第43章

Opening a way between the long leaves of an aloe, Israel found her at length in the place whereto she had wandered.It was a short bend of the brook, where dark old trees overshadowed the water with forest gloom.She was seated on the trunk of a fallen oak, and it seemed as if she had sat herself down to weep in her dumb trouble, for her blind eyes were still wet with tears.The river was murmuring at her feet; an old olive-tree over her head was pattering with its multitudinous tongues; the little family of a squirrel was chirping by her side, and one tiny creature of the brood was squirling up her dress; a thrush was swinging itself on the low bough of the olive and singing as it swung, and a sheep of solemn face--gaunt and grim and ancient--was standing and palpitating before her.Bees were humming, grasshoppers were buzzing, the light wind was whispering, and cattle were lowing in the distance.The air of that sweet spot in that sweet hour was musical with every sweet sound of the earth and sky, and fragrant with all the wild odours of the wood.

"My darling," cried Israel in the first outburst of his relief, and then he paused and looked at her again.

The wet eyes were open, and they appeared to see, so radiant was the light that shone in them.A tender smile played about her mouth;her head was held forward; her nostrils quivered; and her cheeks were flushed.She had pushed her hat back from her head, and her yellow hair had fallen over her neck and breast.

One of her hands covered one ear, and the other strayed among the plants that grew on the bank beside her.She seemed to be listening intently, eagerly, rapturously.A rare and radiant joy, a pure and tender delight, appeared to gush out of her beautiful face.It was almost as though she believed that everything she heard with the great new gift which God had given her was speaking to her, and bidding her welcome and offering her love; as if the garrulous old olive over her head were stretching down his arms to sport with her hair, and pattering;"Kiss me, little one! kiss me, sweet one! kiss me! kiss me!"--as if the rippling river at her feet were laughing and crying, "Catch me, naked feet! catch me, catch me!" as if the thrush on the bough were singing, "Where from, sunny locks? where from?

where from?--as if the young squirrel were chirping, "I'm not afraid, not afraid, not afraid!" and as if the grey old sheep were breathing slowly, "Pat me, little maiden! you may, you may!""God bless her beautiful face!" cried Israel."She listens with every feature and every line of it."It was the awakening of her soul to the soul of music, and from that day forward she took pleasure in all sweet and gentle sounds whatsoever--in the voices of children at play--in the bleat of the goat--in the footsteps of them she loved--in the hiss and whirr of her mother's old spinning-wheel, which now she learned to work--and in Ali's harp, when he played it in the patio in the cool of the evening.

But even as no eye can see how the seed which has been sown in the ground first dies and then springs into life, so no tongue can tell what change was wrought in the pure soul of Naomi when, after her baptism of sound, the sweet voices of earth first entered it.Neither she herself nor any one else ever fully realised what that change was, for it was a beautiful and holy mystery.It was also a great joy, and she seemed to give herself up to it.No music ever escaped her, and of all human music she took most pleasure in the singing of love songs.These she listened to with a simple and rapt delight;their joy seemed to answer to her joy, and the joyousness of a song of love seemed to gather in the air wheresoever she went.

There were few of the kind she ever heard, and few of that few were beautiful, and none were beautifully sung.Fatimah's homely ditties were all she knew, the same that had been crooned to her a thousand times when she had not heard.Most of these were songs of the desert and the caravan, telling of musk and ambergris, and odorous locks and dancing cypress, and liquid ruby, and lips like wine; and some were warm tales which the good soul herself hardly understood, of enchanting beauties whose silence was the door of consent, and of wanton nymphs whose love tore the veil of their chastity.

But one of them was a song of pure and true passion that seemed to be the yearning cry of a hungering, unfilled, unsatisfied heart to call down love out of the skies, or else be carried up to it.This had been a favourite song of Naomi's mother, and it was from Ruth that Fatimah had learned it in those anxious watches of the early uncertain days when she sang it over the cradle to her babe that was deaf after all and did not hear.Naomi knew nothing of this, but she heard her mother's song at last, though silent were the lips that first sang it, and it was her chief and dear delight.

O, where is Love?

Where, where is Love?

Is it of heavenly birth?

Is it a thing of earth?

Where, where is Love?

In her crazy, creechy voice the black woman would sing the song, when Israel was out of hearing; and the joy Naomi found in it, and the simple silent arts she used, being mute and blind, to show her pleasure while it lasted, and to ask for it again when it was done, were very sweet and touching.

And so it came about at last, that even as the human mother loves that child most among many children that most is helpless, so the earth-mother of Naomi made her ears more keen because her eyes were blind.Thus she seemed to hear many things that are unheard by the rest of the human family.It is only a dim echo of the outer world that the ears of men are allowed to hear, just as it is only a dim shadow of the outer world that the eyes of men are allowed to see;but the ears of Naomi seemed to hear all.

There is one hearing of men, and another hearing of the beasts, and a third of the birds, and one hearing differs from another in keenness even as one sight differs from another in strength.