusalem artichokes did not grow, they came to the pool of Siloam. Here most of them again descended, and climbed down to the water, which bursts out from its underground channel into a cool, but damp and somewhat dirty ravine.

"You are my guide, Miss Todd, in everything," said Sir Lionel. "Is it necessary that I should study scripture geography down in that hole?

If you bid me, I'll do it."

"Well, Sir Lionel, I'll let you off; the more especially as I have been down there myself already, and got dreadfully draggled in doing so. Oh! I declare, there is Miss Waddington in the water."

Miss Waddington was in the water. Not in such a manner, gentlest of readers, as to occasion the slightest shock to your susceptible nerves; but in such a degree as to be very disagreeable to her boots, and the cause of infinite damage to her stockings. George Bertram had handed her down, and when in the act of turning round to give similar a.s.sistance to some other adventurous lady, had left her alone on the slippery stones. Of course any young lady would take advantage of such an unguarded moment to get into some catastrophe.

Alas! and again alas! Unfortunately, Mr. M'Gabbery had been the first to descend to the pool. He had calculated, cunningly enough, that in being there, seeing that the s.p.a.ce was not very large, the duty must fall to his lot of receiving into his arms any such ladies as chose to come down--Miss Waddington, who was known to be very adventurous, among the number. He was no sooner there, however, than George Bertram jumped in almost upon him, and hitherto he had not had an opportunity of touching Miss Waddington's glove. But now it seemed that fortune was to reward him.

"Good heavens!" cried Mr. M'Gabbery, as he dashed boldly into the flood, thereby splas.h.i.+ng the water well up into Caroline's face.

There was not much occasion for this display, for the gentleman could have a.s.sisted the lady quite as effectually without even wetting his toes; but common misfortunes do create common sympathies--or at least they should do. Would it not be natural that Miss Waddington and Mr. M'Gabbery, when both wet through up to their knees, should hang together in their sufferings, make common cause of it, talk each of what the other felt and understood so well? Nay, might it not be probable that, in obedience to the behests of some wise senior, they might be sent back to the city together;--understand, O reader, that the wall of Jerusalem had never yet been distant from them half a mile--back, we say, together to get dry stockings? To achieve such an object, Mr. M'Gabbery would have plunged bodily beneath the wave--had the wave been deep enough to receive his body. As it was, it only just came over the tops of his boots, filling them comfortably with water.

"Oh, Mr. M'Gabbery!" exclaimed the ungrateful lady. "Now you have drowned me altogether."

"I never saw anything so awkward in my life," said M'Gabbery, looking up at Bertram with a glance that should have frozen his blood.

"Nor I, either," said Caroline.

"What had you better do? Pray give me your hand, Miss Waddington. To leave you in such a manner as that! We managed better in the desert, did we not, Miss Waddington? You really must go back to Jerusalem for dry shoes and stockings; you really must. Where is Miss Baker? Give me your hand, Miss Waddington; both hands, you had better."

So much said Mr. M'Gabbery while struggling in the pool of Siloam.

But in the meantime, Miss Waddington, turning quickly round, had put out her hand to Bertram, who was standing--and I regret to say all but laughing--on the rock above her; and before Mr. M'Gabbery's eloquence was over, she was safely landed among her friends.

"Oh, Mr. Bertram," said she; "you are a horrid man. I'll never forgive you. Had I trusted myself to poor Mr. M'Gabbery, I should have been dry-footed at this moment." And she shook the water from off her dress, making a damp circle around herself as a Newfoundland dog sometimes does. "If I served you right, I should make you go to the hotel for a pair of shoes."

"Do, Miss Waddington; make him go," said Sir Lionel. "If he doesn't, I'll go myself."

"I shall be delighted," said Mr. Cruse; "my donkey is very quick;"

and the clergyman mounted ready to start. "Only I shouldn't know where to find the things."

"No, Mr. Cruse; and I couldn't tell you. Besides, there is nothing I like so much as wet feet,--except wet strings to my hat, for which latter I have to thank Mr. M'Gabbery."