about Jesus, I came down to hear what was being said, but before I got as far I saw Jesus turn away and walk into the hills.  It was from the beggars and lepers that I heard that Joseph had been killed in the streets of Jerusalem.  Thou knowest how long beggars take to tell a story; Jesus was far away before they got to the end of it, simple though it was.  I’d have gone after him if they’d been quicker.  More of the story I don’t know.  It was just as thou sayest, mate, Eliab answered, and thou’lt bear me out that it was some months after, maybe six or seven, that Jesus was seen again leading the flock.  I remember the day I saw him, for wasn’t I near to rubbing my eyes lest they might be deceiving me—­I remember, Eliab continued, it comes back to me as it does to thee, for within two years he had gathered another handsome flock about him.  A fine shepherd, Havilah said.  None better to be found on the hills.  Thou speakest well, Eliab answered him, and for thee to speak well twice in the same day is well-nigh a miracle.  Belike thou’lt awake one morning to find thyself the Messiah Israel is waiting for, so great is thy advancement of late in good sense.  Havilah turned aside, and Eliab, divining his wounded spirit, sought to make amends by offering him some bread and garlic, but Havilah went away, a melancholy, heavy-shouldered young man, one that, Eliab said, must feel life cruelly, knowing himself as he must have done from the beginning to be what is known as a good-for-nothing.  And it was soon after Havilah’s departure that Jesus returned to the shepherds and, stopping in front of Eliab and Bozrah, he said:  I’ve come back, mates, to give you my thanks for many a year of good-fellowship.  So the time has come for us to lose thee, mate, Eliab answered.  We are sorry for it, though it isn’t altogether unlocked for.  We were saying not many moments ago, Bozrah interjected, that the life on the hills is no life for a man when he has gone fifty, and thou’lt not see fifty again:  no, and not by three years, Jesus answered.  It was just about fifty years that the feeling began to come over me that I couldn’t fight another winter, and to think of Jacob, who is waiting for a flock, and he may as well have mine during my life as wait for my death to get it.  Better so, said Eliab, whose wont it was to strike his word in whenever the speaker paused.  He did not always wait for the speaker to pause, and this trick being known to Bozrah, he said, and by all accounts thou hast made a true shepherd of him, passing over to him all thy knowledge.  A lad of good report, Jesus answered, who had fallen on a hard master, a thing that has happened to all of us in our time, Bozrah interjected.  He’s not the first that fell out of favour, for that his ewes hadn’t given as many lambs as they might have done.  Nor was there anything of neglect in it, but such a bit of ill luck as might run into any man or any man might run up against.  He was told, said Eliab, who could not bear anyone to tell a story but himself,