ortress--the God of my
mercy."

V.--THE EXILE--_CONTINUED_.

"So David fled, and escaped and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him
all that Saul had done unto him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in
Naioth" (1 Sam. xix. 18)--or, as the word probably means, in the
collection of students' dwellings, inhabited by the sons of the
prophets, where possibly there may have been some kind of right of
sanctuary. Driven thence by Saul's following him, and having had one
last sorrowful hour of Jonathan's companionship--the last but one on
earth--he fled to Nob, whither the ark had been carried after the
destruction of Shiloh. The story of his flight had not reached the
solitary little town among the hills, and he is received with the honour
due to the king's son-in-law. He pleads urgent secret business for Saul
as a reason for his appearance with a slender retinue, and unarmed; and
the priest, after some feeble scruples, supplies the handful of hungry
fugitives with the shewbread. But David's quick eye caught a swarthy
face peering at him from some enclosure of the simple forest sanctuary,
and as he recognised Doeg the Edomite, Saul's savage herdsman, a cold
foreboding of evil crept over his heart, and made him demand arms from
the peaceful priest. The lonely tabernacle was guarded by its own
sanctity, and no weapons were there, except one trophy which was of good
omen to David--Goliath's sword. He eagerly accepts the matchless weapon
which his hand had clutched on that day of danger and deliverance, and
thus armed, lest Doeg should try to bar his flight, he hurries from the
pursuit which he knew that the Edomite's malignant tongue would soon
bring after him. The tragical end of the unsuspecting priest's kindness
brings out the furious irrational suspicion and cruelty of Saul. He
rages at his servants as leagued with David in words which have a most
dreary sound of utter loneliness sighing through all their fierce folly:
"All of you have conspired against me; there is none of you that is
sorry for me" (1 Sam. xxii. 8.) Doeg is forward to curry favour by
telling his tale, and so tells it as to suppress the priest's ignorance
of David's flight, and to represent him as aiding and comforting the
rebel knowingly. Then fierce wrath flames out from the darkened spirit,
and the whole priestly population of Nob are summoned before him, loaded
with bitter reproaches, their professions of innocence disregarded, and
his guard ordere