Secure in the thought that the flock was safe, he started down the mountain toward Bethlehem, musing upon the strange things that had come to pass that night. His comrades were far ahead, and he knew he could not overtake them. Perhaps already they had reached the town and found the place of the Child, while he yet had a long way to go. But his feet sped over the spaces and he swung lightly along, the shaggy skin of his shepherd’s cloak flapping as he went. He was not sorry he had gone back, even though it meant he must journey alone, for there was a peace in his heart that could not have been there had he gone ahead hearing the cry of a lamb.
At last he reached Bethlehem and asked one of the soldiers who guarded the gate, “Where is it that the Christ is born?”
“The Christ?” the man repeated like one dazed. “He is not in Bethlehem. Better get you back to the hills, which is the place of shepherds.”
“He must be here,” he insisted, “for so sang the angels at Bêt Sahûr, saying, ‘In the city of David,’ which is Bethlehem.”
Whereupon some of the guardsmen smiled and pointed to their heads, and some laughed jeeringly.
There was one, however, a tall, gentle-faced archer, who smiled and spoke kindly, “They say a man child has come to the stable beyond the khan, where Joseph ben David the Nazarene and his wife have taken shelter. You might try there.”
The shepherd nodded and thanked him, his dark eyes moistly tender and in his face a light that silenced the mockers.
“Thither will I go,” he exclaimed, and hurried on his way, bowing his head reverently as he came in sight of the place.
Now it happened when Ben Ezra reached the stable where Joseph ben David was abiding because of the multitude in the khan, that he found the Child lying in a manger, and the other shepherds who had gone before knelt beside Him, looking into His gentle eyes and marveling. Around them on the ground, softly bleating as if they too understood the marvel and rejoiced in it, were the lambs the men had brought as offerings to the Babe; and some of the townsfolk too were there, murmuring in awed tones and looking on the scene in wide-eyed wonder. No one noticed the herder who entered late, or saw him fall on his knees beside the manger. But as his sturdy head drooped low, the Child lifted His tiny hand as if in blessing and smiled down on Ben Ezra’s upturned face; and then the keepers of the sheep knew that thus God had chosen to reward him who had not been deaf to the cry of a lamb.