I shall pray that the Lord call thee out of the desert to join thy voice
with those already preaching, Joseph cried; and the hermit answered him:
let us praise the Lord for having sent us the new prophet! But do thou
hasten to John, he called after Joseph, who ran and walked alternately,
striving up every hillock for sight of the ferryman's boat which might
well be waiting on this side for him to step on board; Joseph being in a
hurry, it would certainly be lying under the opposite bank, the ferryman
asleep in it, and so soundly that no cries would awaken him.
But Joseph's fortune was kinder than he anticipated, for on arriving at
the Jordan he found himself at the very spot where the ferryman had tied
his boat and--napping--awaited a passenger. So rousing him with a great
shout, Joseph leaped on board and told the old fellow to pull his
hardest; but having been pulling across the Jordan for nigh fifty
years, the ferryman was little disposed to alter his stroke for the
pleasure of the young man, who, he remembered, had not paid him
over-liberally yester-evening; and in the mid-stream he rested on his
oars, so that he might the better discern the great multitude gathered
on yon bank. For baptism, he said; or making ready to go home after
baptism, he added; and letting his boat drift, sat discoursing on the
cold of the water, which he said was colder than he ever knew it before
at this season of the year: remarks' that Joseph considered well enough
in themselves, but out of his humour. So ye be craving for baptism, the
ferryman said, and looked as if he did not care a wild fig whether
Joseph got it that morning or missed it. But there was no use arguing
with the ferryman, who after a long stare fell to his oars, but so
leisurely that Joseph seized one of them and--putting his full strength
upon it--turned the boat's head up-stream.
There be no landing up-stream anywhere, so loose my oars or I'll leave
them to thee, the ferryman growled, and we shall be twirling about
stream till midday and after. But I can row, Joseph said. Then row! and
the ferryman put the other oar into his hand. But we shall be quicker
across if thou'lt leave them to me. And as this seemed to Joseph the
truth, he fell back into his seat, and did not get out of it till the
boat touched the bank. But he jumped too soon and fell into the mud,
causing much laughter along the bank, and not a few ribald remarks, some
saying that he needed baptism more than those that had gotten it. But a
hand was reached out to him, and that he should ask for the Baptist
before thinking of his clothes showed the multitude that he must be
another prophet, which he denied, calling on heaven to witness that he
was not one: whereupon he was mistaken for a great sinner, and heard
that however great his repentance it would avail him nothing, for the
Baptist was gone away with his disciple. Joseph, thinking that he had
left the Baptist's disciple in the desert, began to argue that this
could not be, and raved incontinently at the man, bringing others round
him, till he was hemmed into a circle of ridicule. Among the multitude
many were of the same faith as Joseph himself, and these drew him out of
the circle and explained to him that the Baptist baptized in the river
for several hours, till--unable to bear the cold any longer--he had gone
away, his teeth chattering, with Jesus the Essene.
Jesus the Essene! Joseph repeated, but before he could inquire further,
men came running along the bank, saying they had sins to repent, and on
hearing that the Baptist was gone and would not return that day, they
began to tell each other stories of the great cloud that was seen in the
east, bearing within it a chariot; and from the chariot angels were seen
descending all the morning with flaming swords in their hands. Get thee
baptized! they shouted, and clamoured, and pushed to and fro--a
thronging gesticulating multitude of brown faces and hooked noses, of
bony shoulders and striped shirts. Get thee baptized before sunset!
everybody was crying. And Joseph watched the veils floating from their
turbans as they fled southwards. On what errand? he asked; in search of
the Baptist or the new disciple Jesus? Not the new disciple, was the
answer he got back; for Jesus leaves baptism to John. But why doesn't
Jesus baptize? Joseph asked, since he is a disciple of the Baptist. If
baptism be good for him, it is good enough for another. And so the
multitude seemed to think, and were confounded till one amongst them
said that Jesus might not be endowed with the gift of baptism; or belike
have accepted baptism from John for a purpose, it having been prophesied
that the Messiah would have a forerunner. But who, asked many voices
together, has said that Jesus is the Messiah? some maintaining that
Jesus was the lesser prophet. But this contention was not agreeable to
all, some having, for, reasons unknown to Joseph, ranged themselves
already alongside of Jesus, believing him to be greater than John, yet
not the final prophet promised to Israel. And these came to blows with
the others, who looked upon John as the Messiah, and Jesus as the one
whom John had called to his standard: a recruit--nothing. Skinny fists
were striving in the air and--thrusting himself between two
disputants--Joseph begged them to tell him if Jesus, John's disciple,
was from the cenoby? Yea, yea, he heard from all sides; the shepherd of
the brotherhood--that one who follows their flocks over the hills; but
not being sure of his mission, he has gone into the desert to wait for a
sign. An Essene, but one that was seldom in the cenoby, more often to be
met on the hills with his flocks. A shepherd? Joseph asked. Yea, and it
was among the hills that John met him, and seeing a prophet in him spoke
to him, and Jesus, seeing that another prophet was risen up in Israel,
had thrown his flute away and gone to the president to ask for leave to
preach the baptism of repentance unto men, for the grand day is at hand.
Joseph having heard this before, heeded only tidings of the new prophet,
when a woman pressing forward shouted: a pleasant voice to hear on the
mountain-side, said she; and another added: the hills will seem lonely
without his gait. A great slinger, cried a third. But why did he come
to John for baptism, knowing himself to be the greater prophet? A
question that started them all wrangling again, and crying one against
the other that repentance was necessary, or else the Lord would desert
them or choose another race.
These are irksome gossips, a man said to Joseph; but come with me and
I'll tell thee much about him. No better shepherd than he ever ranged
the hills. I wouldn't have thee forget, mate, another man said, that
he's gone without leaving us his great cure for scab. True for thee,
mate, answered the first, for a great forgetfulness has been on him this
time past.... A great cure, certainly, which he might have left us. And
the twain fell to discussing their several cures for scab. Another
shepherd came by and passed the remark that Jesus knew the hills like
one born among them. But neither could tell whence he came, nor did they
know if he brought the cure for scab with him, or learnt it at the
cenoby. The brotherhood has secrets that it is forbidden to tell. I be
with thee on this matter, said another shepherd, that wherever he goes,
he'll be a prize to a master, for the schooling he has been through will
stand to him.
The last of this chatter that came to Joseph's ears was that Jesus could
do as much with sheep as any man since Abraham, and--satisfied with this
knowledge--he took his leave of the shepherds, certain that Jesus must
have been among the Essenes for many years before God called to him to
leave his dogs and to follow John, whom he began to recognise as greater
than himself, but whom he was destined to supersede, as John's own
disciple, Banu, testified in the desert before Joseph's own eyes. He
remembered how Banu saw John in a vision plunging Jesus into Jordan. Of
trickery and cozenage there was none: for the men along these banks bore
witness to the baptism that Joseph would have seen for himself if he had
started a little earlier; nor could the Jesus who came to John for
baptism be other than the young shepherd whom Joseph had seen, at the
beginning of his novitiate, walking with the president in deep converse;
the president apparently trying to dissuade him from some project.
Joseph could not remember having heard anyone speak so familiarly or so
authoritatively to the president, a man some twenty years older; and he
wondered at the time how a mere shepherd from the hills could talk on an
equality, as if they were friends, with the president. The shepherd, he
now heard, was an Essene, but he lived among the hills, and Joseph
remembered the striped shirt, the sheepskin and the long stride. His
memory continued to unfold, and he recalled with singular distinctness
and pleasure the fine broad brow curving upwards--a noble arch, he said
to himself--the eyes distant as stars and the underlying sadness in his
voice oftentimes soft and low, but with a cry in it; and he remembered
how their eyes met, and it seemed to Joseph that he read in the
shepherd's eyes a look of recognition and amity.
And now, as he walked from the Jordan to the cenoby, he remembered how,
all one night after that meeting, dreams of a mutual destiny plagued
him: how he slept and was awakened by visions that fled from his mind as
he strove to recall them. But was this young shepherd the one that Banu
saw John baptize in the Jordan? It cannot be else, he said to himself.
But whither was Jesus gone? Did the brethren know, and if they did know
would they tell him? It was against the rule to put questions: only the
president could tell him, and he dared not go to the president. Yet
consult somebody he must; and a few days afterwards he got leave again
to visit Banu, whom he found lying in his cave, sick: not very sick;
though having eaten nothing for nearly two days he begged Joseph to
fetch him a little water from the rock; which Joseph did. After having
drunk a little the hermit seemed to revive, and Joseph related how he
missed Jesus on the bank and had no tidings of him except that he was
gone into the desert to meditate. But the desert is large, and I know
not which side of the lake he has chosen. To which Banu answered: John
is baptizing in the Jordan; get thee baptized and repent! On which he
reached out his hand to his store of locusts, and while munching a few
he added: the Baptist is greater than Jesus, and he is still baptizing.
Get thee to Jordan! At this Joseph took offence and returned to the
cenoby with the intention of resuming his teaching. But he was again so
possessed of Jesus that he could not keep his mind on the lesson before
him: a pupil was often forced to put a question to him in a loud voice,
and perhaps to repeat it, before Joseph's sick reverie was sufficiently
broken for him to formulate an answer. The pain of the effort to return
to them was so apparent in his face that the pupils began to be sorry
for him and kept up a fire of questions, to save him from the melancholy
abstractions to which he lately seemed to have become liable. The cause
of his grief they could not guess, but he was not sure they did not
suspect the cause; and so the classes in which he heretofore took so
much pleasure came to be dreaded by him. Every moment except those in
which he sat immersed in dreams was a penance and a pain; and at last he
pleaded illness, and Mathias took his class, leaving Joseph to wander
as far as he liked from the cenoby, which had become hateful to him.
He was often met in the public gardens in Jericho, watching the people
going by, vaguely interested and vaguely wearied by the thoughts that
their different shows called up in his mind; and he was always painfully
conscious that nothing mattered: that the great void would never be
filled up again: and that time would not restore to him a single desire
or hope. Nothing matters, he often said to himself, as he sat drawing
patterns in the gravel with his stick. Yet he had no will to die, only
to believe he was the victim of some powerful malign influence.
One day as he sat watching the wind in the palm-trees, it seemed to him
that this influence, this demon, was always moving behind his life,
disturbing and setting himself to destroy any project that Joseph might
form. Another day it seemed to Joseph that the demon cast a net over
him, and that--entangled in the meshes--he was being drawn--Somebody
spoke to him, and he awoke so affrighted that the gossip could hardly
keep himself from laughing outright. If the end of the world were at
hand, let the end come to pass! he said; but he did not go to John for
baptism. He knew not why, only that he could not rouse himself! And it
was not till it came to be rumoured in Jericho that a prophet was gone
to Egypt to learn Greek that he awoke sufficiently to ask why a Jewish
prophet needed Greek. The answer he got was that the new doctrine
required a knowledge of Greek; Greek being a world-wide language, and
the doctrine being also world-wide. As there was but one God for all
the world, it was reasonable to suppose that every man might hope for
salvation, be he Jew or Gentile. It seemed to Joseph that this doctrine
could only emanate from the young shepherd he had met in the cenoby, and
he joined a caravan, and for fifteen days dreamed of the meeting that
awaited him at the end of the journey--and of the delightful instruction
in Greek that he was going to impart to Jesus. The heights of Mount
Sinai turned his thoughts backward only for a moment, and he continued
his dream of Jesus, continuing without interruption along the
shell-strewn shores of the Sea of Arabah, on and on into the peninsula,
till he stepped from the lurching camel into the great caravanserai in
Alexandria.
Without exactly expecting to find Jesus waiting for him in the street,
he had dreamed of meeting him somewhere in the city. He was sure he
would recognise that lean face, lit with brilliant eyes, in any crowd,
and the thought of getting news of Jesus in the synagogues in some sort
drowsed in his mind. As Jesus did not happen to be waiting outside the
caravanserai, Joseph sought him from synagogue to synagogue, without
getting tidings of him but of another, for the camel-drivers at Mount
Sinai had not informed him wrongly: a young Jew had passed through the
city on his way to Athens, but as he did not correspond to Joseph's
remembrances of Jesus, Joseph did not deem it to be worth his while to
follow this Jew to Athens. He remained in Alexandria without forming any
resolutions, seeking Jesus occasionally in the Jewish quarters; and when
they were all searched he returned to the synagogues once more and began
a fresh inquisition, but very soon he began to see that the faces about
him were overspread with incredulous looks and smiles, especially when
he related that his friend was the young prophet discovered by John
among the hills of Judea, tending sheep.
What tale is this that he tells us? the Jews asked apart; but finding
Joseph well instructed and of agreeable presence and manner, they made
much of him. If Galilee could produce such a man as Joseph, Galilee was
going up in the world. We will receive thee and gladly, but speak no
more to us of thy shepherd prophet, and betake thyself to our schools of
philosophy, which thou'lt enjoy, for thy Greek is excellent. But who
taught thee Greek? And while Joseph was telling of Azariah, little
smiles played about his eyes and mouth, for the incredulity of the
Alexandrian Jews had begotten incredulity in him, and he began to see
how much absurdity his adventure made show for. The Alexandrian Jews
liked him better for submitting himself so cheerfully to their learning
and their ideas, and he became a conspicuous and interesting person,
without knowledge that he was becoming one. Nor was it till having
moulded himself, or been moulded, into a new shape that he began to
think that he might have done better if he had left the moulding to God.
His conscience told him this and reminded him how he vowed himself to
Jesus, whom Banu saw in a vision. All the same he remained, not
unnaturally, a young man enticed by the charm of the Greek language, and
the science of the Alexandrian philosophers, who were every one
possessed of Mathias's skill in dialectics. They all knew Mathias and
were imbued with much respect for him as a teacher, and were willing to
instruct Joseph in psychology, taking up the lesson where Mathias closed
the book. So, putting his conscience behind him, Joseph listened, his
ears wide open and his mind alert to understand that it was a child's
story--the report in Jerusalem that the end of the world was
approaching, and that God would remould it afresh--as if God were human
like ourselves, animated with like business and desires! He heard for
the first time that to arrive at any clear notion of divinity we must
begin by stripping divinity of all human attributes, and when every one
is sloughed, what remains? Divinity, Joseph answered; and his instructor
bowed his head, saying: here is no matter for reflection.
The philosophers were surprised to learn that in Jerusalem many still
retained the belief that God was no more than a man of colossal stature,
angry, revengeful, and desirous of burnt offerings and of prayers which
were little better; that the corruptible body could be raised from the
dead and given back to the soul for a dwelling. That Jerusalem had
fallen so low in intellect was not known to them; and Joseph, feeling he
was making a noise in the world, admitted that despite the knowledge of
the Greek language he accepted the theory that the soul was created
before the body and waited in a sort of dim hall, hanging like a bat,
for the creation of the body which it was predestined to descend into,
till the death of the body released it. He was, however, now willing to
believe that the souls of all the wise men mentioned in the books of
Moses were sent down to earth as to a colony; great souls could not
abide like bats in the darkness, but are ever desirous of contemplation
and learning. And on pursuing this thought in the Greek language, which
lends itself to subtle shades of thought, he discovered that there are
three zones: the first zone is reason, the second passion and the third
appetite. And this his first psychological discovery was approved by his
teacher, and many months were passed over in agreeable exercises of the
mind of like nature, interrupted only by letters from his father, asking
him when he proposed to return home.
After reading one of these letters, his unhappiness lasted sometimes
for a whole day, and it was revived many times during the week; but
philosophy enabled him to resist the voice of conscience still a little
while, and even a letter relating the death of his grandmother did not
decide his departure. It seemed at first to have decided him, and he
told all his friends that he was leaving with the next caravan. But of
what use, he asked himself, for me to return to Galilee? Granny is in
her grave: could I bring her back to life I would return! So he remained
in Egypt for some time longer, and what enforced his return were the
long plains, in which oxen drew the plough from morning till evening;
and he had begun to long for clouds and for the hills, and the desire to
escape from the plain grew stronger every day till at last he could not
do else than yield to it. By the next caravan, he said to himself.
In Egypt he had met no prophet, only philosophers, and becoming once
more obsessed by miracles, he hastened to Banu, but of Jesus Banu could
only tell him that he was doing the work that our Father had given him
to do. Which is more than thou art doing. Go and get baptism from John!
Go back to Jericho and wait for a sign, leaving me in peace, for I need
it, having been troubled by many, eager and anxious about things that do
not matter. I will indeed, Joseph replied, for nothing matters to me
since I cannot find him. And he returned to Jericho, saying to himself
that Jesus must be known to every shepherd; perhaps to that one, he
said, running to head back his flock, which has been tempted by a patch
of young corn; Joseph stood at gaze, for the shepherd wore the same
garb as Jesus had done: a turban fixed on the head with two tiring-rings
of camel's hair, with veils floating from the shoulders to save the neck
from the sun. Jesus, too, wore a striped shirt, and over it was buckled
a dressed sheepskin; and Joseph pondered on the shepherd's shoon, on his
leathern water-bottle, on his long slender fingers twitching the thongs
of the sling. He had been told that no better slinger had been known in
these hills than Jesus. But he had left the hills and had gone, whither
none could tell! He was gone, whither no man knew, not even Banu. He is
about his Father's work, was all Banu could say; and Joseph wandered on
from shepherd to shepherd, questioning them all, and when none was in
sight he cried again Jesus's name to the winds, and never passed a cave
without looking into it, though he had lost hope of finding him. But he
continued his search, for it whiled the time away, though it did nothing
else, and one day as he lay under a rock, watching a shepherd passing
across the opposite hillside, he tried to summon courage to call him;
but judging him to be one of those whom he had already asked for tidings
of Jesus, he let him go, and fell to thinking of the look that would
come into the shepherd's face on hearing the same question put to him
again. A poor demented man! he would mutter to himself as he went away.
Nor was Joseph sure that his mind was not estranged from him. He could
no longer fix it upon anything: it wandered as incontinently as the wind
among the hills, and very often he seemed to have come back to himself
after a long absence, but without any memory. Yet he must have been
thinking of something; and he was trying to recall his thoughts, when
the shepherd came back into view again and Joseph remarked to himself
that he was without a flock. He seemed to be seeking something, for
from a sheer edge he peered down into the valley. A ewe that has fallen
over, no doubt, Joseph thought; but what concern of mine is that
shepherd who has lost a ewe, and whether he will find his ewe or will
fail to find it? Of no concern whatever, he said to himself,
and--forgetful of the shepherd--he began to watch the evening gathering
in the sky. Very soon, he said, the hills will be folded in a dim blue
veil, and sleep will perchance blot out the misery that has brooded in
me all this livelong day, he muttered. May I never see another, but
close my eyes for ever on the broad ruthless light. Of what avail to
witness another day? All days are alike to me.
It seemed to Joseph that he was of a sort dead already, for he could
detach himself from himself, and consider himself as indifferently as he
might a blade of grass. My life, he said, is like these bare hills, and
the one thing left for me to desire is death.
A footstep aroused him from his dream. The man whom he had seen on the
hillside yonder had crossed the valley, and he began to describe the
animals he had lost, before Joseph recovered from his reverie. No, he
said, I have seen no camels. Camels might have passed him by without his
seeing them, but there was no obligation on him to confide his misery to
the shepherd, a rough, bearded man in a sheepskin, who thanked him and
was about to go, when Joseph called after him: if you want help to seek
your camels, I'll come with you. Even the company of this man were
better than his loneliness; and together they crossed some hills. Why,
there be my camels, as I'm alive! the camel-driver cried. Joseph had
brought him luck, for in a valley close at hand the camels were found,
staring into emptiness. Strange abstractions! Joseph said to himself,
and then to the camel-driver: since I have found your camels, who knows
but that you may tell me of one Jesus, an Essene from the cenoby on the
eastern bank of the Jordan? A shepherd of these hills? the man asked,
and Joseph replied: yes, indeed. To which the camel-driver answered: if
I hear of him, I'll send him a message that you are looking for him, and
I'll send you word that he has been found. But you'll never find him,
Joseph answered. You didn't think you would find my camels, the driver
replied; but so it fell out, and if I could only find a few more camels,
or the money to buy them, I could lay down a great trade in figs between
Jericho and Jerusalem; he related simply, not knowing that the man he
was talking to could give him all the money he required; telling that
figs ripen earlier in Jericho, especially if the trees have the
advantage of high rocks behind them.
It pleased Joseph to listen to his patter: it seemed to him that his
father was talking to him, and he was plunged in such misery that he had
to extricate himself somehow. So he signed the deed that evening, and
within a month a caravan laden with figs went forth and wended its way
safely to Jerusalem. Another caravan followed a few weeks after, and
still larger profits were made, and these becoming known to certain
thieves, the next caravan was waylaid and driven away to the coast, and
the figs shipped to some foreign part or sold to unscrupulous dealers,
who knew them to be stolen. The loss was so great that Gaddi said to
Joseph: if we lose a second caravan we shall be worse off than we were
when we began, and we shall lose a third and a fourth, unless the
robbers be driven out of their caves. Let us then go to the Roman
governor, Pilate, and lay our case before him. Joseph had no fault to
find with Gaddi's words, and he said: it may be that I shall go to
Pilate myself, for I am known to him through my father, who trades
largely between Tiberias and Antioch with salt fish.
It so happened that Pilate had received instructions from Rome to give
every protection to trade, it being hoped thereby to win the Jews from
religious disputations, which always ended in riots. Pilate therefore
now found the occasion he needed. Joseph had brought it to him, for the
ridding of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho would evince his
ability as administrator; and with his hand in his beard, his fine eyes
bent favourably upon Joseph, he promised that all the forces of the
Roman Empire would be employed to smoke out these nests of robbers. From
the account given by Joseph of the caves, he did not deem it worth
while to send soldiers groping through the darkness of rocks; he was of
opinion that bundles of damp straw would serve the purpose admirably;
and turning to the captain of the guard he appealed to him, and got for
answer that a few trusses of damp straw would send forth such a reek
that all within the cave would be choked, or reel out half blinded.
Joseph reminded Pilate and the captain of the guard that the openings of
the caves were not always accessible, but abutted over a ledge away down
a precipitous cliff. It might be necessary to lower soldiers down in
baskets, or the caves might be closed with mortised stones. Joseph's
counsel was wise; the closing of the caves proved very efficacious in
ridding the hills of robbers, though in some cases the robbers managed
to pick a way out, and then sought other caves, which were not difficult
to find, the hills abounding in such places of hiding. A cave would
sometimes have two outlets, and it was hard to get the shepherds to
betray the robbers, their fear of them was so great. But within six
months the larger dens were betrayed, and while the robbers writhed the
last hours of their lives away on crosses, long trains of camels and
asses pursued their way from Jericho to Jerusalem and back again,
without fear of molestation, the remnant of robbers never daring to do
more than draw away a single camel or ass found astray from the
encampment.
The result of all this labour was that figs were no longer scarce in
Jerusalem; and when a delay in bringing wheat from Moab was announced to
Pilate, he sent a messenger to Joseph, it having struck him that the
transport service so admirably organised by them both was capable of
development. A hundred camels, Joseph answered, needs a great sum, but
perhaps Gaddi, my partner, may have some savings or my father may give
me the money.
And with Pilate's eyes full upon him, Joseph sat thinking of the lake,
recalling every bight and promontory, and asking himself how it was that
he had not thought of Galilee for so long a time. He longed to set eyes
on Magdala, and he would have ridden away at once, but an escort would
have to be ordered, for a single horseman could not ride through Samaria
without a certainty of being robbed before he got to the end of his
journey. Pilate's voice roused Joseph from his reverie, and after
apologising to the Roman magistrate for his absentmindedness, he went
away to consult hurriedly with Gaddi, and then to make preparations for
the journey. It was a journey of three days on horseback, he was told,
but of two days only on camel-back, for a camel can walk three miles an
hour for eighteen hours. But what should I be doing on a camel's back
for eighteen hours? Joseph cried, and the driver showed Joseph how with
his legs strapped on either side of the beast he could lie back in the
pack and sleep away many hours. Your head, sir, would soon get
accustomed to the rocking. But I should have to leave my horse behind,
Joseph said. He was fain to see his father and the lake; he was already
there in spirit, and would like to transport his cumbersome body there
in the least possible time; but he could not separate himself from
Xerxes, a beautiful horse that he had brought with him from Egypt--a
dark grey--a sagacious animal that would neigh at the sound of his voice
and follow him like a dog, and when they encamped for the night, wander
in search of herbage and come back when he was called, or wait for him
like a wooden horse at an inn door.
Horse and horseman seemed a match the morning they went away to Galilee
together, Xerxes all bits and bridles, stirrups and trappings, and
Joseph equipped for the journey not less elaborately than his horse. He
wore a striped shirt and an embroidered vest with two veils falling from
his turban over his shoulders, and as he was not going to visit the
Essenes, he did not forget to provide himself with weapons: a curved
scimitar hung by his side and the jewelled hilt of a dagger showed above
his girdle. His escort not having arrived yet, he waited; taking
pleasure in the arch of Xerxes' neck when the horse turned his head
towards him, and in the dark courageous eyes and the beautifully turned
hoof that pawed the earth so prettily. At last the five spearmen and
their captain appeared, and Xerxes, who seemed to recognise the escort
as a sign for departure, presented his left side for Joseph to mount
him. As soon as his master was in the saddle, he shook his accoutrements
and sprang forward at the head of the cavalcade, Joseph crying back: he
must have the sound of hoofs behind him. He could refuse his horse
nothing, and suffered him to canter some few hundred yards up the road,
though it was not customary to leave the escort behind, and when Joseph
returned, the foreman told him, as he expected he would, that it would
be well not to tire his horse by galloping him at the beginning of the
journey, for a matter of thirty miles lay in front of them. Thirty miles
the first day, he said, and fifty the second day; for by this division
he would leave twenty-five miles for the third day; and Joseph learnt
that the captain had arranged the journey in this wise for the sake of
the inns, for though they would meet an inn every twenty miles, there
were but three good inns between Jerusalem and Tiberias. He had
arranged too with a view to the rest at midday. Our way lies, he said,
through the large shallow valley, and that is why I started at six. It
is about four hours hence, so we shall be through it well before noon.
But why must we pass through it before noon? Joseph asked. Because, the
captain answered, the rocks on either side are heated after noon like
the walls of an oven, and man and beast choke in it. But once we get out
of the valley, we shall have pleasant country. You know the hills, Sir;
and Joseph remembered the rounded hills and Azariah's condemnation of
the felling of the forests, a condemnation that the captain agreed with;
for though it was true that the woods afforded cover for wolves, still
it was not wise to fell the trees; for when the woods go, the captain
said, the country will lose its fertility. He was a loquacious fellow,
knowing the country well, wherefore pleasant to ride alongside of, and
the hours passed quickly, hearing him relate his life. And when after
two days' riding Joseph wearied of his foreman's many various relations,
his eyes admired the slopes, now greener than they would be again till
another year passed. The fig-trees were sending out shoots, the vines
were in little leaf, and the fragrance of the vineyards and fig gardens
was sweet in the cool morning when the dusk melted away and
rose-coloured clouds appeared above the hills; and as Joseph rode he
liked to think that the spectacle of the cavalcade faring through the
vine-clad hills would abide in his memory, and that in years to come he
would be able to recall it exactly as he now saw it--all the faces of
the spearmen and their odd horses; even his foreman's discourses would
become a pleasure to remember when time would redeem them of triteness
and commonplace; the very weariness he now experienced in listening to
them would, too, become a perennial source of secret amusement to him
later on. But for the moment he could not withstand his foreman a moment
longer, and made no answer when he came interrupting his meditations
with tiresome learning regarding the great acacia-tree into whose shade
Joseph had withdrawn himself. He was content to enjoy the shade and the
beauty of the kindly tree that flourished among rocks where no one would
expect a tree to flourish, and did not need to be told that the roots of
a tree seek water instinctively, and that the roots of the acacia seek
water and find it, about three feet down. The acacia gave the captain an
opportunity to testify of his knowledge, and Joseph remembered suddenly
that he would be returning to Jerusalem with him in three days, for not
more than three days would his escort remain in Galilee, resting their
horses, unless they were paid a large sum of money; and with that escort
idle in the village the thought would never be out of his mind that in a
few days he would be listening to his foreman all the way back to
Jerusalem.
Impossible! He couldn't go back to Jerusalem in three days, nor in three
weeks. His father would be mortally grieved if he did; and Pilate
himself would be surprised to see him back so soon and think him lacking
altogether in filial affection if, after an absence of more than two
years, he could stay only three days with his father. He must, however,
send a letter to Pilate and one that consisted with all the
circumstances. The barely stirring foliage of the acacia inspired a
desire of composition: a more favourable moment than the present, or a
more inspiring spot, he did not think he would be likely to find. He
called for his tablets and fell to thinking, but hardly filled in the
first dozen lines when his foreman--this time apologising for the
intrusion--came to tell him that if he wished to reach Magdala that
evening they must start at once. He could not but acquiesce, and--as if
contemptuous of the protection of his escort--he rode on in front,
wishing to be left alone so that he might seek out the terms of his
letter, and his mood of irritated perplexity did not pass away till he
came within sight of the great upland, rising, however, so gently that
he did not think Xerxes would mind ascending it at a gallop. As soon as
he reached the last crest, he would see the lake alone, having--thanks
to the speed of Xerxes--escaped from his companions for at least five
minutes. He looked forward to these moments eagerly yet not altogether
absolved from apprehension of a spiritual kind, for the lake always
seemed to him a sort of sign, symbol or hieroglyphic, in which he read a
warning addressed specially, if not wholly, to himself. The meaning that
the lake held out to him always eluded him, and never more completely
than now, at the end of an almost windless spring evening.
It came into view a moment sooner than he thought for, and in an
altogether different aspect--bluer than ever seen by him in memory or
reality--and, he confessed to himself, more beautiful. Like a great harp
it lay below him, and his eyes followed the coast-lines widening out in
an indenture of the hills: on one side desert, on the other richly
cultivated ascents, with villages and one great city, Tiberias--its
domes, cupolas, towers and the high cliffs abutting the lake between
Tiberias and Magdala bathed in a purple glow as the sun went down. My
own village! he said, and it was a pleasure to him to imagine his father
sipping sherbet on his balcony, in good humour, no doubt, the weather
being so favourable to fish-taking. Now which are Peter's boats among
these? he asked himself, his eyes returning to the fishing fleet. And
which are John's and James's boats? He could tell that all the nets were
down by the reefed sails crossed over, for the boats were before the
wind. A long pull back it will be to Capernaum, he was thinking, a
matter of thirteen or fourteen miles, for the leading boat is not more
than a mile from the mouth of the Jordan. Then, raising his eyes from
the fishing-boats, he followed the coast-lines again, seeking the shapes
of the wooded hills, rising in gently cadenced ascents.
A more limpid evening never breathed upon a lake! he said; and when he
raised his eyes a second time they rested on the ravines of Hermon far
away in the north, still full of the winter's snow; and--being a
Galilean--he knew they would keep their snow for another month at least.
The eagerness of the spring would then be well out of the air; and I
shall be thinking, he continued, of returning to Jerusalem and
concerning myself once more with Pilate's business. But what a beautiful
evening! still and pure as a crystal.
A bird floated past, his black eyes always watchful. The bird turned
away to join his mates, and Joseph bade his escort watch the flock: a
bird here and a bird there swooping and missing and getting no doubt
sometimes a fish that had ventured too near the surface--that one
leaving his mates, flying high towards Magdala, to be there, he said, in
a few minutes, by my father's house; and in another hour thou shalt be
in thy stable, thy muzzle in the corn, he whispered into his horse's
ear; and calling upon his comrades to put their heels into their tired
steeds, he turned Xerxes into the great road leading to Tiberias.
But there were some Jews among the escort who shrank from entering a
pagan city. Their prejudices might be overcome with argument, but it
were simpler to turn their horses' heads to the west and then to the
north as soon as the city was passed. The detour would be a long one,
but it were shorter than argument: yet argument he did not escape from,
for as they rode through the open country behind Tiberias, some declared
that Herod was not a pure Jew; and to make their points clearer they
often reined up their horses, to the annoyance of Joseph, who could not
bring the discussion to an end without seeming indifferent to the law
and the traditions. But, happily, it had to end before long, for within
three miles of Magdala they were riding in single file down deep lanes
along whose low dykes the cactus crawled, hooking itself along. One lane
led into another. A network of deep lanes wound round Magdala, which,
judging by the number of new dwellings, seemed to have prospered since
Joseph had last seen it. Humble dwellings no doubt, Joseph said to
himself, but bread is not lacking, nor fish. Then he thought of the
wharves his father had built for the boats, and the workshops for the
making of the barrels into which the fish was packed. Magdala owed its
existence to Dan's forethought, and he had earned his right, Joseph
thought, to live in the tall house which he had built for his pleasure
in a garden amid tall acacia-trees that every breeze that blew up from
the lake set in motion.
If ever a man, Joseph thought, earned his right to a peaceable old age
amid pleasant surroundings, that man was his father; and he thought of
him returning from his counting-house to his spacious verandah, thinking
of the barrels of salt fish that he would send away the following week,
if the fishers were letting down their nets with fortunate enterprise.