The Sad Shepherd | Page 7

a crazy shepherd from Galilee, who troubled us some
time since. Take him away, slaves. He has twenty sheep and twenty
goats among my flocks at the foot of the mountain. See to it that he gets
them, and drive him away.'
"I fought against the slaves with my bare hands, but they held me. I
called to Tamar, begging her to have pity on me, to speak for me, to
come with me. She looked up with her eyes like doves behind her veil,
but there was no knowledge of me in them. She laughed lazily, as if it
were a poor comedy, and flung a broken rose-branch in my face. Then
the silver cord was loosened within me, and my heart went out, and I
struggled no more. There was nothing in it.
"Afterward I found myself on the road with this flock. I led them past
Hebron into the south country, and so by the Vale of Eshcol, and over
many hills beyond the Pools of Solomon, until my feet brought me to
your fire. Here I rest on the way to nowhere."
He sat silent, and the four shepherds looked at him with amazement.
"It is a bitter tale," said Shama, "and you are a great sinner."
"I should be a fool not to know that," answered the sad shepherd, "but
the knowledge does me no good."

"You must repent," said Nathan, the youngest shepherd, in a friendly
voice.
"How can a man repent," answered the sad shepherd, "unless he has
hope? But I am sorry for everything, and most of all for living."
"Would you not live to kill the fox Herod?" cried Jotham fiercely.
"Why should I let him out of the trap," answered the sad shepherd. "Is
he not dying more slowly than I could kill him?"
"You must have faith in God," said Zadok earnestly and gravely.
"He is too far away."
"Then you must have love for your neighbor."
"He is too near. My confidence in man was like a pool by the wayside.
It was shallow, but there was water in it, and sometimes a star shone
there. Now the feet of many beasts have trampled through it, and the
jackals have drunken of it, and there is no more water. It is dry and the
mire is caked at the bottom."
"Is there nothing good in the world?"
"There is pleasure, but I am sick of it. There is power, but I hate it.
There is wisdom, but I mistrust it. Life is a game and every player is for
his own hand. Mine is played. I have nothing to win or lose."
"You are young, you have many years to live."
"I am old, yet the days before me are too many."
"But you travel the road, you go forward. Do you hope for nothing?"
"I hope for nothing," said the sad shepherd. "Yet if one thing should
come to me it might be the beginning of hope. If I saw in man or
woman a deed of kindness without a selfish reason, and a proof of love
gladly given for its own sake only, then might I turn my face toward
that light. Till that comes, how can I have faith in God whom I have
never seen? I have seen the world which he has made, and it brings me
no faith. There is nothing in it."
"Ammiel-ben-Jochanan," said the old man sternly, "you are a son of
Israel, and we have had compassion on you, according to the law. But
you are an apostate, an unbeliever, and we can have no more fellowship
with you, lest a curse come upon us. The company of the desperate
brings misfortune. Go your way and depart from us, for our way is not
yours."
So the sad shepherd thanked them for their entertainment, and took the
little kid again in his arms, and went into the night, calling his flock.

But the youngest shepherd Nathan followed him a few steps and said:
"There is a broken fold at the foot of the hill. It is old and small, but
you may find a shelter there for your flock where the wind will not
shake you. Go your way with God, brother, and see better days."
Then Ammiel went a little way down the hill and sheltered his flock in
a corner of the crumbling walls. He lay among the sheep and the goats
with his face upon his folded arms, and whether the time passed slowly
or swiftly he did not know, for he slept.
He waked as Nathan came running and stumbling among the scattered
stones.
"We have seen a vision," he cried, "a wonderful vision of angels. Did
you not hear them? They sang loudly of the Hope