refuge, for here ye cannot remain.  Seek among the wolves and foxes.  But these will flee from us, the devils answered; allow us to enter the hogs rooting the ground before thee.  But at this the swineherd cried out:  forbid the devils to enter into my hogs, else they will run over the cliffs and drown themselves in the sea.  Though you are Jews, and do not look favourably on hogs, they are as God made them.  To which Jesus answered, turning to his disciples:  the man speaks well, for if unclean they be, it was the will of God that made them so.  And taking pity on the hogs that were rooting quietly, unaware of the devils eager to enter into them, he said:  there are statues of gods and goddesses in Tiberias, enter into them.  And immediately the devils took flight, giving thanks to Jesus as they departed thither.

Joseph waited a moment and tried to read his father’s face.  But Dan’s face remained fixed, and as if purposely, which vexed Joseph, who cried:  now, Father, you may believe or disbelieve, or be it thou’rt naturally averse from Jesus, but thou knowest as well as I do that two days after the great storm a statue of the goddess Venus fell from her pedestal in the streets of Tiberias and was broken.  But, Joseph, when the statue fell I was sick and had no knowledge of the fall.  But if a statue of the goddess Venus did fall from her pedestal, I’d ask why the devils should choose to destroy false gods?  Were it not more reasonable for them to uphold the false gods safe and secure on their pedestals?  The gods were overthrown for a sign that the devils had left the fool’s body, Joseph answered.  But why, Dan replied, didn’t three statues fall?—­a statue for each devil—­and whither did the devils go?  That one statue should fall was enough for a sign, Joseph said, but no more would he say, for his father’s incredulity irritated him, and seeing that he had angered his son, Dan stretched his hand to him and said:  perhaps we are more eager to believe when we are young than when we are old.  And he asked Joseph to tell him of some other miracle that he might have seen Jesus perform.

Joseph had seen Jesus perform many other miracles, but he was loath to relate them, for none, he felt sure, would impose upon his father the belief that Jesus was the Messiah that was promised to the Jews.  All the same the miracle of the woods rose in his mind, and so plainly that he could not keep the story back, and almost before he was aware of it he began the relation, telling how Jesus, James, John, Andrew, and himself were at table, mingling jest with earnest (Peter was not with them, being kept at home, for his wife was in child-birth at the time), when the women of the village were heard running up the street crying together to the men to take part in the chase of the wild man of the woods, who had come down amongst them once more questing the flesh of women.  But this time we’ll put a stop to his leaping, they cried.  A goatherd coming from the hills has seen