"We are going to the cave," said Joseph, laconically.

The guide lingered till Mary came to his side.

"The cave to which we are going," he said to her, "must have been
a resort of your ancestor David. From the field below us, and from
the well down in the valley, he used to drive his flocks to it for
safety; and afterwards, when he was king, he came back to the old
house here for rest and health, bringing great trains of animals.
The mangers yet remain as they were in his day. Better a bed on
the floor where he has slept than one in the court-yard or out by
the roadside. Ah, here is the house before the cave!"

This speech must not be taken as an apology for the lodging offered.
There was no need of apology. The place was the best then at disposal.
The guests were simple folks, by habits of life easily satisfied.
To the Jew of that period, moreover, abode in caverns was a familiar
idea, made so by every-day occurrences, and by what he heard of
Sabbaths in the synagogues. How much of Jewish history, how many
of the many exciting incidents in that history, had transpired in
caves! Yet further, these people were Jews of Bethlehem, with whom
the idea was especially commonplace; for their locality abounded
with caves great and small, some of which had been dwelling-places
from the time of the Emim and Horites. No more was there offence
to them in the fact that the cavern to which they were being taken
had been, or was, a stable. They were the descendants of a race of
herdsmen, whose flocks habitually shared both their habitations and
wanderings. In keeping with a custom derived from Abraham, the tent
of the Bedawin yet shelters his horses and children alike. So they
obeyed the keeper cheerfully, and gazed at the house, feeling only