Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/211

Rh musk brilliant with balls of golden blossoms. Ben-Hur was startled. Had he, indeed, been permitted to see a satyr at home? The creature looked up at him, and showed in its teeth a hooked priming-knife; he smiled at his own scare, and, lo! the charm was evolved! Peace without fear—peace a universal condition—that it was!

He sat upon the ground beneath a citron-tree, which spread its gray roots sprawling to receive a branch of the brook. The nest of a titmouse hung close to the bubbling water, and the tiny creature looked out of the door of the nest into his eyes. &quot;Verily, the bird is interpreting to me,&quot; he thought. &quot;It says, ’I am not afraid of you, for the law of this happy place is Love.’&quot;

The charm of the Grove seemed plain to him; he was glad, and determined to render himself one of the lost in Daphne. In charge of the flowers and shrubs, and watching the growth of all the dumb excellences everywhere to be seen, could not he, like the man with the pruning-kuife in his mouth, forego the days of his troubled life forego them forgetting and forgotten?

But by-and-by his Jewish nature began to stir within him.

The charm might be sufficient for some people. Of what kind were they?

Love is delightful—ah! how pleasant as a successor to wretchedness like his. But was it all there was of life?

All?

There was an unlikeness between him and those who buried themselves contentedly here. They had no duties—they could not have had; but he— &quot;God of Israel!&quot; he cried aloud, springing to his feet, with burning cheeks—&quot;Mother! Tirzah! Cursed be the moment, cursed the place, in which I yield myself happy in your loss!&quot;

He hurried away through the thicket, and came to a stream flowing with the volume of a river between banks of masonry, broken at intervals by gated sluiceways. A bridge carried the path he was traversing across the stream; and, standing upon it, he saw other bridges, no two of them alike. Under him the water was lying in a deep pool, clear