CHAP. V.


Gone to the study of the law! Dan said, as he walked up and down the
room, glancing often into Joseph's letter, for it figured to him the
Temple with the Scribes meditating on the law, or discussing it with
each other while their wives remained at home doing the work. So do
their lives pass over, he said, in the study of the law. Nothing else is
to them of any worth.... My poor boy hopes that I shall forgive him for
not returning home after the Feast of the Passover! Does he suspect that
I would prefer him indifferent to the law in Magdala, rather than
immersed in it at Jerusalem? A little surprised and shocked at the
licentiousness of his thoughts, he drew them into order with the
admission that it is better in every way that a young man should go to
Jerusalem early in his life and acquire reverence for the ritual and
traditions of his race, else he will drift later on into heresy, or
maybe go to live in cities like Tiberias, amongst statues. But why do I
trouble myself like this? For there was a time before I had a son, and
the time is getting very close now when I shall lose him. And Dan stood
swallowed up in the thought of the great gulf into which precarious
health would soon pitch him out of sight of Joseph for ever. It was
Rachel coming into the room that awoke him. She too! he muttered. He
began to fuss about, seeking for writing materials, for he was now
intent to send Joseph a letter of recommendation to the High Priest,
having already forgotten the gulf that awaited him, in the pleasurable
recollection of the courtesy and consideration he received from the most