ld walk from dusk to dusk without
wearying; twelve and fifteen hours were not too many for my feet: my
feet bounded along the road while my eyes followed white clouds moving
over the sky; I dreamed of them as God's palaces, and I saw God not only
in the clouds but in the grass, and in the fields, and the flower that
covers the fields. I read God in the air and in the waters: and in every
town in Palestine I sought out those that loved God and those that could
learn to love God. I could walk well in those days, fifteen hours were
less than as many minutes are now. I have walked from Jerusalem to Joppa
in one day, and the night that I met thy father outside Nazareth I had
walked twelve hours, though I had been delayed in the morning: eight
hours before midday, and after a rest in the wood I went on again for
several hours more, how many I do not know, I've forgotten. I did not
know the distance that I had walked till I met thy father coming home
from his work, his tools in the bag upon his shoulder. His voice is
still in my ear. But if it be to Nazareth thou'rt going, come along with
me, he said. And I can still hear ourselves talking, myself asking him
to direct me to a lodging, and his answering: there's a house in the
village where thou'lt get one, and I'll lead thee to it. But all the
beds in that house were full; we knocked at other inns, but the men and
women and children in them were asleep and not to be roused; and if by
chance our knocking awakened somebody we were bidden away with threats
that the dogs would be loosed upon us. Nazareth looks not kindly on the
wayfarer to-night, I said. Yet it shall not be said that a stranger had
to sleep in the streets of Nazareth, were thy father's very words to me,
Jesus. Come to my house, he said, though it be small and we have to put
somebody out of his bed, it will be better than that our town should
gain evil repute. Thou canst not have forgotten me coming, for thy
father shook thee out of thy sleep and told thee that he wanted thy bed
for a stranger. I can see thee still standing before me in thy shift,
and though the hours I'd travelled had gone down into my very marrow,
and sleep was heavy upon my eyes, yet a freshness came upon me as of the
dawn when I looked on thee, and my heart told me that I had found one
that would do honour to the Essenes, and love God more than any I had
ever met with yet. But I think I hear thee weeping, Jesus. Now, for what
art thou weeping? Th