CHAP.  X.

A very good guessing of his father’s wonts and thoughts was that of Joseph while riding from Tiberias, for as the horsemen came up the lane at a canter the old man was wending homeward from his counting-house, wishing Peter and Andrew, James and John and the rest good fortune with their nets, or else, he had begun to think, the order from Damascus cannot----- The completed sentence would probably have run:  cannot be executed, but the sound of the hooves of Joseph’s horse checked the words on his lips and he had to squeeze himself against the ditch, to escape being trodden upon.  Joseph sprang from the saddle.  Father, I haven’t hurt you, I hope?  I was dreaming.  Why, Joseph, it is you!  You haven’t hurt me, and I was dreaming too.  But what a beautiful horse you are riding!  Aren’t you afraid he will run away?  Up and down these lanes he would give us a fine chase.  No, Joseph replied, he’ll follow me.  And the horse followed them, pushing his head against Joseph’s shoulder from time to time; but Joseph was too much engaged with his father to do more than whistle to Xerxes when he lingered to browse.

As we rode past Tiberias, I had imagined you, Father, sitting in the verandah drinking sherbet.  We will have some presently, Dan answered.  I was detained at my business.  Tell me, Father, how are the monkeys and the parrots?  Much the same as you left them, Dan answered, as he laid his hand on the latch of the large wooden gate.  A servant came forward to conduct them, and Joseph threw his reins to him.

A monkey came hopping across the sward and jumped on to Joseph’s shoulder.  Another came, and then a third.  Dan would have been annoyed if the monkeys had not recognised Joseph, for it seemed to him quite natural that all things should love Joseph.  You see, he continued, the parrots are screaming and dancing on their perches, waiting for you to scratch their polls.  Joseph complied, and then Dan wearied of the monkeys, which were absorbing Joseph’s attention, and drove them away.  You haven’t told me that you’re glad to be back in Galilee in front of that beautiful lake.  Jerusalem has its temple but God made the lake himself.  But you don’t seem as pleased to be back as I’d like.  Father, it is of thee I’m thinking and not of temples or lakes, Joseph answered, and for a moment Dan could not speak, so deep was his happiness, and so intense.  Overcome by it, they walked a little way and Joseph followed his father up the tall stairs on to the verandahed balcony, and when they had drunk some sherbet and Joseph had vowed he had not tasted any like it, Dan interposed suddenly:  but thou hast not told me, Joseph, how thou camest by thy beautiful horse.  He came from Egypt, Joseph answered casually, and was about to add that he was an Egyptian horse, but on second thoughts it seemed to him that it would be well not to speak the word “Egypt” again:  to do so might put