If, however, the convalescent was pleased with the shepherd, how much more was the shepherd pleased with the convalescent! Moved at first merely by motives of pity and generosity, he soon took a delight in the presence of the stranger which was wholly inexplicable to himself. He had never met anyone—at least not a very young man like himself—who possessed such a fund of general information and seemed to have such mature judgment. He talked as one who had lived in cities and associated with those who had seen much of that world which was new and strange to this mountain lad who had spent his eager, responsive youth hand-in-hand with Toil and Responsibility, as youth often does in the East.
One day, under the shadow of a great rock which shielded them from the heat of the midsummer sun, they were talking. “How long sayest thou I have been here, Benjamin?”
“It is eight weeks, Isaac, since I found thee under the bushes yonder, sick with fever.”
“Then eight weeks hast thou cared for me, night and day. How knewest thou that I was not a robber, or, worse still, what thy countrymen despise most, a Syrian spy?” The tone was careless and breathed a laugh, but the speaker glanced searchingly at his companion, who, after a moment’s silence, replied quietly:
“I stopped but to consider thy pressing need, Isaac, for our Law commandeth us to regard the necessity of the stranger, but if I had thought further, the pack on thy back would have proclaimed thee a peddler, though thy stock be small. Likewise, thy pronunciation showeth that our tongue is native to thee and thou hast an Israelitish name.”
Isaac sighed and there sounded in it something of relief. “My mother was of thy nation,” he explained, “a captive in Syria, where she married my father, who was of Egyptian blood and a servant in the same house with herself. I am named for some of her people and she spoke to me always in her own language.” Then, hastily, as if he feared questions: “But for thee I might have died, an awful, burning death here in the wilderness, without even a drink of cold water to allay my thirst or a friend to save my body from the vultures.”
“Think not of it, Isaac. It is only thy departure on the morrow which saddeneth me. Caring for thee was as balm to a sore heart, better than all the aromatic herbs in Gilead.”
Isaac looked questioningly: “A woman?”
The shepherd assented. “From childhood have I had no thought save of her and for her. When I could make her a home, I desired my father to ask her in marriage of her parents, as is our custom. At first they were willing, as I had believed, but their consent was refused, the maiden being pleasing to a man of greater means. Yet was she true to me. I had it from her own lips and through the mouth of my little sister, Miriam, of whom I have before spoken to thee. All at once the maiden changed. Deaf, dumb, and blind did she become to all that concerned me, and when I would see her they said she was sick, which I cannot believe, and I had to come away without a word of explanation. It troubleth me.”
To Isaac, more worldly wise, the reason was plain. “She favoreth the other,” he said, “and thou shouldst not cherish the memory of one who hath treated thee with contempt. Canst thou not think of someone else, Benjamin?”