this sweet flower, fresh from God's hand, wrought upon his heart
to redeem it were very strange and beautiful.

CHAPTER VI
THE SPIRIT-MAID

The promise which Israel made to Ruth at her death, that Naomi
should not lack for love and tending, he faithfully fulfilled.

From that time forward he became as father and mother both to the child.
At the outset of his charge he made a survey of her condition,

and found it more terrible than imagination of the mind could think
or words of the tongue express. It was easy to say that she was deaf

and dumb and blind, but it was hard to realise what so great an affliction
implied. It implied that she was a little human sister standing close

to the rest of the family of man, yet very far away from them.
She was as much apart as if she had inhabited a different sphere.

No human sympathy could reach her in joy or pain and sorrow.
She had no part to play in life. In the midst of a world of light

she was in a land of darkness, and she was in a world of silence
in the midst of a land of sweet sounds. She was a living and buried soul.

And of that soul itself what did Israel know? He knew that it had memory,
for Naomi had remembered her mother; and he knew that it had love,

for she had pined for Ruth, and clung to her. But what were love
and memory without sight and speech? They were no more than a magnet

locked in a casket--idle and useless to any purposes of man or the world.
Thinking of this, Israel realised for the first time how awful was

the affliction of his motherless girl. To be blind was to be afflicted
once, but to be both blind and deaf was not only to be afflicted twice,

but twice ten thousand times, and to be blind and deaf and dumb
was not merely to be afflicted thrice, but beyond all reckonings

of human speech.
For though Naomi had been blind, yet, if she could have had hearing,

her father might have spoken with her, and if she had sorrows
he must have soothed them, and if she had joys he must have shared them,

and in this beautiful world of God, so full of things to look upon
and to love, he must have been eyes of her eyes that could not see.

On the other hand, though Naomi had been deaf, yet if she could have had
sight her father might have held intercourse with her by the light

of her eyes, and if she felt pain he must have seen it, and if she had
found pleasure he must have known it, and what man is, and what woman is,

and what the world and what the sea and what the sky, would have been
as an open book for her to read. But, being blind and deaf together,

and, by fault of being deaf, being dumb as well, what word was to describe
the desolation of her state, the blank void of her isolation--cut off,

apart, aloof, shut in, imprisoned, enchained, a soul without communion
with other souls: alive, and yet dead?

Thus, realising Naomi's condition in; the deep infirmity of her nature,
Israel set himself to consider how he could reach her darkened and

silent soul. And first he tried to learn what good gifts were left
to her, that he might foster them to her advantage and nourish them

to his own great comfort and joy. Yet no gift whatever could he find
in her but the one gift only whereof he had known from the beginning--

the gift of touch and feeling. With this he must make her to see,
or else her light should always be darkness, and with this he must make

her to hear, or silence should be her speech for ever.
Then he remembered that during his years in England he had heard

strange stories of how the dumb had been made to speak though
they could not hear, and the blind and deaf to understand and to answer.

So he sent to England for many books written on the treatment
of these children of affliction, and when they were come he pondered

them closely and was thrilled by the marvellous works they described.
But when he came to practise the precepts they had given him,

his spirits flagged, for the impediments were great. Time after time
he tried, and failed always, to touch by so much as one shaft of light

the hidden soul of the child through its tenement of flesh and blood.
Neither the simplest thought nor the poorest element of an idea found

any way to her mind, so dense were the walls of the prison
that encompassed it. "Yes" was a mystery that could not at first

be revealed to her, and "No" was a problem beyond her power to apprehend.
Smiles and frowns were useless to teach her. No discipline could

be addressed to her mind or heart. Except mere bodilyrestraint, no
control could be imposed upon her. She was swayed by her impulses alone.

Israel did not despair. If he was broken down today he strengthened
his hands for tomorrow. At length he had got so far, after a world

of toil and thought, that Naomi knew when he patted her head that it was
for approval, and when he touched her hand it was for assent.

Then he stopped very suddenly. His hope had not drooped, and neither
had his energy failed, but the conviction had fastened upon him

that such effort in his case must be an offence against Heaven.
Naomi was not merely an infirm creature from the left hand of Nature;

she was an afflicted being from the right hand of God.
She was a living monument of sin that was not her own.

It was useless to go farther. The child must be left where God had
placed her.

But meanwhile, if Naomi lacked the senses of the rest of the human kind,
she seemed to communicate with Nature by other organs than they possessed.

It was as if the spiritual world itself must have taught her,
and from that source alone could she have imbibed her power.

To tell of all she could do to guide her steps, and to minister to
her pleasures, and to cherish her affections, would be to go beyond

the limit of belief. Truly it seemed as if Naomi, being blind
with her bodily eyes, could yet look upon a light that no one else

could see, and, being deaf with her bodily ears, could yet listen
to voices that no one else could hear.

Thus, if she came skipping through the corridor of the patio,
she knew when any one approached her, for she would hold out her hands

and stop. Nay; but she knew also who it would be as well as if her eyes
or ears had taught her; for always, if it was her father,

she reached out her hands to take his left hand in both of hers,
and then she pressed it against her cheek; and always,

if it was little Ali, she curved her arms to circle" target="_blank" title="vt.环绕；包围">encircle his neck;
and always, if it was Fatimah, she leapt up to her bosom; and always,

if it was Habeebah, she passed her by. Did she go with Ali
into the streets, she knew the Mellah gate from the gate of the town,

and the narrow lanes from the open Sok. Did she pass the lofty mosque
in the market-place, she knew it from the low shops that nestled

under and behind and around. Did a troop of mules and camels come
near her, she knew them from a crowd of people; and did she pass

where two streets crossed, she would stand and face both ways.
And as the years grew she came to know all places within and around Tetuan,

the town of the Moors and the Mellah of the Jews, the Kasbah and
the narrow lane leading up to it, the fort on the hill and the river

under the town walls, the mountains on either side of the valley,
and even some of their rocky gorges. She could find her way among

them all without help or guidance, and no control could any one impose
upon her to keep her out of the way of harm. While Ali was

a little fellow he was her constantcompanion, always ready
for any adventure that her unquiet heart suggested; but when he grew

to be a boy, and was sent to school every day early and late,
she would fare forth alone save for a tiny white goat which her father

had bought to be another playfellow.
And because feeling was sight to her, and touch was hearing, and

the crown of her head felt the winds of the heavens and the soles
of her feet felt the grass of the fields, she loved best to go bareheaded

whether the sun was high or the air was cool, and barefooted also,
from the rising of the morning until the coming of the stars.

So, casting off her slippers and the great straw hat which
a Jewish maiden wears, and clad in her white woollen shawl,

wrapped loosely about her in folds of airy grace, and with the little goat
going before her, though she could neither see nor hear it,

she would climb the hill beyond the battery, and stand on the summit,
like a spirit poised in air. She could see nothing of the green valley