Anthony Trollope - The Bertrams

"But you have not recalled it by a very pleasant incident. I was very nearly being thrown out of my saddle."

"And how we had to wait for our dinner at Gaza till the camels came up?" And Mr. M'Gabbery, urging on his horse, brought him up once more abreast with that of Miss Waddington.

"I shall soon have as great a horror of Gaza as Samson had," said she, sotto voce . "I almost feel myself already in bonds under Philistian yoke whenever it is mentioned."

"Talking of recollections, that journey will certainly be among the sunniest of my life's memories," said Mr. M'Gabbery.

"It was sunny, certainly," said Miss Waddington; for the heat of the desert had been oppressive.

"Ah! and so sweet! That encamping in your own tent; preparing your own meals; having everything, as it were, within yourself. Civilized life has nothing to offer equal to that. A person who has only gone from city to city, or from steamboat to steamboat, knows nothing of oriental life. Does he, Miss Waddington?" This was intended as a blow at Bertram, who had got to Jerusalem without sleeping under canvas.

"What ignorant wretches the natives must be!" said George; "for they apparently sleep as regularly in their own beds as any stupid Christian in England."

"I am not sure that even Mr. M'Gabbery would admire the tents so much if he had not some Christian comforts along with him."

"His brandy-flask and dressing-case, for instance," said George.

"Yes; and his mattress and blankets," said Caroline.

"His potted meat and preserved soup."

"And especially his pot to boil his potatoes in."

"That was Mr. Cruse," said Mr. M'Gabbery, quite angrily. "For myself, I do not care a bit about potatoes."

"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 associations.

"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 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."

"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 associations 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 assistance 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.