rams to the Temple. Fat rams,
Jesus repeated. Amos has been telling me that what lacks is a ram, and
the community had not enough money to buy one. That is true, Hazael
said. Rams are hard to get even for a great deal of money. Joseph might
lend us the money, he is rich. He will do that, Jesus answered, and be
glad to do it. But a ram must be found, and if thou'lt give me all the
money thou hast I will go in search of one. Joseph will remit to thee
the money I have taken from thee when he returns. It will be a surprise
for him to find in the flock a great fine ram of the breed that I
remember to have seen on the western hills. I'll start at daybreak. Thou
shalt have our shekels, Hazael said; they are few, but the Lord be with
thee and his luck.

CHAP. XXVI.

His was the long, steady gait of the shepherd, and he had not proceeded
far into the hills before he was looking round acknowledging them, one
after the other; they were his friends, and his sheep's friends, having
given them pasturage for many a year; and the oak wood's shade had been
friendly beforetimes to himself and his sheep. And he was going to rest
in its shade once more. At noon he would be there, glad of some water;
for though the day was still young the sun was warm, the sky told him
that before noon his tongue would be cleaving to the sides of his mouth;
a fair prediction this was, for long before the oak wood came into sight
he had begun to think of the well at the end of the wood, and the
quality of the water he would find in it, remembering that it used to
hold good water, but the shepherds often forgot to replace the stopper
and the water got fouled.

As he walked his comrades of old time kept rising up in his memory one
by one; their faces, even their hands and feet, and the stories they
told of their dogs, their fights with the wild beasts, and the losses
they suffered from wolves and lions in the jungles along the Jordan. In
old times these topics were the substance of his life, and he wished to
hear the shepherds' rough voices again, to look into their eyes, to talk
sheep with them, to plunge his hands once more into the greasy fleeces,
yes, and to vent his knowledge, so that if he should happen to come upon
new men they would see that he, Jesus, had been at the job before.

Now the day seems like keeping up, he said; but there was a certain fear
in his heart that the valleys would be close and hot in the afternoon
and the hill-tops