Keturah

“ He went upstairs without returning to the kitchen and Keturah heard his voice on the landing in conversation with the doctor. By and by the two men came down together and passed into the parlour.
“I care nothing about the child’s life,” Inman said in a tone that was strange to Keturah; “but I hope you’ll not let the mother slip through your fingers. You don’t often hear a man talk of disappointments at a time like this I daresay, but it’ll be a big disappointment to me if she dies. If there’s anything else to be done ”

“ Eh?"
"Could I ast the young gentleman parson wot plays cricket?" Keturah's voice was hoarse and eager.
"The very man—couldn't do better. I'll send him round as I go home," and the doctor turned to go. He hurried down the narrow stairs, but stopped at the front door to call back into the house, "She's to live in poultices, mind! Live in 'em."
He stopped at the curate's lodgings as he drove home, and went right in, to find the cleric in question resting his slippered feet upon the chimney-piece, while he smoked and read the evening paper. ”

“ Nor does the fact that Keturah is called a concubine in Gen 25:6, and 1Ch 1:32, necessarily show that she was contemporary with Sarah, but may be explained on the ground that Abraham did not place her on the same footing as Sarah, his sole wife, the mother of the promised seed. Of the sons and grandsons of Keturah, who are mentioned in 1Ch 1:32 as well as here, a few of the names may still be found among the Arabian tribes, but in most instances the attempt to trace them is very questionable. ”

“ Perhaps we may be justified in reading the verse: "And Abraham had added, and had taken a wife (besides Hagar) whose name was Keturah," etc. The chronology in the margin dates this marriage with Keturah A. M. 2154, nine years after the death of Sarah, A. M. 2145. Jonathan ben Uzziel and the Jerusalem Targum both assert that Keturah was the same as Hagar. Some rabbins, and with them Dr. Hammond, are of the same opinion; but both Hagar and Keturah are so distinguished in the Scriptures, that the opinion seems destitute of probability. ”

“ They have a continuous lover's quarrel, exceedingly bitter while it rages, exceedingly sweet when it is made up. Keturah attends a perfectly grave and unimpeachable lecture,—the Restorer pouts and goes off in a huff for twenty-four hours. Keturah undertakes at seven o'clock a concert,— announced as Mendelssohn Quintette, proving to be Gilmore's Brassiest,—and nothing hears she of My Lady till two o'clock, A. M. Keturah spends an hour at a prayer-meeting, on a pine bench that may have heard of cushions, but certainly has never seen one face to face ”

“ The possibility is worth trying for, and trying hard for; but if it results in the sudden flight of President Edwards across the room, a severe banging of the "Sphere of Woman" against the wall, and the total disappearance of Cruden's Concordance beneath the bed, Keturah is not in the least surprised. It is altogether too familiar a result to elicit remark. It simply occasions a fresh growth to a horrible resolution that she has been slowly forming for years. ”

“ And Keturah can keep a resolution.
Her literary occupation disposed of, in the summary manner referred to, she runs through the roll of her reserve force, and their name is Legion. She composes herself, in an attitude of rest, with a handkerchief tied over her eyes to keep them shut, blows her lamp out instead of screwing it out, strangles awhile in the gas, and begins to repeat her alphabet, which, owing to like stern necessity, she has fortunately never forgotten. She says it forward; she says it backward; she begins at the middle and goes up; she begins at the middle and goes down ”

“ As Keturah grew better, Matthew made, with his own hands, and at the instigation of the curate, a whole series of fantastic little loaves that she might the better "fancy her tea."
"My Dada don't say much, but I knows now that 'e do like me," said Keturah, in a burst of confidence to Thomas Beames, and Thomas, with that caution for which the Cotswold folk are justly famed, replied—
"Mebbe 'e do. But folks when they be growed up be oncommon akard 'times."
* * * * *
"As for that there doctor," said Mrs. Moulder to a bosom friend, "'e's the most commandingest gent I ever see. ”

“ He looked more closely at the haphazard decorations, then exclaimed, "Postage stamps, I'll be bound!"
"Yes. Five dollars' worth," laughed Keturah infectiously. "And the worst of it is, most of them will have to be soaked off with water. Billy Bolee did his job well. Do you suppose the mucilage will make him sick? By the way, Dickson, I am going to take Billy home with me. It won't be too cool in the auto for him without any wraps, will it? He has nothing but a heavy winter coat, and he will roast in that."
Slowly the doctor turned and looked searchingly at his sister. ”

“ She's a genius!"
"She may be a genius," said the doctor grimly, "but her people are the balliest lunatics in creation, and I rather fancy that geniuses are just as likely to die of neglect as other folk——" But the curate had not waited for the rest of the sentence. He seized his hat and ran into the street, his slippers (down at the heel) going flip, flop, on the wet pavement as he ran.
"He's a good chap," murmured the doctor as he climbed into his dog-cart. "He's a devilish good chap."
He went to see Keturah again that night, and found that his instructions had been carried out to the letter. ”

“ Imagination must supply the coarse expressions that sent Keturah’s hands to her ears and a scowl to Inman’s brow. “You sit there making game o’ us; same as you’d naught to do but pull t’ strings and we should all dance to your tune. But you’ve t’ wrong pig by t’ ear, I can tell you, when you’ve Baldwin Briggs to deal wi’. A nice fool I should ha’ been to turn t’ business over to another man just because you’ve wed him. ”

“ Keturah's verbal cannonades are likely to make one forgetful of trifles.
At any rate, whether Tuesday or Wednesday, it is certain that it was quarter past twelve, according to the clock presented to the Methodist Society by the Honorable Heman Atkins, when Asaph Tidditt came down the steps of the townhall, after the selectmen's meeting, and saw Bailey Bangs waiting for him on the opposite side of the road.
“Hello, Ase!” hailed Mr. Bangs. “You'll be late to dinner, if you don't hurry. I was headin' for home, all sail sot, when I see you. What kept you?” ”

“ The woman bowed her shawled head and murmured with emotion after a silence:
"The blessings of a servant be upon you and yours; may the God of Israel be with you for evermore."
She dropped back to the rear of the party and the train moved on.
Meanwhile, Keturah, who sat huddled on the floor of Laodice's howdah, had not moved since they had left the doorway of Costobarus' house. Momus, on the neck of Laodice's camel, had observed her once or twice, and now he reached back and touched her. He jerked his hand away and brought up his camel with a wrench. ”

“ Thus the sons of Keturah are the “incense-men,” not indeed inhabitants of the far south incense-land, but presumably the tribes whose caravans brought the incense to Palestine and the Mediterranean ports. So the Midianites appear in connexion with the gold and incense trade from Yemen (Isa. lx. 6) , and with the trade between Egypt and Syria (Gen. xxxvii. 28, 36) . They appear also as warriors invading Canaan from the eastern desert, and ravaging the land as similar tribes have done in all ages when Palestine lacked a strong government (see Gideon) . ”

“ All these were the children of Keturah.
01:025:005 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.
01:025:006 But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.
01:025:007 And these are the days of the years of Abraham's life which he
lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years.
01:025:008 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an
old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. ”

“ The people are very poor and unprosperous, and a meaner set of donkeys and oxen than those which were treading out the corn close to my tent I have not seen.
Though most of the inhabitants are Kurds, there are some Persians and Turks, and each nationality has its own ketchuda. Towards evening the sowars came to me with the three ketchudas, who, they said, would arrange for a guard, and for my escort the next day. I did not like this, for the sowars had good double-barrelled guns, and were in Persian uniform, and had been given me for three days, but there was no help for it. ”

“ Expect you've heard your grandma tell about old Ketury. She used to come to meetin's sometimes, and her husband was one o' the prayin' Indians; but Ketury was one of the rael wild sort, and you couldn't no more convert her than you could convert a wild-cat or a painter [panther] . Lordy massy! Ketury used to come to meetin', and sit there on them Indian benches; and when the second bell was a-tollin', and when Parson Lothrop and his wife was comin' up the broad aisle, and everybody in the house ris' up and stood, Ketury would sit there, and look at 'em out o' the corner o' her eyes ”

“ Ketu nowadays is only a vague demon of disease, and Râhu too has suffered a grievous degradation. He is now the special godling of the Dusâdhs and Dhângars, two menial tribes found in the Eastern districts of the North-Western Provinces. His worship is a kind of fire sacrifice. A ditch seven cubits long and one and a quarter cubits broad (both numbers of mystical significance) is dug and filled with burning faggots, which are allowed to smoulder into cinders. ”

“ The dynasty of Chitral is said to have been established by Baba Ayub, an adventurer of Khorassan. He adopted the already existing name of Katór, whence the dynasty is called Katore. The Emperor Baber refers to the country of Katór in his Memoirs and a still more ancient origin has been found in identifying Katór with “Kitolo, the King of the Great Yuechi, who, in the beginning of the 5th century, conquered Balkh and Gandhara, and whose son established the Kingdom of the Little Yuechi, at Peshawur.” (See Biddulph’s “Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh,” page 148.) ”

“ The generals insisted so firmly that Jelal had to yield to them.
Khelat was given up for a time to the army; for three days and nights did wild, savage men work their will on it. A great many people expired under torture inflicted to force them to tell where their treasures were hidden. Women and children were saved for captivity. The Georgian wife of Prince Ashraf was taken by Jelal, who made her his concubine.
Two younger brothers, Yakub and Abbas, fell into the power of the conqueror also. The Sultan now had the walls of the city repaired, and gave land in that region to his generals. ”

“ Ketman (the art of dissimulation allowed by Islam) is a gift well known and diligently cultivated by Orientals; but that a European should have acquired such a degree of excellence in this peculiarly Eastern art as to [Pg 317] impose upon the natives themselves seemed to them incomprehensible. Without doubt they would have grudged the successful termination of my journey, had it not been that the joke I had played at the expense of their arch enemies the Sunnite Turkomans tickled their fancy. The steppes of Turkestan are many ways a terra incognita to the inhabitants of Teheran ”

“ Kittakara replied: "Is not Kabba Rega your son? Do you begrudge him a few good guns and ammunition taken from your late enemies, the slave-hunters?"
It was in vain that I endeavoured to explain that these people were subjects of the Khedive, and had now received forgiveness: therefore, as they were engaged as irregulars they must receive their arms. Kittakara simply replied: "Do you believe in these people? Do you think that, because they have now enlisted through fear, they will ever change their natures?" ”

“ Both shores are laid out in gardens by the people of Kechilar, who may bring ten thousand men into the field, the greater part horsemen. They are a very rich and rapacious people. We remained guests in the village Háka in the house of an Abáza, called Zeperaha, the janissaries our companions made an entertainment of ten sheep, on which we feasted, and then proceeded two journies westward to the tribe of Árt, who are more numerous than the Kechilar, but they are neither so brave nor so rapacious, most of them are merchants trading in fur. ”

“ Let us now deal with the Wahuma since they crossed the Nile and founded the kingdom of Kittara, a large tract of land bounded by the Victoria N'yanza and Kitangule Kagera or River on the south, the Nile on the east, the Little Luta-Nzige Lake 15 on the north, and the kingdoms of Utubi and Nkole on the west.
The general name Kittara is gradually becoming extinct, and is seldom applied to any but the western portions; whilst the north-eastern, in which the capital is situated, is called Unyoro, and the other, Uddu apart from Uganda, as we shall presently see. ”

“ At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain, emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. ”

“ This was the origin of Keradr and of its wursulir, which are still called miniapir, and they are the only buffaloes of the Todas which were made from sambhar.
After these things had happened the gods recognised that Korateu was a teu, and calling him asked him who he was. He answered that he was the son of Teikirzi, and the manmokh or sister’s son of Teipakh. He was then admitted as one of the gods and now lives on the hill Korateu, but still sometimes sits in the lap of Teipakh. He is the nòdrodchi of the Keradr and Keadr clans, and the chief villages of these clans are near his hill. ”