It is a great joy to return to thought after a long absence from it, and
Jesus was not afraid, though once his conscience asked him if he were
justified in yielding himself unreservedly to reason. A man's mind, he
answered, like all else, is part of the Godhead; and at that moment he
heard God speaking to him out of the breeze. My beloved son, he said, we
shall never be separated from each other again. And Jesus replied: not
again, Father, for thou hast returned to me the God that I once knew in
Nazareth and in the hills above Jericho, and lost sight of as soon as I
began to read the Book of Daniel. How many, he asked himself, have been
led by reading that book into the belief that they were the precursors
of the Messiah? We know of Theudas and the Egyptian, and there were many
others whose names have not reached us. But I alone believed myself to
be the Messiah. He was astonished he could remember so great a sin and
not fear God. But I cannot fear God, for I love God, he said; my God
neither forgives nor punishes, and if we repent it should be for our own
sakes and not to please God. Moreover, it must be well not to waste too
much time in repentance, for it is surely better to understand than to
repent. We learn through our sins. If it had not been for mine, I
should not have learnt that quires and scrolls lead men from God, and
that to see and hear God we have only to open our eyes and ears. God is
always about us. We hear him in the breeze, and we find him in the
flower. He is in these things as much as he is in man, and all things
are equal in his sight; Solomon is no greater than Joshbekashar.
He had not remembered the old shepherd, who had taught him all he knew
about sheep, for many a day. It is nigh on five and forty years, he said
to himself, since he called me to hold the ewes while he made them clean
for the winter. It was in yon cave the flock was folded when I laid
hands on the ewes for the first time and dragged them forward for him to
clip the wool from the rumps. He could see in his memory each different
ewe trotting away, looking as if she were thankful for the shepherd's
kind office towards her. There was something extraordinarily restful in
his memory of old Joshbekashar, and to prolong it Jesus fell to
recalling the old man's words; and every little disjointed sentence
raised up the old man before him. It was but three times that I held the
ewes for him, so it cannot be much more than forty years since that
first clipping. Now I come to think on it, the clipping befell on a day
like to-day. We'll clip our ewes to-day, and it was with a sense of
memorial service in his mind that he called to young Jacob to come to
his aid, saying: Joshbekashar's flock was always folded in yon cave for
this clipping, the only change is that I am the clipper and thou'rt
holding them for me. There are forty-five to be clipped, and just the
same as before each ewe will trot away into the field looking as if she
were thankful at having been made clean for the winter. On these words
both fell to their work, and the cunning hand spent no more than a
minute over each. Stooping over ewes makes one's back ache, he said,
rising from the last one, using the very same words he heard forty years
before from Joshbekashar: time brings back the past! he said. We repeat
the words of those that have gone before while doing their work; and it
is likely we are doing God's work as well by making the ewes clean for
the winter as by cutting their throats in the Temple. All the same
stooping over ewes makes one's back ache, he repeated, for the words
evoked the old shepherd, and he waited for Jacob to answer in the words
spoken by him forty years ago to Joshbekashar. Himself had forgotten his
words, but he thought he would recognise them if Jacob were inspired to
speak them. But Jacob kept silence for shame's sake, for his hope was
that the flock would be given to his charge as soon as old age obliged
Jesus to join his brethren in the cenoby.
Thou'lt be sorry for me, lad, I know that well, but thou hast begun to
look forward to the time when thou'lt walk the hills at the head of the
flock like another; it is but proper that thou shouldst, and it is but
natural that the time should seem long to thee; but take on a little
patience, this much I can vouch for, every bone in me was aching when I
left the cavern this morning, and my sight is no longer what it was.
Master Jesus, I'd as lief wait; the hills will be naught without thee.
Dost hear me, Master? Jesus smiled and dropped back into his meditations
and from that day onward very little sufficed to remind him that he
would end his days in the cenoby reading the Scriptures and interpreting
them. In the cenoby, he said, men do not think, they only read, but in
the fields a shepherd need never lose sight of the thought that leads
him. A good shepherd can think while watching his sheep, and as the
flock was feeding in good order, he took up the thread of a thought to
which he had become attached since his discovery that signs and sounds
of God's presence are never lacking on earth. As God's constant
companion and confidant he had come to comprehend that the world of
nature was a manifestation of the God he knew in himself. I know myself,
he said one day, but I do not know the God which is above, for he seems
to be infinite; nor do I know nature, which is beyond me, for that, too,
seems to run into infinite, but infinite that is not that of God. A few
moments later it seemed to him he might look upon himself as an islet
between two infinities. But to which was he nearer in eternity? Ah, if
he knew that! And it was then that a conviction fell upon him that if he
remained on the hills he would be able to understand many things that
were obscure to him to-day. It will take about two years, he said, and
then many things that are dark will become clear. Two infinites, God and
nature. At that moment a ewe wandering near some scrub caught his
attention. A wolf, he said, may be lurking there. I must bring her back;
and he put a stone into his sling. A wolf is lurking there, he
continued, else Gorbotha would not stand growling. Gorbotha, a
golden-haired dog, like a wolf in build, stood snuffing the breeze,
whilst Thema, his sister, sought her master's hand. A moment after the
breeze veered, bringing the scent to her, and the two dogs dashed
forward into the scrub without finding either wolf or jackal lying in
wait. All the same, he said, a wolf or a jackal must have been lying
there, and not long ago, or else the dogs would not have growled and
rushed to the onset as they did.
They returned perplexed and anxious to their master, who resumed his
meditation, saying to himself that if aching bones obliged him to return
to the cenoby he would have to give up thinking. For one only thinks
well in solitude and when one thinks for oneself alone; but in the
cenoby the brethren think together. All the same my life on the hills is
not over yet, and an hour later he put his pipes to his lips and led his
flock to different hills, for, guided by some subtle sense, he seemed to
divine the springing up of new grass; and the shepherds, knowing of this
instinct for pasturage, were wont to follow him, and he was often at
pains to elude them, for on no hillside is there grass enough for many
flocks.
My poor sheep, he said, as he watched them scatter over a grassy
hillside. Ye're happy this springtime for ye do not know that your
shepherd is about to be taken from you. But he has suffered too much in
the winter we've come out of to remain on the hills many more years.
Before leaving you he must discover a shepherd that will care for you as
well as I have done. Amos is dead; there is no one in the cenoby that
understands sheep. Would ye had speech to counsel me. But tell me, what
would ye say if I were to leave you in Jacob's charge? He stood waiting,
as if he expected the sheep to answer, and it was then it began to seem
to Jesus he might as well entrust his flock to Jacob as to another.
He had sent him out that morning with twenty lambs that were yet too
young to run with the flock, and he now stood waiting for him, thinking
that if he lost none between this day and the end of the summer, the
flock might be handed over to him. Every young man's past is tarnished,
he continued, for he could not forget that Jacob had begun by losing his
master's dogs, two had been killed by panthers. Nor was this the only
misfortune that had befallen him. Having heard that rain had fallen in
the west, he set out for Cæsarea to redeem his credit, he hoped, but at
the end of the fourth day he could find no cavern in which to fold his
sheep, and he lay down in the open, surrounded by his flock,
unsuspicious that a pack of wolves had been trailing him from cavern to
cavern since he left the Jordan valley--the animals divining that their
chance would come at last. It would have been better, Jacob said, if the
wolves had fallen upon him, for after this disaster no one would employ
him, and he had wandered an outcast, living on the charity of shepherds,
sharing a little of their bread. But such charity could not last long
and he would have had to sit with the beggars by the wayside above
Jericho if Jesus had not given his lambs into his charge, by this act
restoring to Jacob some of his lost faith in himself. He had gone away
saying to himself: Jesus, who knows more than all the other shepherds
put together, holds me to be no fool, and one day I'll be trusted again
with a flock. I'm young and can wait, and, who knows, Jesus may tell me
his cure for the scab, and by serving him I may get a puppy when Thema
has a litter. In such wise Jacob looked to Jesus and Thema for future
fortune, and as he came over the ridge and caught sight of Jesus waiting
for him, he said: call up thy dogs, Master, lest they should fall upon
mine and upon me. Gorbotha has already risen to his feet and Thema is
growling.
Jesus laid his staff across their backs. What, will ye attack Jacob, he
cried, and what be your quarrel with his dogs? Poor Syrian dogs, Jacob
answered, that would be quickly killed by thine. If I had had dogs like
Gorbotha and Thema the wolves would not---- But, Jacob, thou wouldst
have lost thy dogs as well as thy sheep. What stand could any dogs make
against a pack of wolves, and a shepherd without dogs is like a bird
without wings, as Brother Amos used to say. Yes, that is just it, Jacob
replied, struck by the aptness of the comparison. Thou art known, Jesus,
to be the most foreseeing shepherd on the hills; but the flock would not
have increased without thy dogs. Abdiel is great in his knowledge of
dogs, and he told me that he had never known any like thine, Master.
Come now, Thema, Jesus cried. Come, lie down here; lay thy muzzle
against my knee. And growl not at Jacob or I'll send thee away. So
Abdiel spoke of my dogs! They are well enough, one can work with them.
But I've had better dogs. Whereupon Jesus told a story how one night he
had lain under a fair sky to sleep and had slept so soundly that the
rain had not wakened him, but Boreth--that was the dog's
name--distressed at the sight of me lying in the rain, began to lick my
face, and when I had wrung out my cloak he led me to a dry cave unknown
to me, though I thought I knew every one in these hills. He must have
gone in search of one as soon as it began to rain, and when he found a
dry one he came back to awaken me. More faithful dogs, he said, there
never were than these at my feet, but I've known stronger and fiercer.
But I'd tell thee another story of Boreth, and he related how one night
in December as he watched, having for his protection only Boreth (his
other dogs, Anos and Torbitt, being at home, one with a lame paw, the
other with puppies), he had fallen asleep, though he knew robbers were
about in the hills, especially in the winter months, he said; but I knew
I could count on Boreth to awake me if one came to steal the sheep. Now
what I'm about to say, Jacob, happened at the time of the great rain of
December, when the nights are dark about us. I was sleeping in a
sheltered place in the coign of a cliff, the flock was folded and Boreth
was away upon his rounds, and it was then that two robbers stole into
the cave. One was about to plunge his dagger into me, but I had time to
catch his wrist and to whistle; and in a few seconds Boreth leapt upon
the robber that was seeking to stab me. He bit his neck and shoulder;
and then, leaving that robber disabled, he attacked the robber's mate,
and it was wonderful how he crept round and round in the darkness,
biting him all the time, and then pursuing the two he worried them up
the valley until his heart misgave him and he thought it wouldn't be
safe to leave me alone any longer. But Gorbotha would defend thee
against a robber, Jacob said, and he called to the dog, but Gorbotha
only growled at him. Have patience with them, Jesus rejoined; I'll not
feed them for three days, and after feeding them thou'lt take them to
the hills, and when they have coursed and killed a jackal for thee it
may be that they'll accept thee for master. But these Thracians rarely
love twice. Come, Jacob, and we'll look into thy flock of lambs and take
counsel together. They seem to be doing fairly well with thee--a bit
tired, I dare say thou hast come a long way with them. We walked too
fast, Jacob answered, saying he had had to go farther than he thought
for in search of grass, and had found some that was worth the distance
they had journeyed, for the lambs had fallen to nibbling at once. Fell
to nibbling at once, did they? Jesus repeated When they're folded with
the ewes, thou'lt put into their jaws a stick to keep them from sucking.
And without waiting for Jacob to answer he asked which of all these
lambs he would choose to keep for breeding from. Jacob pointed out first
one and then another; but Jesus shook his head and showed him a lamb
which Jacob had not cast his eyes over and said: one may not say for
certain, but I shall be surprised if he doesn't come into a fine,
broad-shouldered ram, strong across the loins and straight on his legs,
the sort to get lambs that do well on these hills. And thou'lt be well
advised to leave him on his dam another hundred days; shear him, for it
will give him strength to take some wool from him, but do not take it
from his back, for he will want the wool there to protect him from the
sun. And all the first year he will skip about with the ewes and jump
upon them, but it will be only play, for his time has not yet come; in
two more years he'll be at his height, serving ten ewes a day; but keep
him not over-long; thou must always have some new rams preparing, else
thy flock will decline. The ram thou seest on the right is old, and must
soon be replaced. But the white ram yonder is still full of service: a
better I've never known. The white ram is stronger than the black,
though the black ewe will turn from him and seek a ram of her own
colour. I've known a white ram so ardent for a black ewe that he fought
the black ram till their skulls cracked. Master, it is well to listen to
thee, Jacob interrupted, for none knows sheep like thee, but as none
will ever give me charge of a flock again, thy teaching is wasted upon
me. Look to the ewes' teeth, Jacob, and to their udders; see that the
udders are sound. Master, never before didst thou mock at me, who am for
my misfortunes the mocking-stock of all these fields. In what have I
done wrong? That my lambs are a bit tired is all thou hast to blame me
for to-day. Jacob, I'm not mocking at thee, but looking forward a
little, for time is on thy side and will soon put thee in charge of a
flock again. Time is on my side, Jacob repeated. If I understand thee
rightly, Master, thy meaning is, that the hills are beginning to weary
thee. Look into my beard, Jacob, and see how much grey hair is in it,
and my gait is slower than it used to be, a stiffness has come upon me
that will not wear out, and my eyes are not as keen as they were, and
when I see in thee a wise shepherd, between the spring and autumn, it
may be that Hazael, our president, at my advice, will entrust my flock
to thy charge.