Joseph looked on puzzled, for Jesus stood like one in ecstatic vision and began to put questions to the camel-driver regarding the quality of the sheep the shepherds led, asking if the rams speeded, if there were many barren ewes in the flock, and if there was as much scab about as formerly, questions that one shepherd might put to another, but which seemed strangely out of keeping with a gardener’s interests.

The camel-driver answered Jesus’ question as well as he was able, and then, guessing a former shepherd in the gardener, he asked if Jesus had ever led a flock.  Joseph tried to interrupt, but the interruption came too late; Jesus blurted out that for many years he was a shepherd.  And who was thy master? the camel-driver asked; Jesus answered that he was in those days an Essene living in the great settlement on the eastern bank of Jordan.  Whereupon the camel-driver began to relate that Brother Amos was not doing well with the sheep and that some of the brethren were gone to the Brook Kerith and had taken possession of a cave in the rocks above it.  The camel-driver was about to begin to make plain this Amos’ misunderstanding of sheep, but Jesus interrupted him.  Who may their president be? he asked; and with head bent, scratching his poll, the camel-driver said at last that he thought it was Hazael.  Hazael!  Jesus answered, and forthwith his interest in the camel-driver began to slacken.  The anemone is on the hills to-day, he said, and Joseph looked at him reproachfully; his eyes seemed to say:  hast forgotten so easily the danger we passed through by keeping thee here, counting it as nothing, so great was our love of thee?—­and Jesus answering that look replied:  but, Joseph, how often didst thou speak to me of Caesarea, Alexandria, Athens, and other cities.  Esora, too, was anxious that I should leave Judea ... for my sake as well as yours.  India was spoken of, but the Brook Kerith is not twenty odd miles from here and I shall be safe among the brethren.  Why this silence, Joseph? and whence comes this change of mood?  Jesus asked, and Joseph began to speak of the parting that awaited them.  But there’ll be no parting, Jesus interposed.  Thou’lt ride thy ass out to meet me, and we shall learn to know each other, for thou knowest nothing of me yet, Joseph.  Thou’lt bring a loaf of bread and a flagon of wine in thy wallet, and we shall share it together.  I shall wait for thy coming on the hillside.  Even so, Jesus, I am sad that our life here among the trees in this garden should have come to an end.  We were frightened many times, but what we suffered is now forgotten.  The pleasure of having thee with us alone is remembered.  But it is true we have been estranged here.  May we start to-night?  Jesus asked, and Joseph said:  if a man be minded to leave, it is better that he should leave at once.

CHAP.  XXIII.