lls from the Master's lips, only
this way it is, he looks to my fishing for his support, and Miriam is
quick to remind me of that. A good woman, one that has been always
yielding to my will and never had a word against our lodger, but sets
the best before him out of thankfulness for his saving of her mother's
life, though one more mouth in a house is always a drain, if the Master
is as easily fed as a sparrow. But restive she is now about the delay:
as I was saying just now she wakes me up with a loud question in my ear:
now, Simon Peter, answer me, art thou going into Syria to bid the blind
to see, the lame to walk, and the palsied to shake no more, or art thou
going to thy trade? for in this house there be four little children,
myself, their mother, and thy mother-in-law. I say nothing against the
journey if it bring thee good money, or if it bring the Kingdom, but if
it bring naught but miracles there'll be little enough in the house to
eat by the time ye come back. And, says she, the feeding of his children
is a nobler work for a married man (she speaks like that sometimes) than
bidding those to see who would belike be better without their eyes than
with them. You wouldn't think it, but 'tis as I say: she talks up to me
like that, and ofttimes I've to go to the Master and ask him to quiet
her, which he rarely fails to do, for she loves him for what he has done
for her mother, and is willing to wait. But last night when the
busybodies brought her news that the Master had been preaching in the
forest, of the sharing of the world out among the holy saints, she gave
way to her temper and was violent, saying, by what right are the saints
of the most high coming here to ask for a share of this world, as if
they hadn't a heaven to live in. You see, good Master, there's right on
her side, that's what makes it so hard to answer her, and I'm with her
in this, for by what right do the holy saints down here ask for a share
in the world, that's what keeps drumming in my head; and, as I told you
a while ago, I'd as lief put out upon the lake and fish as go to Syria
for nothing, say the word---- And leave the Master to go alone? Joseph
interposed. Well, I suppose we can't do that, Peter answered, and then
it seemed to Joseph wiser not to talk any more, but to allow things to
fashion their own course, which they did very amiably, in about an
hour's time the little band going forth, Joseph walking by Peter's side,
hoping that he would