Chapter 6

Sounds from the highway indicated that the company of cavalry was passing now; the jingle of expensive harness, the clipped beats of well-shod hooves, the creak of new leather, the sharp bark of a military command, the crack of a whip. Simon listened to it, hated it, and returned to his reveries.

And next morning after the burial, he had gone back to work, quiet and sad, but spending no time in useless brooding; for life was like that; people sickened and died—even young people like Abigail; even little babies who had had no chance to live at all. But why ask questions about it when you knew that nobody could give you an answer; not even the Rabbi, who should know if anyone did?

Now everything was in disorder. Now you couldn’t count on anything! Johnny was not a liar; and that business about the little boy’s foot, last night, was very peculiar—to say the least. Of course there was a possibility that the Carpenter had planned a hoax to deceive the people; but what could he expect to get out of it? He would be exposed; probably thrown into prison. There was nothing in it for him. He charged no money for his supposed healings; apparently had no money and didn’t want any; owned nothing; saw no value in anything—but birds and flowers. That didn’t sound as if he hoped to fill his pockets by fraudulent practices.

It was quiet on the road now. But, Simon well knew, it was not because the Tetrarch’s pompous parade had passed. No, this was just the gap in the procession. Presently Antipas himself would ride by on his mincing stallion. None of this belonged to Galilee: a Roman ruler on an Arabian horse! Surely poor little Galilee had enough to confuse it utterly without having the Carpenter on its hands!

Assuming that this Nazarene was entirely honest; that he really could change water into wine and heal cripples—where did that leave you? The man must get his power from Heaven. If so—God did trouble Himself about a silly yokel with a short arm and a small boy with a crooked foot. If you admitted that He did things like that, maybe it was true that the Abrams’ water-bucket was lost in the bottom of their well because old Abrams had absent-mindedly walked too far on God’s dull and doleful Sabbath Day.

There was another interval of silence; and then the rhythmic lisp of sandal-straps. They would be carrying the hussy Herodias. Simon had seen her once, in the palace garden: she had stared brazenly at him for a moment before shrugging a shoulder and tossing her head and turning away. Herodias was a hard one—anybody could see that; the most important woman in Galilee: the enormity of it! What had poor, pious little Galilee ever done to deserve such a humiliation? Perhaps God would wreck the Tetrarch’s ship, this time, if He had determined to take a hand in the cure of afflictions. There was silence again on the road.

Now we had this mysterious Idumean girl to deal with. It was clear that Hannah didn’t know what to make of her. Suppose she couldn’t find her uncle: then what? Hannah wouldn’t want to turn her out. Simon felt lonely; couldn’t expect to be entirely comfortable anywhere; not on the fleet, where his men—some of them, anyway—would resentfully remember his quarrel; nor could he feel at ease in his own home with that deceitful Idumean at the table. What a fool he had been to take the dirty beggar home with him.