mountain-side, said she; and another added: the hills will seem lonely
without his gait. A great slinger, cried a third. But why did he come
to John for baptism, knowing himself to be the greater prophet? A
question that started them all wrangling again, and crying one against
the other that repentance was necessary, or else the Lord would desert
them or choose another race.

These are irksome gossips, a man said to Joseph; but come with me and
I'll tell thee much about him. No better shepherd than he ever ranged
the hills. I wouldn't have thee forget, mate, another man said, that
he's gone without leaving us his great cure for scab. True for thee,
mate, answered the first, for a great forgetfulness has been on him this
time past.... A great cure, certainly, which he might have left us. And
the twain fell to discussing their several cures for scab. Another
shepherd came by and passed the remark that Jesus knew the hills like
one born among them. But neither could tell whence he came, nor did they
know if he brought the cure for scab with him, or learnt it at the
cenoby. The brotherhood has secrets that it is forbidden to tell. I be
with thee on this matter, said another shepherd, that wherever he goes,
he'll be a prize to a master, for the schooling he has been through will
stand to him.

The last of this chatter that came to Joseph's ears was that Jesus could
do as much with sheep as any man since Abraham, and--satisfied with this
knowledge--he took his leave of the shepherds, certain that Jesus must
have been among the Essenes for many years before God called to him to
leave his dogs and to follow John, whom he began to recognise as greater
than himself, but whom he was destined to supersede, as John's own
disciple, Banu, testified in the desert before Joseph's own eyes. He
remembered how Banu saw John in a vision plunging Jesus into Jordan. Of