of the wooded hills, rising in gently cadenced ascents.

A more limpid evening never breathed upon a lake! he said; and when he
raised his eyes a second time they rested on the ravines of Hermon far
away in the north, still full of the winter's snow; and--being a
Galilean--he knew they would keep their snow for another month at least.
The eagerness of the spring would then be well out of the air; and I
shall be thinking, he continued, of returning to Jerusalem and
concerning myself once more with Pilate's business. But what a beautiful
evening! still and pure as a crystal.

A bird floated past, his black eyes always watchful. The bird turned
away to join his mates, and Joseph bade his escort watch the flock: a
bird here and a bird there swooping and missing and getting no doubt
sometimes a fish that had ventured too near the surface--that one
leaving his mates, flying high towards Magdala, to be there, he said, in
a few minutes, by my father's house; and in another hour thou shalt be
in thy stable, thy muzzle in the corn, he whispered into his horse's
ear; and calling upon his comrades to put their heels into their tired
steeds, he turned Xerxes into the great road leading to Tiberias.

But there were some Jews among the escort who shrank from entering a
pagan city. Their prejudices might be overcome with argument, but it
were simpler to turn their horses' heads to the west and then to the
north as soon as the city was passed. The detour would be a long one,
but it were shorter than argument: yet argument he did not escape from,
for as they rode through the open country behind Tiberias, some declared
that Herod was not a pure Jew; and to make their points clearer they
often reined up their horses, to the annoyance of Joseph, who could not
bring the discussion to an end without seeming indifferent to the law