Chapter 5

It was early morning on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Enough remained of an unusually hot summer to strip the fishermen to the waist, but intimations of autumn were in the smoky haze that overcast the distant mountains, obscured the dome of the new Synagogue in Capernaum, and dulled the sheen of the Tetrarch’s marble palace.

The ugly huddle of weather-beaten shacks and wharves where the fishermen kept their tackle and dried their nets had come alive to the day’s work. Browned, bushy, bare-footed men and youths scampered about on the docks, loading flat-bottomed dories with equipment for the larger craft which rocked indolently in the quiet cove, tugging in unison at their anchor-chains.

Fully a score of these boats, of all shapes, sizes, ages, and degrees of dirtiness and disrepair, were congregated in the bay, waiting for their skippers and crews to haul up the much-mended sails and wallow forth to what they hoped might be promising fishing-grounds.

Haughtily apart from the clutter of nondescript old tubs, and conspicuous for their trimness, lay a fleet of three blue-hulled schooners moored side by side and so closely lashed together from midship to stern that their freshly painted gunwales would have chafed but for the heavy hempen pads that cushioned them. Built for stability, they were broad in the beam and sat low in the water; and they were of identical design, though the central ship, The Abigail, carried three masts and was somewhat larger than her two-masted companions, The Sara and The Rachael. Tethered loosely about their prows bobbed half a dozen empty dories.

On the closely yoked afterdecks the combined crews, totalling thirty and ranging in age from sixteen to sixty, sat cross-legged a few feet apart, forming a circle around a huge net that plainly needed extensive repairs.

Alone on the broad tiller-seat of The Abigail a gigantic, hairy, deeply tanned Galilean of thirty-five—as busy with his awl as were his employees—occasionally looked up to survey their work, and sometimes they met his eyes as if to inquire whether he was satisfied with what they were doing. They all worked skilfully, swiftly, and in silence, though their faces did not indicate that they were hard-driven. It was obvious that the relation of the master and his men was cordial; indeed, it was better than cordial, for there was evident in their diligence a desire to please. Especially was this loyalty noticeable in the attitude of the younger ones, who seemed proud of their employment, as they had reason to be, for it was a testimonial to a man’s seamanship if he was signed on to sail under Simon the son of Jonas.

Among the Galileans the name of Simon was so common that it had to be tagged for better identification. Every Simon bore a special designation: Simon the tanner, Simon the weaver, Simon the clubfoot, Simon the juggler, Simon the little, Simon the scribe, Simon the sot, Simon the bald, Simon the son of Jonas. Doubtless if the skipper’s sire had been less distinguished, an appellation appropriate to his characteristics would have been promptly contrived for him by the community. In that case he might have become known early in his youth as Simon the brawler, or Simon the scoffer. But to the neighbours and relatives who had known him since childhood he was Simon the son of Jonas; and—they were likely to add—not much of a credit to the good old man; for nobody was more fanatically devoted to the Synagogue than Jonas, and nobody had less use for it than his tough and burly son Simon.

It was inevitable, however, that the huge, noisy, quick-tempered, lamentably irreverent son of Jonas should become known by a more colourful name. All up and down the western shore, throughout Capernaum, Magdala, Bethsaida, and the hamlets between, and at the Roman fort, and among the servants in the great villa of the Tetrarch, and on the lake, and in the country round about, Simon the son of Jonas was referred to as the Big Fisherman.