d, Joseph interposed, we need not go
very far, only a little way into the forest. And he did not dare to say
more, lest by some careless word he might provoke an unpremeditated
opposition.

He dreaded to hear the words on Azariah's lips: you have come here with
me to learn Hebrew and may not miss a lesson.... If he could persuade
Azariah into the path he would not turn back until they reached the
valley, and once in the valley, he might as well ascend the opposite
hill as go back and climb up the hill whence they had come. I am afraid,
said Azariah, that this cool morning will pass into a very hot day: the
clouds that veil the sky are dispersing. We shall not feel the heat once
we are in the forest, Joseph replied, and the path up yonder hill is not
so steep as the paths we go down by. You see the road, Sir, twisting up
the hillside, and it is planned so carefully to avoid a direct ascent
that a man has just belaboured his ass into a trot. They have passed
behind a rock, but we shall see them presently.

Azariah waited a moment for the man and ass to reappear, but after all
he was not much concerned with them, and began to descend unmindful of
the lark which mounted the sky in circles singing his delirious song.
Joseph begged Azariah to hearken, but his preceptor was too much
occupied with the difficulties of the descent, nor could he be persuaded
to give much attention to a flight of doves flying hither and thither as
if they had just discovered that they could fly, diving and wheeling
and then going away in a great company, coming back and diving again,
setting Joseph wondering why one bird should separate himself from the
flock and alight again. Again and again this happened, the flock
returning to release him from his post. Were the birds playing a sort of
game? Frolicking they were, for sure, and Joseph felt he would like to
have wings and go away with them, and he wished Azariah would hasten, so
pleasant it was in the valley.

A pleasant spacious valley it was, lying between two hills of about
equal height: the hill they had come down was a little steeper than the
hill they were about to go up. Joseph noticed the shadows that fell from
the cliffs and those that the tall feathery trees, growing out of the
scrub, cast over the sunny bottom of the valley, a water-course probably
in the rainy season; and he enjoyed the little puffing winds that came
and went, and the insects that came out of their hiding-places to e