Part 2 (1/2)

Another pair of c.o.c.ks was already in the ring: two young birds trained to the finest distinction, and they sparred so l.u.s.tily that even the experts could not predict the victor. But there was no heart in Joseph for more c.o.c.k-fighting, and he viewed with disgust the mean vile faces that leered at him while he thanked them for the occasion which he owed them of overlooking so much fine sport. But they were a scurvy lot, viler than he had supposed, though he had suspected from the first that they were nurturing some trick against him. And he searched himself, for he would willingly give them money to be rid of them. But how much will they accept? he asked himself, as he searched his pockets ... his money was gone! Stolen, no doubt, but by whom? By the c.o.c.kers standing around him, quarrelling and railing at each other, levelling accusations right and left--the Heeler wrangling with Lydia, saying it was she that had asked the young penniless to come with them. A mercy it was that he didn't call me a ragam.u.f.fin, Joseph said to himself. He was not without some apprehension that they might detain him till a ransom was paid, and right glad to perceive himself free to go: having gotten his money they wished to be rid of him quietly; and he too, wis.h.i.+ng to avoid attracting attention, slunk out of Tiberias without laying complaint before the magistrate.

It was unlikely that his money would be found upon the thieves and his father would be very angry indeed if he were obliged to go to Tiberias to bear witness to the truth of his story that his son, while on his way to his tutor's--Joseph stopped to consider the eventualities, and he heard in imagination the tale unfolding. Azariah might be called! And if he were, he would tell he had been kept waiting all day, and the jealous neighbours would be glad to send round to commiserate with his father.

It seemed to Joseph that he had escaped lightly with the loss of a few shekels. But what reason should he give for coming home so late? He'd have to say where he had spent the day. Azariah would tell of his absence from his lessons. Ah, if he had foreseen all these worries, he wouldn't have gone to Tiberias.... Should he say he had been out fis.h.i.+ng on the lake? The fishers would not betray him, but they might; and he could not bring himself to tell his father a lie. So did he argue with himself as he walked, saying that he had not done worse than--But what had happened at home? Something must have happened, for the gates were open. The gate-keeper, where was he? And his wonder increased as he reached the house, for all the servants seemed to be running to and fro.

The Lord be praised for sending you back to us! they exclaimed. You thought then that the Lord had taken me from you? Joseph asked, and the man replied that they had been searching for him all day--sending messengers. .h.i.ther and thither, and that in the afternoon a boat had hoisted sail and put out for the fis.h.i.+ng fleet, thinking that Simon Peter might be able to give tidings of Master Joseph. But why all this fuss? Joseph said, because I come home a little later than usual. Your father, Master Joseph, is beside himself, and your grandmother--Joseph left the man with the end of the sentence on his tongue.

So you've returned at last! his father cried on seeing him, and began at once to tell the anxiety he had suffered. Nor was Rachel without her word, and between their reproofs it was some time before Joseph began to apprehend the cause of the tumult: Azariah had laid a long complaint of truancy! As to that, Joseph answered tartly, he has little to complain of. And he spoke of the pact between them, relating that seven or eight months before he had promised Azariah not to be past his time by five minutes. Look to his tally, Father: it will tell that I have kept my word for eight months and more and would have kept it for the year if--Be mindful of what he is saying to thee, Dan. Look well to the tally before condemning, Rachel cried. Wouldst have it then, woman, Azariah lied to me? Not lied, but was carried beyond himself in a great heat of pa.s.sion at being kept waiting, Rachel answered. He said that he enjoyed teaching thee, Joseph, G.o.d having granted thee a good intelligence and ways of comprehension. But he couldn't abide seeing thee waste thy time and his. We're willing and ready to hear about this absence and the cause of it, Dan interposed. So get on with the story: where hast thou been? Out with it, boy. Where hast thou been?

The bare question could only be met by the bare answer: watching a c.o.c.k-fight in Tiberias; and to save his parents from much misunderstanding, he said he must begin at the beginning. Dan would have liked a straight answer, but Rachel said the boy should be suffered to tell his story his own way; and Joseph told a fine tale, the purport of which was that he had sought for a by-way to Tiberias, the large lanes being beset by acrobats, zanies, circus riders and the like, and had found one through Argob orchard and had followed it daily without meeting anyone for many months, but this morning as he came through the trees he had caught sight of an encampment; some c.o.c.kers on their way to Tiberias, where a great main was to be fought. And it was the c.o.c.ks of Pamphilia that had--He stopped, for the great change that had come over his parents' faces set him wondering if his conduct was as shameful as their faces seemed to affirm. He could not see that he had sinned against the law by going to Tiberias, though he had a.s.sociated himself with Gentiles and for a whole day ... he had eaten in their company, but not of any forbidden meat. And while Joseph sought to mitigate his offence to himself, his father sat immersed in woe, his head in his hands. What calamity, he cried, has fallen on my house, and how have I sinned, O Lord, that punishment should fall upon me, and that my own son should be chosen to mete out my punishment? My house is riven from rafter to foundation stone. But, Father, at most--It seemed useless to plead. He stood apart; his grandmother stood silent and grave, not understanding fully, and Joseph foresaw that he could not count upon her to side with him against his father. But if his father would only tell him if he had sinned against the law, instead of rending his garments, he would do all the law commanded to obtain forgiveness. Was there, he asked, anything in the law against c.o.c.k-fighting? or in the traditions? It was a pastime of the heathen: he knew that, and had hoped a day of fasting might be suggested to him, but if this offence was more serious than he had supposed he besought his father to say so. Tell me, Father, have I sinned against the law?

The question seemed to exasperate his father who at last cried out: of what value may be thy Hebrew studies and a knowledge of the language, if the law be not studied with Azariah? Does not the Book of Leviticus ever lie open before thee? How has the law been affronted? The law given by the Lord unto Moses. My own son asks me this. ”And if a soul sin and hear the voice swearing and is a witness whether he has sinned or known of it, if he did not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity.” Was there no swearing at thy c.o.c.k-fight? Plenty, I reckon. All day was spent listening to swearing, hearing the name of the Lord taken in vain: a name we don't dare to p.r.o.nounce ourselves. Joseph sat dumbfounded. So Azariah never taught thee the law? All the time goes by wasted in the reading of Greek plays. We read Hebrew and speak it, Joseph answered, and it was your wish that I should learn Greek. And, Father, is there any reason to worry over a loss of repute? For my sin will be known to n.o.body but G.o.d, unless told by thee, and thou'lt keep it secret. Or told by Azariah, Dan answered moodily, who never teaches the law, but likes Greek plays better. Well, thou shalt hear the law from me to-night, for I can read Hebrew, not, belike, as well as Azariah, but I can read Hebrew all the same. Mother, hand me down the Scriptures from the shelf.

CHAP. IV.

Well, Dan, you must make up your mind whether you are going to look out for one who will teach him better, or let him remain with Azariah, who likes teaching him, for he is a clever but oft-times an idle boy. I don't know that I should have said idle, she added, and sat thinking of what word would describe Joseph's truancy better than idle, without, however, finding the word she needed, and her thoughts floated away into a long consideration of her son's anger, for she could see he was angry with Azariah. But the cause of his anger she could not discover. It could not be that he was annoyed with Azariah for coming to complain that he was often kept waiting: and it was on her tongue to ask him why he was so gloomy, why he knitted his brows and bit his lips. But she held back the question, for it would not be long before Dan would let out his secret: he could not keep one. And Dan, knowing well his own weakness and his mother's shrewdness (she would soon be guessing what was pa.s.sing in his mind), began to animadvert on Azariah for his residence in Tiberias, a pagan city--his plan for leading her on a false trail. Others, he said, spoke more unfavourably than he did; and he continued in this strain until Rachel, losing patience, interrupted him suddenly saying that Azariah did not live in Tiberias. If not in Tiberias, he answered, in a suburb, and within a stone's throw of the city walls. But what has that got to do with Joseph? Rachel asked. What has it got to do with Joseph! Dan growled, when to reach the scribe's house he has to pa.s.s through lanes infested with the off-scourings of the pagan world: mummers, zanies, jugglers, dancers, wh.o.r.es from Babylon. Did ye not hear him, woman, describe these lanes, saying that he had to change his course three times so that he might keep his promise to Azariah, and are ye not mindful that he told me, and you sitting there listening on that very stool, that the showmen he met in Argob orchard put a spell upon him, and that it was the demon that had obtained temporary lodgment in him that had bidden him to Tiberias to see the c.o.c.k-fight: Jews from Alexandria, heretics, adventurers, beggars, aliens! Look ye here, Dan, Rachel said, he is a proud boy and may thank thee little for--There are others to teach him, Dan interrupted, and continued to walk up and down the room, for he wished to make an end of this talk with his mother. But he hadn't crossed the room twice when he was brought to a full stop, having remembered suddenly that it is always by such acts as he was now meditating that fathers lose the affections of their sons. If he were to drag Joseph away from Azariah, from whom he was learning Hebrew and Greek, Joseph might begin to look upon him as a tyrant. His mother was a sharp-witted woman, and very little was needed to set her thinking. She had an irritating way of looking as it were into his mind, and if she were to suspect him of jealousy of Azariah he would never have a moment's peace again.

But what in the world may we understand from all this bear-dancing up and down the room? asked Rachel. Ye must know if you are going to withdraw the boy from his schooling.

Dan cast an angry glance at his mother and hated her; and then his heart misgave him, for he knew that he lacked courage to take Joseph out of his present schooling, and dared not divide his house against himself, or do anything that might lose him his son's love and little by little cause himself to be looked upon as a tyrant. He knew himself to be a weak man, except in the counting-house; he knew it, and must stifle his jealousy of Azariah, who had forgiven Joseph his truancy and was the only one that knew of the excursion into Tiberias. But Azariah's indulgence did not altogether please him. He began to suspect it and to doubt if he had acted wisely in not ordering Joseph away from Azariah: for Azariah was robbing him, robbing him of all that he valued in this world, his son! And it seemed to him a little later in the day, as he closed his ledger, that he had come to be disregarded in his own house; and he thought he would have liked much better to stay away, to dine in the counting-house, urging a press of business. The first thing he would hear would be ”Azariah.” The hated name was never off the boy's lips: he talked of nothing else but Azariah and Hebrew and Greek and the learned Jews whom he met at Azariah's house.

Dan sat looking into the dusk asking himself if his bargain were not that his son should learn the Greek language but not Greek literature, which is full of heresy, he said to himself; and he returned home determined to raise the point; but Joseph told him, and he thought rather abruptly, that it was only through Greek literature that one could learn Greek in Tiberias--the spoken language was a dialect.

It may have been that Joseph perceived that praise of Azariah caused his father to writhe a little, and--curious to observe the effect--he spoke more of Azariah than he would have done otherwise, and laid an accent on his master's learning, and related incidents in which his master appeared to great advantage, causing his father much perplexity and pain of mind, till at last, unable to bear the torture any longer, he said--the words slipped from him incontinently--you're no better than a little Azariah! and, unable to contain himself, he rushed from the room, leaving Joseph and Rachel to discuss his vehemence and discover motives which he hoped would not include the right one. But afraid that he had betrayed his jealousy of Azariah he returned, and to mislead his mother and son he began to speak of the duty of the pupil to the master, telling Joseph he must submit himself to Azariah in everything: by representing Azariah as one in full authority he hoped to overcome his influence and before many months had pa.s.sed over a different accent was notable in Joseph's voice when he spoke of Azariah; but he continued with him for two more years. And it was then that Dan set himself to devise plans to end his son's studies in Hebrew and Greek.

Joseph knows now all that Azariah can teach him, and it is high time that I took him in hand and taught him his trade. But though determined to rid himself of Azariah he felt he must proceed gently (if possible, in conjunction with his mother); he must wait for an occasion; and while he was watching for one it fell out that Joseph wearied of Azariah and went to his father saying that he had learnt Hebrew and could speak Greek, so there was no use in his returning to Azariah any more. At first his parents could only think that he had; quarrelled with Azariah, but it was not so, they soon discovered that he had merely become tired of him--a change that betokened a capricious mind. A growing boy is full of fancies, Rachel said: an explanation that Dan deemed sufficient, and he was careful not to speak against Azariah lest he should turn his son's thoughts back on Greek literature, or Greek philosophy, which is more pernicious even than the literature. He did not dare to ask Joseph to come down to the counting-house, afraid lest by trying to influence him in one direction he might influence him in the opposite direction.

He deemed it better to leave everything to fate, and while putting his trust in G.o.d Dan applied himself to meditate on the young man's character and his tastes, which seemed to have taken a sudden turn; for, to his father's surprise, Joseph had begun to put questions to him about the sale of fish, and to speak of visiting Tyre and Sidon with a view to establis.h.i.+ng branch houses--extensions of their business. His father, while approving of this plan, pointed out that Tyre and Sidon being themselves on the coast of the sea could never be as good customers as inland cities, sea fish being considered, he thought mistakenly, preferable to lake. He had been doing, it is true, a fair trade with Damascus, but whereas it was impossible to reckon on Damascus it seemed to him that their industry might be extended in many other directions.

And delighted with the change that had come over his son he said that he would have tried long ago to extend his business, if he had had knowledge of the Greek language.

He spoke of Heliopolis, and proposed to Joseph that he should go there and establish a mart for salt fish as soon as he had mastered all the details of the trade, which would be soon: a very little application in the counting-house would be enough for a clever fellow like Joseph.

As he said these words his eyes met Rachel's, and as soon as Joseph left the room she asked him if he believed that Joseph would settle down to the selling of salt fish: a question which was not agreeable to Dan, who was at that moment settling himself into the conviction that Joseph had begun to evince an apt.i.tude for trade that he himself did not acquire till many years older, causing him to flame up as might be expected against his mother, telling her that her remarks were most mischievous, whether she meant them or not. He hoped Joseph was not the young man that she saw in him. Before he could say any more Joseph returned, and linked his arm into his father's, and the twain went away together to the counting-house, Dan enamoured of his son but just a little afraid all the same that Joseph might weary of trade in the end, just as he had wearied of learning. He was moved to speak his fear to Joseph, but on consideration he resolved that no good could come of such confidences, and on the evening of the first day in the counting-house he whispered to Rachel that Joseph had taken to trade as a duck to the water, as the saying is.

Day after day he watched his son's progress in administration, saying nothing, waiting for the head clerk to endorse his opinion that there were the makings of a first-rate man in Joseph. He was careful not to ask any leading questions, but he could not refrain from letting the conversation drop, so that the clerk might have an opportunity of expressing his opinion of Master Joseph's business capacities. But the clerk made no remark: it might as well have been that Joseph was not in the counting-house; Dan had begun to hate his clerk, who had been with him for thirty years. He had brought him from Arimathea and couldn't dismiss him; he could only look into his eyes appealingly. At last the clerk spoke, and his words were like manna in the desert; and, overjoyed, Dan wondered how it was that he could have refrained so long.

It was concerning a certain falling off in an order: if Master Joseph were to go on a circuit through the Greek cities--Dan could have thrown his arms about his clerk for these words, but it were better to dissimulate. You think then that Joseph understands the business sufficiently? The clerk acquiesced, and it was a great day, of course, the day Joseph went forth; and in a few weeks Dan had proof that his confidence in his son's business apt.i.tudes was not misplaced. Joseph showed himself to be suited to the enterprise by his engaging manner as well as by his knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, the two languages procuring him an admission into the confidences of Jew and Gentile alike.

The length of these excursions was from three to four weeks, and when Joseph returned home for an interval his parents disputed as to whether he should spend his holiday in the counting-house or the dwelling-house.

So to avoid giving offence to either, and for his own pleasure Joseph often spent these days on the boats with the fishers, learning their craft from them, losing himself often in meditations how the draught of fishes might be increased by a superior kind of net: interested in his trade far too much, Rachel said. His mind seemed bent on it always; whereas she would have liked to have heard him tell of all the countries he had been to and of all the people he had seen, but it was always about salt fish that he was talking: how many barrels had gone to this town, and how many barrels to another, and the new opening he had discovered for salt fish in a village the name of which he had never heard before.

Rachel's patience with Joseph was long but at last she lost patience and said she would be glad when the last barrel of salt fish came out of the lake, for it would not be till then that they would have time to live their lives in peace and comfort. She gathered up her knitting and was going to bed, but Joseph would not suffer her to go. He said he had stories to tell her, and he fell to telling of the several preachers he had heard in the synagogues, and his voice beguiled the evening away so pleasantly that Rachel let her knitting drop into her lap and sat looking at her grandson, stupefied and transported with love.

Dan's love for his son was more tender in these days than it had ever been before, but Rachel looked back, thinking the old days were better, when Joseph used to come from Azariah's talking about his studies. It may be that Dan, forgetful of his jealousy, looked back to those days gone over with a certain wistfulness. A boy is, if not more interesting, at least more unexpected, than a young man. In the old days Dan did not know what sort of son G.o.d had given him, but now he knew that G.o.d had given him the son he always desired, and that Azariah's tending of the boy's character had been kind, wise and salutary, as the flower and fruit showed. But in the deepest peace there is disquiet, and in the relation of his adventures Joseph had begun to display interest in various interpretations of Scripture which he had heard in the synagogues--true that he laughed at these, but he had met learned heretics from Alexandria in Azariah's house. Dan often wondered if these had not tried to impregnate his mind with their religious theories and doctrines, for being without religious interests, Dan was strictly orthodox.

He did not suspect Azariah, whom he knew to be withal orthodox, as much as Azariah's friend, Apollonius, the Alexandrian Jew. But though he kept his ears open for the slightest word he could not discover any trace of his influence. If his discourse had had any effect, it was to make Joseph more than ever a Pharisee. He was sometimes even inclined to think that Joseph was a little too particular, laying too much stress upon the practice of minute observances, and he began to apprehend that there was something of the Scribe in Joseph after all. The significance of his mother's words becoming suddenly clear to Dan, he asked himself if it were not yet within the width of a finger that Joseph would tire of trade and retire to Jerusalem and expound the law and the traditions in the Temple. His vocation, Dan was of opinion, could not yet be predicted with any certainty: he might go either way--to trade or to religious learning--and in the midst of these meditations on his son's character Dan remembered that some friends had come to see Joseph at the counting-house yesterday. Joseph had taken them out into the yard and they had talked together, but it was not of the export of salt fish they had spoken, but of the observances of the Sabbath. Dan had listened, pen in hand, his thoughts suspended, and had heard them devote many minutes to the question whether a man should dip himself in the nearest brook if he had accidentally touched a pig. He had heard them discuss at length the grace that should be used before eating fruit from a tree, and whether it were necessary to say three graces after eating three kinds of fruit at one meal. He had heard one ask if a sheep that had been killed with a Greek knife could be eaten, and he had heard Joseph ask him if he knew the sheep had been killed with a Greek knife and the man confess that he had not made inquiry. If he had known--