Joseph, remembering that he must not say anything that would vex Jesus, regretted having contradicted him and tried to think how he might mend his mistake with words that would soothe Jesus; but, as it often is on such occasions, the more we seek for the right words the further we seem to be from them, and Joseph did not know how he might plausibly unsay his story that he had carried him without vexing Jesus still further:  he is sure an angel carried him, Joseph said:  he felt the feathers of the wings brush across his face, and he is now asking himself why I lied to him.

As Joseph was thinking that it might be well to say that Bethlehem was like Nazareth, he caught sight of Jesus’ face as pale as ashes, more like a dead face than a living, and fearing that he was about to swoon again or die, Joseph called loudly for Esora, who came running down the pathway.

Thou mustn’t call for me so loudly, Master.  If Matred had heard thee and come running——­ But, Esora, look.  As likely as not it is no more than a little faintness, she said.  He has been overdoing it:  running after puppies, and talking with thee about Caesarea.  But it was thyself told me to ask him to go to Caesarea for change of air.  Never mind, Master, what I told thee.  We must think now how we shall get him back to bed.  Do thou take one arm and I’ll take the other.

CHAP.  XXII.

Jesus did not speak about angels again, and one morning at the end of the week before going away to Jerusalem to attend to some important business Joseph, after a talk with Esora, turned down the alley with the intention of asking Jesus to leave Judea.  It would have been better, she said to herself, if he had waited till evening; these things cannot be settled off-hand; he’ll only say the wrong thing again, and she stood waiting at her kitchen door, hoping that Joseph would stop on his way out to tell her Jesus’ decision, but he went away without speaking, and she began to think it unlikely that anything was decided.  He is soft-hearted and without much will of his own, she said....  Jesus is going to stay with us, so we may all hang upon crosses yet, unless, indeed, Master comes to hear something in Jerusalem that will bring him round to my way of thinking.  He believes, she continued, that Jesus is forgotten because the apostles have returned to their fishing, but that cannot be; the two young women that came here one Sunday morning with a story about an empty sepulchre have found, I’ll vouch, plenty of eager gossips, and a smile floated round her old face at the additions she heard to it yester morning at the gates.  But no good would come of my telling him, she meditated, for he’d only say it was my fancies, though he has to acknowledge that I am always right when I speak out of what he calls my fancies.  In about three weeks, she muttered, the stories that are going the round will begin to reach his ears.