for in this house there be four little children, myself, their mother, and thy mother-in-law.  I say nothing against the journey if it bring thee good money, or if it bring the Kingdom, but if it bring naught but miracles there’ll be little enough in the house to eat by the time ye come back.  And, says she, the feeding of his children is a nobler work for a married man (she speaks like that sometimes) than bidding those to see who would belike be better without their eyes than with them.  You wouldn’t think it, but ’tis as I say:  she talks up to me like that, and ofttimes I’ve to go to the Master and ask him to quiet her, which he rarely fails to do, for she loves him for what he has done for her mother, and is willing to wait.  But last night when the busybodies brought her news that the Master had been preaching in the forest, of the sharing of the world out among the holy saints, she gave way to her temper and was violent, saying, by what right are the saints of the most high coming here to ask for a share of this world, as if they hadn’t a heaven to live in.  You see, good Master, there’s right on her side, that’s what makes it so hard to answer her, and I’m with her in this, for by what right do the holy saints down here ask for a share in the world, that’s what keeps drumming in my head; and, as I told you a while ago, I’d as lief put out upon the lake and fish as go to Syria for nothing, say the word——­ And leave the Master to go alone?  Joseph interposed.  Well, I suppose we can’t do that, Peter answered, and then it seemed to Joseph wiser not to talk any more, but to allow things to fashion their own course, which they did very amiably, in about an hour’s time the little band going forth, Joseph walking by Peter’s side, hoping that he would not have to wait long before seeing a miracle.

Their first stop was at Chorazin, about five miles distant, and the sick began to rise quickly from their beds, and Jesus had only to impose his hands for the palsied to cease quivering.  The laws of nature seemed suspended and Joseph forgot his father at Magdala and likewise Pilate’s business which had brought him to Galilee.  It will have to wait, he said, talking with himself, and now certain that he had come upon him whom he had always been seeking; it was as lost time to look at anything but Jesus, or to hear any words but his, or to admire aught but the manifestations of his power; and every time a sick man rose from his bed Joseph thanked God for having allowed him to live in the days of the Messiah.  He saw sight restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, swiftness of foot to cripples, issues of blood that had endured ten years stanched; the cleansing of the leper had become too common a miracle; he looked forward to seeing demons taking flight from the bodies of men and women, and accepted Peter’s telling that the day could not be delayed much longer when he would see some dead man rise up in his cere-clothes from the tomb.  He found no interest but in the miraculous, and his one vexation of spirit was that Jesus forbade his disciples (among whom Joseph now counted himself) to tell anybody that he was the Messiah.