arch-impostor and blasphemer. For I was of the house of Caiaphas,
and heartily did desire that the man my lord declared a deceiver of
the people, should meet with the just reward of his doings. Thus I
sat and worked, and thought and rejoiced; and the morning passed and
the noon came.

"'It was a day of sultry summer, and the street burned beneath the
sun, and I sat in the shadow and looked out upon the glare; and ever
I wrought at the sandals of my lord, with many fine stitches, in
cunning workmanship. All had been for some time very still, when
suddenly I thought I heard a far-off tumult. And soon came the idle
children, who ever run first that they be not swallowed up of the
crowd; and they ran and looked behind as they ran. And after them
came the crowd, crying and shouting, and swaying hither and thither;
and in the midst of it arose the one arm of a cross, beneath the
weight of which that same Jesus bent so low that I saw him not.
Truly, said I, he hath not seldom borne heavier burdens in the
workshop of his father the Galilean, but now his sins and his
idleness have found him, and taken from him his vigour; for he that
despiseth the law shall perish, while they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. For I was wroth with the man who taught
the people to despise the great ones that administered the law, and
give honour to the small ones who only kept it. Besides, he had
driven my father's brother from the court of the Gentiles with a
whip, which truly hurt him not outwardly, but stung him to the soul;
and yet that very temple which he pretended thus to honour, he had
threatened to destroy and build again in three days! Such were the
thoughts of my heart; and when I learned from the boys that it was
in truth Jesus of Nazareth who passed on his way to Calvary to be
crucified, my heart leaped within me at the thought that the law had