The narrow streets of Bethlehem were waking to the first stir of life
as the sad shepherd came into the town with the morning, and passed
through them like one walking in his sleep.
The court-yard of the great khan and the open rooms around it were
crowded with travellers, rousing from their night's rest and making
ready for the day's journey. In front of the stables half hollowed in
the rock beside the inn, men were saddling their horses and their
beasts of burden, and there was much noise and confusion.
But beyond these, at the end of the line, there was a deeper grotto in
the rock, which was used only when the nearer stalls were full. Beside
the entrance of this cave an ass was tethered, and a man of middle age
stood in the doorway.
The sad shepherd saluted him and told his name.
"I am Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth," replied the man. "Have you
also seen the angels of whom your brother shepherds came to tell us?"
"I have seen no angels," answered Ammiel, "nor have I any brothers
among the shepherds. But I would fain see what they have seen."
"It is our first-born son," said Joseph, "and the Most High has sent
him to us. He is a marvellous child: great things are foretold of him.
You may go in, but quietly, for the child and his mother Mary are
asleep."
So the sad shepherd went in quietly. His long shadow entered before
him, for the sunrise was flowing into the door of the grotto. It was
made clean and put in order, and a bed of straw was laid in the corner
on the ground.
The child was asleep, but the young mother was waking, for she had
taken him from the manger into her lap, where her maiden veil of white
was spread to receive him. And she was singing very softly as she bent
over him in wonder and content.
Ammiel saluted her and kneeled down to look at the child. He saw
nothing different from other young children. The mother waited for him
to speak of angels, as the other shepherds had done. The sad shepherd
did not speak, but only looked And as he looked his face changed.
"You have suffered pain and danger and sorrow for his sake," he said
gently.
"They are past," she answered, "and for his sake I have suffered them
gladly."
"He is very little and helpless; you must bear many troubles for his
sake."
"To care for him is my joy, and to bear him lightens my burden."
"He does not know you, he can do nothing for you."
"But I know him. I have carried him under my heart, he is my son and
my king."
"Why do you love him?"
The mother looked up at the sad shepherd with a great reproach in her
soft eyes. Then her look grew pitiful as it rested on his face.
"You are a sorrowful man," she said.
"I am a wicked man," he answered.
She shook her head gently.
"I know nothing of that," she said, "but you must be very sorrowful,
since you are born of a woman and yet you ask a mother why she loves
her child. I love him for love's sake, because God has given him to
me."
So the mother Mary leaned over her little son again and began to croon
a song as if she were alone with him.
But Ammiel was still there, watching and thinking and beginning to
remember. It came back to him that there was a woman in Galilee who
had wept when he was rebuked; whose eyes had followed him when he was
unhappy, as if she longed to do something for him; whose voice had
broken and dropped silent while she covered her tear-stained face when
he went away.
His thoughts flowed swiftly and silently toward her and after her like
rapid waves of light. There was a thought of her bending over a little
child in her lap, singing softly for pure joy,--and the child was
himself. There was a thought of her lifting a little child to the
breast that had borne him as a burden and a pain, to nourish him there
as a comfort and a treasure,--and the child was himself. There was a
thought of her watching and tending and guiding a little child from
day to day, from year to year, putting tender arms around him, bending
over his first wavering steps, rejoicing in his joys, wiping away the
tears from his eyes, as he had never tried to wipe her tears
away,--and the child was himself. She had done everything for the
child's sake, but what had the child done for her sake? And the child
was himself: that was what he had come to,--after the nightfire had
burned out, after the darkness had grown thin and melted in the
thoughts that pulsed through it like rapid waves of light,--that was
what he had come to in the early morning,--himself, a child in his
mother's arms.
Then he arose and went out of the grotto softly, making the three-fold
sign of reverence; and the eyes of Mary followed him with kind looks.
Joseph of Nazareth was still waiting outside the door.
"How was it that you did not see the angels?" he asked. "Were you not
with the other shepherds?"
"No," answered Ammiel, "I was asleep. But I have seen the mother and
the child. Blessed be the house that holds them."
"You are strangely clad for a shepherd," said Joseph. "Where do you
come from?"
"From a far country," replied Ammiel; "from a country that you have
never visited."
"Where are you going now?" asked Joseph.
"I am going home," answered Ammiel, "to my mother's and my father's
house in Galilee."
"Go in peace, friend," said Joseph.
And the sad shepherd took up his battered staff, and went on his way
rejoicing.