The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story

  CHAP. XXX.

  So thou thinkest, Eliab, that the autumn rains will make an end of him.And maybe of thee too, Bozrah, Eliab returned. A hard life ours is, evenfor the young ones. Hard bread by day and at night a bed of stones, ahard life from the beginning one that doesn't grow softer, and to end ina lion's maw at fifty is the best we can hope for. For us, perhaps,Bozrah answered; but Jesus will go up to the cenoby among the rocks anddie amongst the brethren reading the Scriptures. If the autumn rainsdon't make an end of him, Eliab interjected testily, as if he did notlike his forecast of Jesus' death to be called into question. As I wassaying, a shepherd's life is a hard one, and when the autumn rains makean end of him, the brethren will be on the look-out for anothershepherd, and there's not one amongst them that would bring half theflock entrusted to him into the fold at the end of the year. The best ofus lose sheep: what with----

  The flock will go to Jacob, the lad he's been training to follow himever since his friend was killed, Havilah remarked timidly. Eliab andBozrah raised their eyes, and looked at Havilah in surprise, for asensible remark from Havilah was an event, and to their wonder theyfound themselves in agreement with Havilah. The flock would go to Jacobwithout doubt. Of course, Havilah cried, excited by the success of hislast remark, he be more than fifty. Thou mightst put five years more tothe fifty and not be far wrong, Bozrah interposed. Havilah was minded tospeak again, but his elders' looks made him feel that they had heard himsufficiently. Now, Bozrah, how many years dost thou make it since Josephof Arimathea was killed? How many years? Bozrah repeated. I can't tellthee how many years, but many years.... Stay, I can mark the date downfor thee. It was about ten years before Theudas (wasn't that his name?)led the multitude over these hills. A great riot that was surely--fireslighted at the side of the woods for the roasting of our lambs, andmany's the fine wood that was turned to blackened stems and sad ashes inthose days. It comes back to me now, Eliab interjected. Theudas was thename. I'd forgotten it for the moment. He led the multitude to Jordan,and while he was bidding the waters divide to let him across the Romanshad his head off. It was nigh ten years before that rioting Gaddi'spartner was killed in Jerusalem. I believe thee to be right, Bozrahreplied, and they talked of the different magicians and messiahs thatwere still plaguing the country, stirring them up against the Romans.But, cried Bozrah suddenly, the story comes back to me. Not getting anynews of his friend, Jesus left his flock with Jacob, and came down tothe pass between the hills where the road descends to the lake toinquire from the beggars if they had seen Gaddi's partner on his way toJerusalem or Jericho, and seeing the lepers and beggars gathering aboutJesus, I came down to hear what was being said, but before I got as farI saw Jesus turn away and walk into the hills. It was from the beggarsand lepers that I heard that Joseph had been killed in the streets ofJerusalem. Thou knowest how long beggars take to tell a story; Jesuswas far away before they got to the end of it, simple though it was. I'dhave gone after him if they'd been quicker. More of the story I don'tknow. It was just as thou sayest, mate, Eliab answered, and thou'lt bearme out that it was some months after, maybe six or seven, that Jesus wasseen again leading the flock. I remember the day I saw him, for wasn't Inear to rubbing my eyes lest they might be deceiving me--I remember,Eliab continued, it comes back to me as it does to thee, for within twoyears he had gathered another handsome flock about him. A fine shepherd,Havilah said. None better to be found on the hills. Thou speakest well,Eliab answered him, and for thee to speak well twice in the same day iswell-nigh a miracle. Belike thou'lt awake one morning to find thyselfthe Messiah Israel is waiting for, so great is thy advancement of latein good sense. Havilah turned aside, and Eliab, divining his woundedspirit, sought to make amends by offering him some bread and garlic, butHavilah went away, a melancholy, heavy-shouldered young man, one that,Eliab said, must feel life cruelly, knowing himself as he must have donefrom the beginning to be what is known as a good-for-nothing. And it wassoon after Havilah's departure that Jesus returned to the shepherds and,stopping in front of Eliab and Bozrah, he said: I've come back, mates,to give you my thanks for many a year of good-fellowship. So the timehas come for us to lose thee, mate, Eliab answered. We are sorry for it,though it isn't altogether unlocked for. We were saying not many momentsago, Bozrah interjected, that the life on the hills is no life for a manwhen he has gone fifty, and thou'lt not see fifty again: no, and not bythree years, Jesus answered. It was just about fifty years that thefeeling began to come over me that I couldn't fight another winter, andto think of Jacob, who is waiting for a flock, and he may as well havemine during my life as wait for my death to get it. Better so, saidEliab, whose wont it was to strike his word in whenever the speakerpaused. He did not always wait for the speaker to pause, and this trickbeing known to Bozrah, he said, and by all accounts thou hast made atrue shepherd of him, passing over to him all thy knowledge. A lad ofgood report, Jesus answered, who had fallen on a hard master, a thingthat has happened to all of us in our time, Bozrah interjected. He's notthe first that fell out of favour, for that his ewes hadn't given asmany lambs as they might have done. Nor was there anything of neglect init, but such a bit of ill luck as might run into any man or any manmight run up against. He was told, said Eliab, who could not bear anyoneto tell a story but himself, that though he were to bring the parts ofthe sheep the wolf had left behind to his master he would have to seekanother master. Such severity frightens the shepherd, and the wolfsmells out the frightened shepherd, Jesus said, and he told his matesthat he had not found Jacob lacking in truthfulness nor in naturaldiscernment, and he asked them to give all their protection to Jacob,who will, he said, go forth in charge of our flock to-morrow.

  The shepherds said again that they were sorry to lose Jesus, and thatthe hills would not seem like the hills without him, and Jesus answeredthat he, too, would be lonely among the brethren reading the Scriptures.When one is used to sheep one misses them sorely, Eliab said, there'salways something to learn from them; and he began to tell a story; butbefore he had come to the end of it Jesus' thoughts took leave of thestory he was listening to, and he turned away, leaving the shepherd withhis half-finished story, and walked absorbed in his thoughts, immersedin his own mind, till he had reached the crest of the next hill and waswithin some hundred yards of the brook. It was then that he rememberedhe had left them abruptly in the middle of a half-finished relation, andhe stopped to consider if he should return to them and ask for the endof the story. But fearing they would think he was making a mocking-stockof them, he sighed, and was vexed that they had parted on a seeming lackof courtesy: on no seeming lack, on a very clear lack, he said tohimself; but it would be useless to return to them; they would notunderstand, and a man had always better return to his own thoughts.Repent, repent, he said, picking up the thread of his thoughts, butacknowledgment comes before repentance, and of what help will repentancebe, for repentance changes nothing, it brings nothing unless griefperadventure. I was in the hands of God then just as I am now, andeverything within and without us is in his hands. The things that welook upon as evil and the things that we look upon as good. Our sight isnot his sight, our hearing is not his hearing, we must despise nothing,for all things come from him, and return to him. I used, he said, todespise the air I breathed, and long for the airs of paradise, but whatdid these longings bring me?--grief. God bade us live on earth and webring unhappiness upon ourselves by desiring heaven. Jesus stopped, andlooking through the blue air of evening, he could see the shepherdseating their bread and garlic on the hillside. Folding-time is near, hesaid to himself, but I shall never fold a flock again....

  His thoughts began again, flowing like a wind, as mysteriously, arisinghe knew not whence, nor how, his mind holding him as fast as if he werein chains, and he heard from within that he had passed through twostages--the first was in Jerusalem, when he preached against the priestsand their sacrifices. God does not desire the blood of sheep, but ourlove, and all ritual comes between us and God ... God is in the heart,he had said, and he had spo
ken as truly as a man may speak of thejourney that lies before him on the morning of the first day.

  In the desert he had looked for God in the flowers that the sun calledforth and in the clouds that the wind shepherded, and he had learnt toprize the earth and live content among his sheep, all things beingthe gift of God and his holy will. He had not placed himself above theflowers and grasses of the earth, nor the sheep that fed upon them, norabove the men that fed upon the sheep. He had striven against the memoryof his sin, he had desired only one thing, to acknowledge his sin, andto repent. But it seemed to him that anger and shame and sorrow, anddesire of repentance had dropped out of his heart. It seemed to him ashe turned and pursued his way that some new thought was striving tospeak through him. Rites and observances, all that comes under the nameof religion estranges us from God, he repeated. God is not here, northere, but everywhere: in the flower, and in the star, and in the earthunderfoot. He has often been at my elbow, God or this vast Providencethat upholds the work; but shall we gather the universal will into animage and call it God?--for by doing this do we not drift back to thestarting-point of all our misery? We again become the dupes of illusionand desire; God and his heaven are our old enemies in disguise. He whoyields himself to God goes forth to persuade others to love God, andvery soon his love of God impels him to violent words and cruel deeds.It cannot be else, for God is but desire, and whosoever yields to desirefalls into sin. To be without sin we must be without God.

  Jesus stood before the door of the cenoby, startled at the thoughts thathad been put into his mind, asking himself if any man had dared to askhimself if God were not indeed the last uncleanliness of the mind.