hear much what’s going on up here in Galilee, Dan answered, and he continued his story:  the new prophet had persuaded many of the fishers to lay down their nets.  Simon Peter, thou rememberest him?  Well, he’s the prophet’s right-hand man, and now casts a net but seldom.  And thou hast not forgotten James and John, sons of Zebedee?  They come next in the prophet’s favour, and there are plenty of others walking about the village, neglecting their work and telling of the judgment and the great share of the world that’ll come to them when the prophet returns from heaven in a chariot.  Among them is Matthew, a publican, the only one that can read or write.  You don’t remember him?  Now I come to think on it, he was appointed soon after thou wentest to Jerusalem.  Soon after I went to Jerusalem?  Joseph asked; was the prophet preaching then?  No.  It all began soon after thy departure for Jerusalem about a year ago; a more ignorant lot of fellows thou’st be puzzled to find, if thou wert to travel the world over in search of them.  The prophet himself comes from the most ignorant village in Galilee—­Nazareth.  But why look like that, Joseph?  What ails thee?  Go on, Father, with thy telling of the prophet from Nazareth.  He started in Nazareth, Dan answered, but none paid any heed to him but made a mock of him, for he’d have us believe that he is the Messiah that the Jews have been expecting for many a year.  But it was predicted that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem; and everybody knows that Jesus was born in Nazareth.  There’s some talk, too, that he comes from the line of David, but everybody knows that Jesus is the son of Joseph the Carpenter.  His mother and his brothers tried all they could do to dissuade him from preaching about the judgment, which he knows no more about than the next one, but he wouldn’t listen to them.  A good quiet woman, his mother; I know her well and am sorry for her; but she has better sons in James and Jude.  Joseph her husband, I knew him in days gone by—­a God-fearing honest man, whom one could always entrust with a day’s work.  He doted on his eldest son, though he never could teach him to handle a saw with any skill, for his thoughts were always wandering, and when an Essene came up to Galilee in search of neophytes, Jesus took his fancy and they went away together.  But what ails thee?  As soon as Joseph could get control of his voice, he asked his father if the twain were gone away together to the cenoby on the eastern bank of Jordan, and Dan answered that he thought he had heard of the great Essenes’ encampment by the Dead Sea.  A fellow fair-spoken enough, Dan continued, that has bewitched the poor folk about the lakeside.  But, Joseph, thy cheek is like ashes, and thou’rt all of a tremble:  drink a little sherbet, my boy.  No, Father, no.  Tell me, is the Galilean as tall or as heavy as I am, or of slight build, with a forehead broad and high?  And does he walk as if he were away and in communion with his Father in