ead. That is, said he, that I
said; ye be spies. Now I have of you the experience. I swear to you by
the health of Pharaoh ye shall not depart till that your youngest
brother come. Send ye one of you for him to bring him hither. Ye shall
abide in fetters in prison till the truth be proved whether the things
that ye have said be true or false, else, by the health of Pharaoh, ye
be spies. And delivered them to be kept three days. The third day they
were brought out of prison, to whom he said: I dread God, if ye be
peaceable as ye say, do as ye have said, and ye shall live. Let one
brother be bounden in prison, and go ye your way, and lead home the
wheat that ye have bought into your houses, and bring to me with you
your youngest brother, that I may prove your words, that ye die not.
They did as he said, and spake together: We be worthy and well deserved
to suffer this, for we have sinned in our brother, seeing his anguish
when he prayed us and we heard him not, therefore this tribulation is
fallen upon us. Of whom Reuben said: Said not I to you, in no wise sin
not ye in the child, and ye would not hear me? Now his blood is wroken.
They knew not that Joseph understood them, forasmuch as he spake alway
to them by an interpreter. Then Joseph turned him a little and wept.
After he returned to them, and took Simeon in their presence and bound
him, and sent him to prison, and commanded to his ministers to fill
their sacks with wheat, and to put each man's money in their sacks, and
above that to give them meat to spend in their way; which did so. And
they took their wheat and laid it on their asses and departed on their
way. After, one of them, on the way, opened his sack for to give his
beast meat, and found his money in the mouth of his sack and said to his
brethren: My money is given to me again, lo! I have found it in my sack.
And they were all astonied: What is this that God hath done to us? Then
they came home to their father in the land of Canaan and told to him all
things that was fallen to them, saying: The lord of the country hath
spoken hard to us and had supposed that we been spies of that province,
to whom we answered that, we were peaceable people ne were no such
spies, and that we were twelve sons gotten of one father, one is dead
and the youngest is with our father in the land of Canaan. Which then
said to us: Now shall I prove whether ye be peaceable or no. Ye shall
leave here one brother with me, and lead home th