fallen into.  It is said, Manahem continued, that the elders yonder are disturbed now as to whether they too should take wives, though in the great disputation that we took part in, it was decided that marriage should be left to the younger and more fruitful.  Wherefore, if it is said that trouble has come, Hazael answered, we should be sorry for our weak brethren, and if stories reach us, he continued, we should receive them with modesty:  we should not go out to seek stories of the misfortunes of those who have not been as wise as we, and of all we should not wish to go down to Jordan to inquire out the truth of these stories; Caleb and Benjamin ask betimes for leave to visit them.  Eleazar, too, has asked; but I have refused them always, knowing well whither their curiosity would lead them.  Lest, Mathias interposed, they bring back the spirit and sense of women with them.

A flock of doves crossing over the chasm on quick wings put an end to the discourse, and as no more stories reached them who dwelt in the cavern above the Brook Kerith regarding the behaviour of the wives to their husbands and of the husbands towards their wives, the thoughts of the younger brethren reverted to Caesar, and to the admiration of the ewes for his beauty.  A year later, when Jesus came down from the hills, he was met with cries of:  how fares it with Caesar?  Does he tire on the hills?  When will the ewes begin to drop their lambs?  A buzz of talk began at once in the cenoby when the news arrived that Caesar’s lambs were appearing, but the brethren could not conceal their disappointment that they should look like the lambs they had seen before.  We expected the finest lambs ever seen on these hills, they said, and thou hast no more word to say in praise of them than that they are good lambs.  Jesus answered that in two months he would be better able to judge Caesar’s lambs, and to choose amongst them some two or three that would continue the flock worthily.  Which? the brethren asked, but Jesus said a choice would be but guess-work at present, none could pick out the making of a good ram till past the second month.  Caleb marked one which he was sure would be chosen later, and Benjamin another, and Eleazar another; but when the time came for Jesus to choose, it was none of these that he chose, and on hearing of their mistakes, the brethren were disappointed, and thought no more of the flock, asking only casually for Caesar, and forgetting to mourn his decease at the end of the fourth year; his successor coming to them without romantic story, the brethren were from henceforth satisfied to hear from time to time that the hills were free from robbers; that the shepherds had banded together in great wolf hunts; and that freed from their natural enemies, the wolves and robbers, the flock had increased in numbers beyond the memory of the oldest shepherd on the hills.

CHAP.  XXVIII.