rew
himself upon the ground and prayed that the moment he was living in
might not be taken from him, but that it might endure for ever. But
while he prayed, the moment was passing, and becoming suddenly aware
that it had gone, he rose from his knees and returned home mentally
weary and sad at heart; but sitting on his bedside the remembrance that
he was to meet Jesus in the morning at Capernaum called up the ghost of
a departed ecstasy, and his head drowsing upon his pillow he fell
asleep, hushed by remembrances.

CHAP. XII.

A few hours later he was speeding along the lake's edge in the bright
morning, happy as the bird singing in the skies, when the thought like a
dagger-thrust crossed his mind that being the son of a rich man Jesus
could not receive him as a disciple, only the poor were welcome into the
brotherhood of the poor. His father had told him as much, and the beggar
whom he had met under the cliffs, smelling of rags and raw garlic,
expressed the riches of simplicity. Happy, happy evening, for ever gone
by! Happy ignorance already turned into knowledge! For in Peter's house
Jesus would hear that the man whom he had met under the cliffs was the
son of the fish-salter of Magdala, and perhaps they knew enough of his
story to add, who has been making money in Jerusalem himself and has no
doubt come to Galilee to engage his father in some new trade that will
extort more money from the poor. He is not for thy company. A great
aversion seized him for Capernaum, and he walked, overcome with grief,
to the lake's edge and stooped to pick up a smooth stone, thinking to
send it skimming over the water, as he used to when a boy; but there was
neither the will nor the strength in him for the innocent sport, and he
lay down, exhausted in mind and body, to lament this new triumph of the
demon that from the beginning of his life thwarted him and interrupted
all his designs--this time intervening at the last moment as if with a
purpose of great cruelty. This demon seemed to him to descend out of the
blue air and sometimes to step out of the blue water, and Joseph was
betimes moved to rush into the lake, for there seemed to him no other
way of escaping from him. Then he would turn back from the foam and the
reeds, and pray to the demon to leave him for some little while in
peace: let me be with Jesus for a little while, and then I'll do thy
bidding. Tie the tongues of those that would tell him I'm the son of a
rich ma