The Brook Kerith. George Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ sunset had begun to redden the sky, and the shadows of the trees drew out as they crossed the hillside and descended by the steep path into the valley. The ascent that faced them was steep indeed, and Azariah had to rest several times, but at last they reached the slope on which the city was built: but they did not enter the gates yet awhile but stood looking back, thinking of the day that had gone by. We shall remember this day always, Joseph said, if we live to be as old as the patriarchs. Was it then so wonderful? Azariah asked, and Joseph could only answer: yes, very wonderful. Didn't you think so? and tell me, he added, is it true that God is going to destroy the world and very soon? Why do you ask, Joseph? Azariah replied, and Joseph answered: because the world is so very beautiful. I never saw the world before to-day. My eyes were opened, and I shall be sorry if God destroys the world, for I should like to see more of it. But why should he make a beautiful world, and then destroy it? Don't you think he will relent when the time comes and the day be as beautiful as it was this morning? Azariah answered him that God does not relent, for He knows the past and future as well as the present, and that the world was not as beautiful as it seems to be, for man is sinning always, though certainly God said all things are beautiful. But perhaps we sinned this morning in the sight of God. We sinned? Joseph repeated. How did we sin? Have you forgotten, Azariah answered, that it was arranged that we should spend the day reading the Scriptures, and we've spent it talking to shepherds? Was that a sin? Joseph asked. We can read the Scriptures to-morrow; if the day be clouded and rain comes, we can read them indoors. If the day be clouded, Azariah replied smiling. But was not thy life dedicated to Samuel? Thou hast forgotten him. But the world is God's world. Joseph answered that he had forgotten his vow, and all that evening, in spite of Azariah's gentleness with him, he was pursued by the memory of the sin he had committed. In Samuel's own city he had broken his vow! And Azariah heard the boy blubbering in the darkness that night.

CHAP. III.

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      He should not have interrupted the manifestations of joy at his return with: when may I go to Arimathea again? And his second question was hardly less indiscreet: why did we leave Arimathea? His father answered: because it suited us to do so; and Joseph withdrew to Rachel who was never gruff with him. But despite her bias in favour of all he said and did she reproved him, saying that he should not ask as soon as he returned home when he was going away again. I am glad in a way, Granny, but there's no forest here. Dan left the room, and the boy would tell no more but burst into tears, asking what he had done to make Father so angry. Rachel could not tell him with safety, and Joseph, thinking that perhaps something unpleasant had happened to his father in the forest (a wolf may have bitten him there), spoke of the high rock on the next occasion and of the story of Jonathan and David that Azariah had read to him. You will ask him to come here one night, Father, and translate it to you? Promise me that you will. But I can read Hebrew, Dan replied, and there is no reason for those wondering eyes. Thy Granny will tell thee. But, Father—Joseph stopped suddenly. It had come into his mind to ask his father how it was that he had never read the story of Jonathan and David to him, but his interest in the matter dying suddenly, he said: to-morrow I begin my lessons, and Azariah tells me that I must have a copy of the Scriptures for my very own use. Now where are thy thoughts? In a barrel of salt fish? Father, do listen. I'd like to learn Hebrew from bottom to top and from top to bottom and then sideways, so as to put the Scribes in Jerusalem to shame when you send me thither for the Feast of the Passover. And thou'lt mind that my Scriptures be made by the best Scribe in Galilee and on the best parchment, promise me, Father!

      Dan promised his son that no finer manuscript should be procurable in Galilee. But the making of this magnificent copy would delay for many months Joseph's instruction in Hebrew, and Joseph was so impatient to begin that he lay awake that night and in the morning ransacked his father's rooms, laying hands on some quires of his father's Scriptures; and no sooner out of the house than a great fear fell upon him that he might be robbed: the quires were hidden in his vest suddenly and he walked on in confidence, also in a great seriousness, going his way melancholy as a camel, his head turned from the many temptations that the way offered to him—the flower in the cactus hedge was one. He passed it without picking it, and further on he allowed a strange crawling insect to go by without molestation, and feeling his mood to be exceptional he fell to thinking that his granny would laugh, were she to see him.

      He was not, however, afraid of her laughing: women had no sense of the Word of God, he muttered. There were nests in the trees, but he kept himself from looking, lest a nest might inspire him to climb for it. But nobody could climb trees with several quires of Scriptures under his arm. He would lose his grip and fall, or else the Scriptures would fall, and if a thief happened to be going by it would be easy for him to pick up the quires and away with them before it would be possible for Joseph to slide down the tree and raise a hue and cry.

      The lanes through which his way took him were frequented by boys, ball-players every one of them, and at this time ball-playing was a passion with Joseph and he would steal away whenever he got a chance and spend a whole day in an alley with a number of little ragamuffins. And if he were to meet the tribe, which was as likely as not at the next turning, he must tell them that he was going to school and dared not stop. But they would jeer at him. He might give them his ball and in return they might not mock at him. He walked very quietly, hoping to pass unobserved, but a boy was looking over the cactus hedge and called to him, asking if he had brought a ball with him, for they had lost theirs. He threw his ball to him. But aren't you coming to play with us? Not to-day, Joseph answered. I'm on my way to school. Well, to-morrow? Not to-morrow. I may not play truant from learning, Joseph answered sententiously, walking away, leaving his former playmates staring after him without a word in their mouths. But by the next day they had recovered their speech and cried out: the fishmonger's son is going by to his lessons and dare not play at ball. Azariah would whip him if he did. One a little bolder than the rest dangled a piece of rope in his face saying: this is what you'd get if you stayed with us. He was moved to run after the boy and cuff him, but the quires under his arms restrained him and he passed on, keeping a dignified silence. Soon thou'lt be reading to us in the synagogues! was the last jeer cried after him that day, but for many a day he caught sight of a face grinning at him through the hedge, and the way to his lessons became hateful.

      As he showed no sign of anger, the persecution grew wearisome to the persecutors, and soon after he discovered another way to Azariah. But this way was beset with women, whose sex impelled a yearning for this tall lithe boy with the gazelle-like eyes. Joseph was more inclined to the welcome of the Greek poets and sculptors who stopped their mules and leaning from high saddles spoke to him, for he was now beginning to speak Greek and it was pleasant to avail himself of the advantages of the road to chatter his Greek and to acquire new turns of phrases. Why not? since it seemed to be the wish of these men to instruct him. My very model! a bearded man cried out one morning, and stopping his mule he bent from the saddle towards Joseph and asked him many questions. Joseph told him that he was on his way to his lessons and that he passed through this lane every morning. At these words the sculptor's eyes lighted up, for he had accepted Joseph's answer as a tryst, and when Joseph came through the lane next day he caught sight of the sculptor waiting for him and—flattered—Joseph entered into conversation with him, resisting, however, the sculptor's repeated invitation that Joseph should come to sit to him—if not for a statue, for a bust at least. But a bust is a graven image, Joseph answered, and as the point was being debated a rich merchant came by, riding a white horse that curveted splendidly, and Joseph, who was interested in the horse, referred the difficulty they were engaged in to the merchant. After some consideration of it he asked the meaning of the scrolls that Joseph carried in his hand, feigning an interest in them and in Azariah. Who is he? he asked, and Joseph answered: a very learned man, my tutor, to whom I must be on my way. And with a pretty bow he left merchant and sculptor exchanging angry looks.

      But the sculptor knowing more of Joseph than the merchant—that he would be passing through the lane on the morrow at the same time—and as the boy's beauty was of great СКАЧАТЬ