We can do no more, she said, than we are doing.  We must put our trust in my balsam and give him food as often as he’ll take it from us.  Which they did day after day, relieving each other’s watches, and standing over Jesus’ bed conferring together, wondering if he cared to live or would prefer that they suffered him to die....

For many days he lay like a piece of wreckage, and it was not till the seventh day that he seemed to rouse a little out of his lethargy, or his indifference—­they knew not which it was.  In answer to Esora he said he felt easier, and would be glad if they would wheel his bed nearer to the door.  Outside is the garden, he whispered, for I see boughs waving, and can hear the bees.  Wilt thou let me go into the garden?  As soon as I’ve removed the dressing thou shalt have a look into the garden, Esora replied, and she called upon Joseph to pull Jesus forward.  All this, she said, was raw flesh a week ago, and now the scab is coming away nicely; you see the new skin my balsam is bringing up.  His feet, too, are healing, Joseph observed, and look as if he will be able to stand upon them in another few days.  Wounds do not heal as quickly as that, Master.  Thou must have patience.  But he’ll be wanting a pair of crutches very soon.  We might send to Jerusalem for a pair.  There is no need to send to Jerusalem, he answered.  I think I’d like to make him a pair.  Anybody can make a pair of crutches, however poor a carpenter he may be; and every evening as soon as his watch was over he repaired to the wood-shed.  They won’t be much to look at, Esora reflected, but that won’t matter, if he gets them the right length, and strong.

Come and see them, he said to her one evening, and when she had admired his handiwork sufficiently he said:  tell me, Esora, is a man’s mind the same after scourging and crucifixion as it was before?  Esora shook her head.  I suppose not, Joseph continued, for our minds draw their lives from our bodies.  He’ll be a different man if he comes up from his sickness.  But he may live to be as old as I am, or the patriarchs, she returned.  With a different mind, he added.  So I’ve lost him in life whom I saved from death.

Esora did not ask any questions, and fearing that her master might tell her things he might afterwards regret having said, she remarked that Jesus would be needing the crutches in about another week.

And it was in or about that time, not finding Jesus in the cottage, they came down the pathway in great alarm, to be brought to a sudden stop by the sight of Jesus sitting under the cedars.  How did he get there?  Esora cried, for the crutches were in the wood-shed.  They were, Esora, but I took them down to the cottage last night, and seeing them, and finding they fitted him, he has hobbled to the terrace.  But he mustn’t hobble about where he pleases, Esora said.  He is a sick man and in our charge, and if he doesn’t obey us he may fall back again into sickness.  The bones have not properly set——­ We don’t know that any bones were broken, do we, Esora?  We don’t; for the nails may have pierced the feet and hands without breaking any.  But, Master, look!  Didst ever see such imprudence?  Go! drive away my cat, or else my work will be undone.