The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story

by George Moore

It pleased Joseph to listen to his patter: it seemed to him that his father was talking to him, and he was plunged in such misery that he had to extricate himself somehow. So he signed the deed that evening, and within a month a caravan laden with figs went forth and wended its way safely to Jerusalem. Another caravan followed a few weeks after, and still larger profits were made, and these becoming known to certain thieves, the next caravan was waylaid and driven away to the coast, and the figs shipped to some foreign part or sold to unscrupulous dealers, who knew them to be stolen. The loss was so great that Gaddi said to Joseph: if we lose a second caravan we shall be worse off than we were when we began, and we shall lose a third and a fourth, unless the robbers be driven out of their caves. Let us then go to the Roman governor, Pilate, and lay our case before him. Joseph had no fault to find with Gaddi's words, and he said: it may be that I shall go to Pilate myself, for I am known to him through my father, who trades largely between Tiberias and Antioch with salt fish.

It so happened that Pilate had received instructions from Rome to give every protection to trade, it being hoped thereby to win the Jews from religious disputations, which always ended in riots. Pilate therefore now found the occasion he needed. Joseph had brought it to him, for the ridding of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho would evince his ability as administrator; and with his hand in his beard, his fine eyes bent favourably upon Joseph, he promised that all the forces of the Roman Empire would be employed to smoke out these nests of robbers. From the account given by Joseph of the caves, he did not deem it worth while to send soldiers groping through the darkness of rocks; he was of opinion that bundles of damp straw would serve the purpose admirably; and turning to the captain of the guard he appealed to him, and got for answer that a few trusses of damp straw would send forth such a reek that all within the cave would be choked, or reel out half blinded.

Joseph reminded Pilate and the captain of the guard that the openings of the caves were not always accessible, but abutted over a ledge away down a precipitous cliff. It might be necessary to lower soldiers down in baskets, or the caves might be closed with mortised stones. Joseph's counsel was wise; the closing of the caves proved very efficacious in ridding the hills of robbers, though in some cases the robbers managed to pick a way out, and then sought other caves, which were not difficult to find, the hills abounding in such places of hiding. A cave would sometimes have two outlets, and it was hard to get the shepherds to betray the robbers, their fear of them was so great. But within six months the larger dens were betrayed, and while the robbers writhed the last hours of their lives away on crosses, long trains of camels and asses pursued their way from Jericho to Jerusalem and back again, without fear of molestation, the remnant of robbers never daring to do more than draw away a single camel or ass found astray from the encampment.

The result of all this labour was that figs were no longer scarce in Jerusalem; and when a delay in bringing wheat from Moab was announced to Pilate, he sent a messenger to Joseph, it having struck him that the transport service so admirably organised by them both was capable of development. A hundred camels, Joseph answered, needs a great sum, but perhaps Gaddi, my partner, may have some savings or my father may give me the money.

And with Pilate's eyes full upon him, Joseph sat thinking of the lake, recalling every bight and promontory, and asking himself how it was that he had not thought of Galilee for so long a time. He longed to set eyes on Magdala, and he would have ridden away at once, but an escort would have to be ordered, for a single horseman could not ride through Samaria without a certainty of being robbed before he got to the end of his journey. Pilate's voice roused Joseph from his reverie, and after apologising to the Roman magistrate for his absentmindedness, he went away to consult hurriedly with Gaddi, and then to make preparations for the journey. It was a journey of three days on horseback, he was told, but of two days only on camel-back, for a camel can walk three miles an hour for eighteen hours. But what should I be doing on a camel's back for eighteen hours? Joseph cried, and the driver showed Joseph how with his legs strapped on either side of the beast he could lie back in the pack and sleep away many hours. Your head, sir, would soon get accustomed to the rocking. But I should have to leave my horse behind, Joseph said. He was fain to see his father and the lake; he was already there in spirit, and would like to transport his cumbersome body there in the least possible time; but he could not separate himself from Xerxes, a beautiful horse that he had brought with him from Egypt—a dark grey—a sagacious animal that would neigh at the sound of his voice and follow him like a dog, and when they encamped for the night, wander in search of herbage and come back when he was called, or wait for him like a wooden horse at an inn door.

Horse and horseman seemed a match the morning they went away to Galilee together, Xerxes all bits and bridles, stirrups and trappings, and Joseph equipped for the journey not less elaborately than his horse. He wore a striped shirt and an embroidered vest with two veils falling from his turban over his shoulders, and as he was not going to visit the Essenes, he did not forget to provide himself with weapons: a curved scimitar hung by his side and the jewelled hilt of a dagger showed above his girdle. His escort not having arrived yet, he waited; taking pleasure in the arch of Xerxes' neck when the horse turned his head towards him, and in the dark courageous eyes and the beautifully turned hoof that pawed the earth so prettily. At last the five spearmen and their captain appeared, and Xerxes, who seemed to recognise the escort as a sign for departure, presented his left side for Joseph to mount him. As soon as his master was in the saddle, he shook his accoutrements and sprang forward at the head of the cavalcade, Joseph crying back: he must have the sound of hoofs behind him. He could refuse his horse nothing, and suffered him to canter some few hundred yards up the road, though it was not customary to leave the escort behind, and when Joseph returned, the foreman told him, as he expected he would, that it would be well not to tire his horse by galloping him at the beginning of the journey, for a matter of thirty miles lay in front of them. Thirty miles the first day, he said, and fifty the second day; for by this division he would leave twenty-five miles for the third day; and Joseph learnt that the captain had arranged the journey in this wise for the sake of the inns, for though they would meet an inn every twenty miles, there were but three good inns between Jerusalem and Tiberias. He had arranged too with a view to the rest at midday. Our way lies, he said, through the large shallow valley, and that is why I started at six. It is about four hours hence, so we shall be through it well before noon. But why must we pass through it before noon? Joseph asked. Because, the captain answered, the rocks on either side are heated after noon like the walls of an oven, and man and beast choke in it. But once we get out of the valley, we shall have pleasant country. You know the hills, Sir; and Joseph remembered the rounded hills and Azariah's condemnation of the felling of the forests, a condemnation that the captain agreed with; for though it was true that the woods afforded cover for wolves, still it was not wise to fell the trees; for when the woods go, the captain said, the country will lose its fertility. He was a loquacious fellow, knowing the country well, wherefore pleasant to ride alongside of, and the hours passed quickly, hearing him relate his life. And when after two days' riding Joseph wearied of his foreman's many various relations, his eyes admired the slopes, now greener than they would be again till another year passed. The fig-trees were sending out shoots, the vines were in little leaf, and the fragrance of the vineyards and fig gardens was sweet in the cool morning when the dusk melted away and rose-coloured clouds appeared above the hills; and as Joseph rode he liked to think that the spectacle of the cavalcade faring through the vine-clad hills would abide in his memory, and that in years to come he would be able to recall it exactly as he now saw it—all the faces of the spearmen and their odd horses; even his foreman's discourses would become a pleasure to remember when time would redeem them of triteness and commonplace; the very weariness he now experienced in listening to them would, too, become a perennial source of secret amusement to him later on. But for the moment he could not withstand his foreman a moment longer, and made no answer when he came interrupting his meditations with tiresome learning regarding the great acacia-tree into whose shade Joseph had withdrawn himself. He was content to enjoy the shade and the beauty of the kindly tree that flourished among rocks where no one would expect a tree to flourish, and did not need to be told that the roots of a tree seek water instinctively, and that the roots of the acacia seek water and find it, about three feet down. The acacia gave the captain an opportunity to testify of his knowledge, and Joseph remembered suddenly that he would be returning to Jerusalem with him in three days, for not more than three days would his escort remain in Galilee, resting their horses, unless they were paid a large sum of money; and with that escort idle in the village the thought would never be out of his mind that in a few days he would be listening to his foreman all the way back to Jerusalem.

Impossible! He couldn't go back to Jerusalem in three days, nor in three weeks. His father would be mortally grieved if he did; and Pilate himself would be surprised to see him back so soon and think him lacking altogether in filial affection if, after an absence of more than two years, he could stay only three days with his father. He must, however, send a letter to Pilate and one that consisted with all the circumstances. The barely stirring foliage of the acacia inspired a desire of composition: a more favourable moment than the present, or a more inspiring spot, he did not think he would be likely to find. He called for his tablets and fell to thinking, but hardly filled in the first dozen lines when his foreman—this time apologising for the intrusion—came to tell him that if he wished to reach Magdala that evening they must start at once. He could not but acquiesce, and—as if contemptuous of the protection of his escort—he rode on in front, wishing to be left alone so that he might seek out the terms of his letter, and his mood of irritated perplexity did not pass away till he came within sight of the great upland, rising, however, so gently that he did not think Xerxes would mind ascending it at a gallop. As soon as he reached the last crest, he would see the lake alone, having—thanks to the speed of Xerxes—escaped from his companions for at least five minutes. He looked forward to these moments eagerly yet not altogether absolved from apprehension of a spiritual kind, for the lake always seemed to him a sort of sign, symbol or hieroglyphic, in which he read a warning addressed specially, if not wholly, to himself. The meaning that the lake held out to him always eluded him, and never more completely than now, at the end of an almost windless spring evening.

It came into view a moment sooner than he thought for, and in an altogether different aspect—bluer than ever seen by him in memory or reality—and, he confessed to himself, more beautiful. Like a great harp it lay below him, and his eyes followed the coast-lines widening out in an indenture of the hills: on one side desert, on the other richly cultivated ascents, with villages and one great city, Tiberias—its domes, cupolas, towers and the high cliffs abutting the lake between Tiberias and Magdala bathed in a purple glow as the sun went down. My own village! he said, and it was a pleasure to him to imagine his father sipping sherbet on his balcony, in good humour, no doubt, the weather being so favourable to fish-taking. Now which are Peter's boats among these? he asked himself, his eyes returning to the fishing fleet. And which are John's and James's boats? He could tell that all the nets were down by the reefed sails crossed over, for the boats were before the wind. A long pull back it will be to Capernaum, he was thinking, a matter of thirteen or fourteen miles, for the leading boat is not more than a mile from the mouth of the Jordan. Then, raising his eyes from the fishing-boats, he followed the coast-lines again, seeking the shapes of the wooded hills, rising in gently cadenced ascents.

A more limpid evening never breathed upon a lake! he said; and when he raised his eyes a second time they rested on the ravines of Hermon far away in the north, still full of the winter's snow; and—being a Galilean—he knew they would keep their snow for another month at least. The eagerness of the spring would then be well out of the air; and I shall be thinking, he continued, of returning to Jerusalem and concerning myself once more with Pilate's business. But what a beautiful evening! still and pure as a crystal.

A bird floated past, his black eyes always watchful. The bird turned away to join his mates, and Joseph bade his escort watch the flock: a bird here and a bird there swooping and missing and getting no doubt sometimes a fish that had ventured too near the surface—that one leaving his mates, flying high towards Magdala, to be there, he said, in a few minutes, by my father's house; and in another hour thou shalt be in thy stable, thy muzzle in the corn, he whispered into his horse's ear; and calling upon his comrades to put their heels into their tired steeds, he turned Xerxes into the great road leading to Tiberias.