. When the Evil Spirit departed, the desire
to destroy David departed with it. After Saul had cast the javelin,
Jonathan pleaded with his father for David, and Saul listened, and
swore that no harm should befall him; but when David soon afterwards
returned from another battle with the Philistines, the Spirit came
again and turned David's music into an instrument of torture, and again
put the javelin in Saul's hand, and strove through Saul to strike David
with it. Hard ridden was Saul by the Spirit at that time, and he went
to Ramah to see Samuel; and when he saw him, he, the king, my beloved,
was so beset that he tore off his clothes, and lay down naked all
night. When he came back at the feast of the new moon, he sat down to
meat with his princes, and with Abner and Jonathan; but David was not
there. He asked the reason of his absence, and Jonathan explained that
David had leave to go to Bethlehem to visit his father. Jonathan said
nothing more, but the Evil Spirit descended even at the feast, in the
company of all the lords, and Saul imagined that Jonathan was plotting
against him; and in his fury, possessed by the Lord, he cast his spear
against Jonathan also, his own best beloved son. That was the misery
of it; the Spirit brought him to violence, not only against those who
were his enemies, but against those whom he loved. To me, though, he
was ever tender, and over our love the Spirit had no power. Jonathan's
anger at the time was fierce; but Jonathan was noble of heart--his
father's son, without his father's affliction; and he knew, when he
came to himself, that it was not the father whom he honoured who had
done this deed. He went out and warned David, but he did not go with
him, and presently he returned into the city and comforted his father.
When David had gathered together his four hundred knaves in rebellion,
Saul sat in Gibeah under the tree there, and his servants stood round
him in council. They were all of them valiant and faithful, but he
broke out against them, and accused them of conspiring with David
against him. "There is none," he cried, "that sheweth me that my son
hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that
is sorry for me." "None of you that is sorry!" His suffering was so
great, and so little was it understood, that he believed no one cared
for him, and at times he said bitter things which kept men apart from
him, and sent some of them to David. His angu