s work, and
seeing in him a native of the district, he addressed himself to him and
begged my father to point out the road to Nazareth. My father answered:
I am going thither, thou canst not do better than follow me. So the two
fared on together, talking of a lodging for the night, my father fearing
that no house would be open to a stranger, which was the truth. They
knocked at many, but received only threats that the dogs would be turned
upon them if they did not hasten away. My father said: never shall it be
rumoured in Nazareth that a stranger was turned away and had to sleep in
the streets. Thou shalt have my son's bed, and taking Hazael by the hand
my father urged him and forced him into our house. Thou shalt sleep in
my house, my father said, and shook me out of my sleep, saying, Jesus,
thy bed is wanted for a stranger, and to this day I remember standing in
my smock before Hazael, my eyes dazed with sleep.

Next day Hazael was teaching me; and it pleasing him to see in me the
making of a good Essene, and my father being willing that I should go (a
good carpenter he did not see in me), he took me away with him through
Samaria into Jerusalem, and we struck across the desert, descending the
hills into the plain of Jericho, and crossed the Jordan.

After a year's probationship I was admitted into the order of the
Essenes and was given choice of a trade, and it was put forth that I
should follow the trade of my father or work amid the fig-trees along
our terraces, but my imagination being stirred by the sight of the
shepherds among the hills, I said, let me be one. And for fifteen years
I led my flock, content to see it prosper under my care, until one day,
spying two wolves scratching where I knew there was a cave, an empty one
I thought, the hermit having been taken by wolves not long before, I
couched my spear and went forward; at sight of me and my dogs the wolves
fled, as I expected they would, and the hermit that had come to the cave
overnight came out, and after thanking me for driving off the wolves
asked me if I could guide him to a spring of pure water. Thou'rt not far
from one, I said, for the cave he had come to live in was situated in
the valley of the leopard's den, which is but half-a-mile from our
brook. I will go thither with thee this evening, but first drink from my
water-bottle, I said, for I could see he needed water, and I spoke to
him of the number of hermits we had lost lately from wild animals