Their possessions were tied on to the back of a camel, and they trudged cheerfully after it.  Joseph carried an axe at his waist in order to defend them from attacks, but he only had occasion to try it on the blocks of wood that lay in the road, which he liked to hack at a little if they were good timber.  The nearer they approached the capital the more animated the stony roads became.  Pilgrims who were proceeding to the great festival in the holy place streamed along the paths.  After sunset on the second day our travellers found themselves at an inn in Jerusalem.  Joseph could afford to be more independent than he had been twelve years back—­he had money in his pocket!  Their first walk was to the Temple.  They hastened their steps when passing Herod’s palace.

The Temple stood in wondrous splendour.  All sorts of people filled the forecourt, hurrying, pushing, and shouting, pressing forward through the lines of pillars into the Holy Place, and thence into the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant stood, flanked by golden candelabra.  Every fifth man wore the robes of a rabbi, and was thus sure of his place in the Temple as one learned in the law.  Pharisees and Sadducees, two hostile parties in the interpretation of the law, talked together of tithes and tribute, or entered on lively disputes over the laws of the Scriptures, a subject on which they never agreed.  Joseph and Mary did not observe that others were quarrelling; they humbly obeyed the rules, and stood in a niche of the Holy Place and prayed.  But Jesus stood by the pillars and listened to the disputants with astonishment.

The next day they inspected the city as far as the crowds rendered it possible.  Joseph wished to visit the grave of his noble ancestor, and pushed through the crowds that filled the dark, narrow streets, noisy with buyers and sellers, donkey-drivers, porters, shouting rabbis, and an endless stream of pilgrims.  When they reached David’s tomb Jesus was not with them.  Joseph thought that he had remained behind in the crowd, and, feeling quite easy about him, paid his devotions at the tomb of his royal ancestor.  When they returned to the inn, where they thought to find Jesus, He was not there; time passed, and He did not come.  Someone said He had joined a party of pilgrims going to Galilee, because He thought that His parents had already set out.  “How could He think that?” exclaimed Joseph.  “As if we should go without Him!”

They hurried off to fetch their son, but when they came up with the pilgrims, Jesus was not there, nothing was known of him, and his parents returned to the town.  They sought him there for two whole days.  They visited every quarter of the city, searched all the public buildings, inquired of every curator, asked at the strangers’ office, questioned all the shop-keepers about the tall boy with pale face, brown hair, and an Egyptian fez on his head.  But no one had seen him.  They returned to the inn, fully expecting to find him there.  But there was no sign of him.  Mary, who was almost fainting with anxiety, declared that he must have fallen into the hands of Herod.  Joseph comforted her, though he was himself in sad need of consolation.