CHAPTER X.
ABIGAIL sat just inside the door, turning the noisy hand-mill thatground out the next day's supply of flour. The rough mill-stones gratedso harshly on each other that she did not hear the steps coming up thepath. A shadow falling across the door-way made her look up.
"You are home early, my Phineas," she said, with a smile. "Well, I shallsoon have your supper ready. Joel has gone to the market for some honeyand--"
"Nay! I have little wish to eat," he interrupted, "but I have much tosay to you. Come! the work can wait."
Abigail put the mill aside, and brushing the flour from her hands, satdown on the step beside him, wondering much at his troubled face.
He plunged into his subject abruptly. "The Master is soon going away,"he said, "that those in the uttermost parts of Galilee may be taught ofHim. And He would fain have others beside the twelve He has chosen to gowith Him on His journey."
"And you wish to go too?" she questioned, as he paused.
"Yes! How can I do otherwise? And yet how can I leave you and the littleones alone in these troubled times? You cannot think how great thedanger is. Remember how many horrors we have lately heard. The wholecountry is a smouldering volcano, ready to burst into an eruption at anymoment. A leader has only to arise, and all Israel will take up armsagainst the powers that trample us under foot."
"Is not this prophet, Jesus, He who is to save Israel?" asked Abigail."Is He not even now making ready to establish His kingdom?"
"I do not understand Him at all!" said Phineas, sadly. "He does talk ofa kingdom in which we are all to have a part; but He never seems to beworking to establish it. He spends all His time in healing diseases andforgiving penitent sinners, and telling us to love our neighbors.
"Then, again, why should He go down to the beach, and choose for Hisconfidential friends just simple fishermen. They have neither influencenor money. As for the choice of that publican Levi-Matthew, it hasbrought disgrace on the whole movement. He does not seem to know how tosway the popular feeling. I believe He might have had the support of theforemost men of the nation, if He had approached them differently.
"He shocks them by setting aside laws they would lay down their livesrather than violate. He associates with those they consider unclean; andall His miracles cannot make them forget how boldly He has rebuked themfor hypocrisy and unrighteousness. They never will come to His supportnow; and I do not see how a new government can be formed without theirhelp."
Abigail laid her hand on his, her dark eyes glowing with intenseearnestness, as she answered: "What need is there of armies and humanhands to help?
"Where were the hosts of Pharaoh when our fathers passed through the RedSea? Was there bloodshed and fighting there?
"Who battled for us when the walls of Jericho fell down? Whose handsmote the Assyrians at Sennacherib? Is the Lord's arm shortened that Hecannot save?
"Why may not His prophet speak peace to Jerusalem as easily as He didthe other night to the stormy sea? Why may not His power be multipliedeven as the loaves and fishes?
"Why may not the sins and backslidings of the people be healed as wellas Joel's lameness; or the glory of the nation be quickened into a newlife, as speedily as He raised the daughter of Jairus?
"Isaiah called Him the Prince of Peace. What are all these lessons, ifnot to teach us that the purposes of God do not depend on human hands towork out their fulfilment?"
Her low voice thrilled him with its inspiring questions, and he lookeddown into her rapt face with a feeling of awe.
"Abigail," he said softly, "'my source of joy,'--you are rightly named.You have led me out of the doubts that have been my daily torment. I seenow, why He never incites us to rebel against the yoke of Caesar. In thefulness of time He will free us with a breath.
"How strange it should have fallen to my lot to have been His playmateand companion. My wonder is not that He is the Messiah; but that Ishould have called Him friend, all these years, unknowing."
"How long do you expect to be away?" she asked, after a pause, suddenlyreturning to the first subject.
"Several months, perhaps. There is no telling what insurrections andriots may arise, all through this part of the country. Since the murderof John Baptist, Herod has come back to his court in Tiberias. I disliketo leave you here alone."
Abigail, too, looked grave, and neither spoke for a little while. "Ihave it!" she exclaimed at length, with a pleased light in her eyes. "Ihave often wished I could make a long visit in the home of my girlhood.The few days I have spent in my father's house, those few times I havegone with you to the feasts, have been so short and unsatisfactory. CanI not take Joel and the children to Bethany? Neither father nor motherhas ever seen little Ruth, and we could be so safe and happy there tillyour return."
"Why did I not come to you before with my worries?" asked Phineas. "Howeasily you make the crooked places straight!"
Just then the children came running back from the market. Abigail wentinto the house with the provisions they had brought, leaving theirfather to tell them of the coming separation and the long journey theyhad planned.
A week later, Phineas stood at the city gate, watching a little companyfile southward down the highway. He had hired two strong,gayly-caparisoned mules from the owner of the caravan. Abigail rode onone, holding little Ruth in her arms; Joel mounted the other, with Jesseclinging close behind him.
Abigail, thinking of the joyful welcome awaiting her in her old home,and the children happy in the novelty of the journey, set out gayly.
But Phineas, thinking of the dangers by the way, and filled with manyforebodings, watched their departure with a heavy heart.
At the top of a little rise in the road, they turned to look back andwave their hands. In a moment more they were out of sight. Then Phineas,grasping his staff more firmly, turned away, and started on foot in theother direction, to follow to the world's end, if need be, the friendwho had gone on before.
It was in the midst of the barley harvest. Jesse had never been in thecountry before. For the first time, Nature spread for him her greatpicture-book of field and forest and vineyard, while Abigail read to himthe stories.
First on one side of the road, then the other, she pointed out some spotand told its history.
Here was Dothan, where Joseph went out to see his brothers, dressed inhis coat of many colors. There was Mount Gilboa, where the arrows of thePhilistines wounded Saul, and he fell on his own sword and killedhimself. Shiloh, where Hannah brought little Samuel to give him to theLord; where the Prophet Eli, so old that his eyes were too dim to see,sat by the gate waiting for news from the army, and when word wasbrought back that his two sons were dead, and the Ark of the Covenanttaken, here it was that he fell backward from his seat, and his neck wasbroken.
All these she told, and many more. Then she pointed to the gleaners inthe fields, and told the children to notice how carefully Israel stillkept the commandment given so many centuries before: "When ye reap theharvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thyfield, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thoushalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape ofthy vineyard, thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger."
At Jacob's well, where they stopped to rest, Joel lifted Jesse up, andlet him look over the curb. The child almost lost his balance inastonishment, when his own wondering little face looked up at him fromthe deep well. He backed away from it quickly, and looked carefully intothe cup of water Joel handed him, for more than a minute, before heventured to drink.
The home to which Abigail was going was a wealthy one. Her father,Reuben, was a goldsmith, and for years had been known in Jerusalem notonly for the beautifully wrought ornaments and precious stones that hesold in his shop near the Temple, but for his rich gifts to the poor.
"Reuben the Charitable," he was called, and few better deserved thename. His business took him every day to the city; but his home was inthe little village of Bethany, two miles
away. It was one of the largestin Bethany, and seemed like a palace to the children, when compared tothe humble little home in Capernaum.
Joel only looked around with admiring eyes; but Jesse walked about,laying curious little fingers on everything he passed. The brightoriental curtains, the soft cushions and the costly hangings, hesmoothed and patted. Even the silver candlesticks and the jewelled cupson the side table were picked up and examined, when his mother happenedto have her back turned.
"'WE TALKED LATE'"]
There were no pictures in the house; the Law forbade. But there wereseveral mirrors of bright polished metal, and Jesse never tired ofwatching his own reflection in them.
Ruth stayed close beside her mother. "She is a ray of God's ownsunshine," said her grandmother, as she took her in her arms for thefirst time. The child, usually afraid of strangers, saw in Rebecca'sface a look so like her mother's that she patted the wrinkled cheekswith her soft fingers. From that moment her grandmother was her devotedslave.
Jesse was not long in finding the place he held in his grandfather'sheart. The old man, whose sons had all died years before, seemed tocentre all his hopes on this son of his only daughter. He kept Jessewith him as much as possible; his happiest hours were when he had thechild on his knee, teaching him the prayers and precepts and proverbsthat he knew would be a lamp to his feet in later years.
"Nay! do not punish the child!" he said, one morning when Jesse had beenguilty of some disobedience. Abigail went on stripping the leavesfrom an almond switch she just had broken off.
"Why, father," she said, with a smile, "I have often seen you punish mybrothers for such disobedience, and have as often heard you say that oneof Solomon's wisest sayings is, 'Chasten thy son while there is hope,and let not thy soul spare for his crying.' Jesse misses his father'sfirm rule, and is getting sadly spoiled."
"That is all true, my daughter," he acknowledged; "still I shall notstay here to witness his punishment."
Abigail used the switch as she had intended. The boy had overheard theconversation, and the cries that reached his grandfather as he rode offto the city were unusually loud and appealing. They may have hadsomething to do with the package the good man carried home thatnight,--cakes and figs and a gay little turban more befitting a youngprince than the son of a carpenter.
"Who lives across the street?" asked Joel, the morning after theirarrival.
"Two old friends of mine," answered Abigail. "They came to see me lastnight as soon as they heard I had arrived. You children were all asleep.We talked late, for they wanted to hear all I could tell them of RabbiJesus. He was here last year, and Martha said He and her brother Lazarusbecame fast friends. Ah, there is Lazarus now!--that young man justcoming out of the house. He is a scribe, and goes up to write in one ofthe rooms of the Temple nearly every day.
"Mary says some of the copies of the Scriptures he has made are the mostbeautifully written that she has ever seen."
"See!" exclaimed Joel, "he has dropped one of the rolls of parchment hewas carrying, and does not know it. I'll run after him with it."
He was hardly yet accustomed to the delight of being so fleet of foot;no halting step now to hinder him. He almost felt as if he were flying,and was by the young man's side nearly as soon as he had started.
"Ah, you are the guest of my good neighbor, Reuben," Lazarus said, afterthanking him courteously. "Are you not the lad whose lameness has justbeen healed by my best friend? My sisters were telling me of it. It mustbe a strange experience to suddenly find yourself changed from ahelpless cripple to such a strong, straight lad as you are now. How didit make you feel?"
"Oh, I can never begin to tell you, Rabbi Lazarus," answered Joel. "Idid not even think of it that moment when He held my hand in His. I onlythought how much I loved Him. I had been starving before, but thatmoment He took the place of everything,--father, mother, the home love Ihad missed,--and more than that, the love of God seemed to come down andfold me so close and safe, that I knew He was the Messiah. I did noteven notice that I was no longer lame, until I was far down the beach.Oh, you do not know how I wanted to follow Him! If I could only havegone with Him instead of coming here!"
"Yes, my boy, I know!" answered the young man, gently; "for I, too, loveHim."
This strong bond of sympathy between the two made them feel as if theyhad known each other always.
"Come walk with me a little way," said Lazarus. "I am going up toJerusalem to the Temple. Or rather, would you not like to come all theway? I have only to carry these rolls to one of the priests, then I willbe at liberty to show you some of the strange sights in the city."
Joel ran back for permission. Only stopping to wind his white linenturban around his head, he soon regained his new-found friend.
His recollection of Jerusalem was a very dim, confused one. Time andtime again he had heard pilgrims returning from the feasts trying todescribe their feelings when they had come in sight of the Holy City.Now as they turned with the road, the view that rose before him made himfeel how tame their descriptions had been.
The morning sun shone down on the white marble walls of the Temple andthe gold that glittered on the courts, as they rose one above the other;tower and turret and pinnacle shot back a dazzling light.
It did not seem possible to Joel that human hands could have wroughtsuch magnificence. He caught his breath, and uttered an exclamation ofastonishment.
Lazarus smiled at his pleasure. "Come," he said, "it is still morebeautiful inside."
They went very slowly through Solomon's Porch, for every one seemed toknow the young man, and many stopped to speak to him. Then they crossedthe Court of the Gentiles. It seemed like a market-place; for cages ofdoves were kept there for sale, and lambs, calves, and oxen bleated andlowed in their stalls till Joel could scarcely hear what his friend wassaying, as they pushed their way through the crowd, and stood before theGate Beautiful that led into the Court of the Women.
Here Lazarus left Joel for a few moments, while he went to give therolls to the priest for whom he had copied them.
Joel looked around. Then for the first time since his healing, hewondered if it would be possible for him to ever take his place amongthe Levites, or become a priest as he had been destined.
While he wondered, Lazarus came back and led him into the next court.Here he could look up and see the Holy Place, over which was trained agolden vine, with clusters of grapes as large as a man's body, all ofpurest gold. Beyond that he knew was a heavy veil of Babyloniantapestry, hyacinth and scarlet and purple, that veiled in awful darknessthe Holy of Holies.
As he stood there thinking of the tinkling bells, the silver trumpets,the clouds of incense, and the mighty songs, a great longing came overhim to be one of those white-robed priests, serving daily in theTemple.
But with the wish came the recollection of a quiet hillside, where onlybird-calls and whirr of wings stirred the stillness; where a breeze fromthe sparkling lake blew softly through the grass, and one Voice only washeard, proclaiming its glad new gospel under the open sky.
"No," he thought to himself; "I'd rather be with Him than wear the HighPriest's mitre."
It was almost sundown when they found themselves on the road homeward.They had visited place after place of interest.
Lazarus found the boy an entertaining companion, and the friendshipbegun that day grew deep and lasting.