A rough track--something between a footpath and a water course--led down
the mountain-side through groves of evergreen oak, and reached the Plain
of Jezreel at the point where the road from Samaria and the south
divided into two--its main stem still climbing due north towards
Nazareth, while the branch bent back eastward and by south across the
flat, arable country to join the Carmel road at Megiddo.
An old man came painfully down the mountain-track. He wore a white
burnoos, and a brown garment of camel's hair, with a leathern belt that
girt it high about his bare legs. He carried a staff, and tapped the
ground carefully before planting his feet. It was the time of barley
harvest, and a scorching afternoon. On the burnt plain below, the road
to Megiddo shone and quivered in the heat. But he could not see it.
Cataract veiled his eyes and blurred the whole landscape for them.
The track now wound about a foot-hill that broke away in a sharp slope
on his right and plunged to a stony ravine. Once or twice he paused on
its edge and peered downward, as if seeking for a landmark. He was
leaning forward to peer again, but suddenly straightened his body and
listened.
Far down in the valley a solitary dog howled. But the old man's ear had
caught another sound, that came from the track, not far in front.
_Cling--cling--clink! Cling--clink!_
It was the sound of hammering; of stone on metal.
_Cling--cling--clink!_
He stepped forward briskly, rounded an angle of rock, and found himself
face to face with a man--as well as he could see, a tall man--standing
upright by a heap of stones on the left edge of the path.
"May it be well with you, my son: and with every man who repairs a path
for the traveller. But tell me if the way be unsafe hereabouts? For my
eyes are very dim, and it is now many years since last I came over the
hills to Shunem."
The man did not reply.
"--So many years that for nigh upon an hour I have been saying, 'Surely
here should Shunem come in sight--or here--its white walls among the
oaks below--the house of Miriam of Shunem'. But I forget the curtain on
my eyes, and the oaks will have grown tall."