escend here, for
thou'lt be safer here, Master; we have swords and staves to defend
thee--so let us kneel in prayer and ask the Lord that he choose Galilee
rather than Judea for the setting up of his kingdom. To which Jesus
answered nothing, and his face was as if he had not heard Peter; and
then Peter's fears for Jesus' life, should he go to Jerusalem, seemed to
pass on from one to the other, till all were possessed by the same fear,
and Peter said: let us lift up our hearts to our Father in Heaven and
pray that Jesus be not taken from us. Let us kneel, he said, and they
all knelt and prayed, but to their supplication Jesus seemed
indifferent. And seeing they were unable to dissuade him from Jerusalem,
Peter turned to Joseph. Here is one, he said, who knows the perils of
Jerusalem and will bear witness, that if thou preach that God have no
need of a Temple or a sacrifice, thou'lt surely be done to death by the
priests.

Peter's sudden appeal to his knowledge of the priests of Jerusalem awoke
Joseph, who was wholly absorbed in his love of Jesus, and thought only
of rushing forward and worshipping; but he was held back and strained
forward at the same time, and seeing he was overcome, Peter did not
press him for an answer, and Joseph fell back among the crowd, ashamed,
thinking that if Peter came to him again he would speak forthright. He
had words that would bring him into the sympathy of Jesus, but instead
of speaking them he stood, held at gaze by the beauty of the bright
forehead, large and arched; and so exalted were the eyes that Joseph
could not think else than that Jesus was looking upon things that his
disciples did not see. It seemed to Joseph that Jesus was meditating
whether he should confide all he saw and heard to his disciples. He
waited, tremulous with expectation, watching the thin scrannel throat
out of which rose a voice to which the ear became attuned quickly and
was gratified as by a welcome dissonance. It rose up among the silence
of the pines, and the delight of listening to it, Joseph thought, was so
near to intoxication that he would have pressed forward if he had not
remembered suddenly that he was a new-comer into the community; one who
might at any moment be driven out of it because he possessed riches
which he could not unburden himself of. So he kept his seat in the
background among the casual followers, by two men whose accents told him
they were Samaritans, and these now seemed within the