"Nathan, I would go down into the fields with shepherd Eli to-night," explained Ezra politely. "Wilt thou not let me pass through the strait gate? Just this once! I will never ask thee again. Old Eli is thy friend and mine. Do the favor for him, I beg of thee, and I will bless thee all my days."
Nathan could not help laughing at the old-fashioned speech of the boy.
"Whether I do it for thee or for shepherd Eli, the deed is done," he cackled, and threw open the small gate standing beside the large one and known as the "strait" gate. "Ask me not again, I warn thee; ask me not again."
Past the Bethlehem khan Ezra hurried, and down through the piece of fertile land that lay to the east, where the reapers of Boaz had swung their rude sickles and where Ruth had gleaned the golden sheaves. A walk of two miles brought him to the pasture land where the shepherd lad David had watched his father's sheep, battling with lion and bear when the need arose, and where, too, many of his sweetest songs had been written.
The boy scurried along at a good pace, for on these dark and lonely roads to meet with wolf or jackal or, still more terrifying, with robbers, singly or in bands, was not unknown.
At the end of the road Ezra peered about in the starlight until he could distinguish a number of dark forms huddled before one of the caves in the hillside. Within the shallow cave lay the flock asleep, and before it, on his rough bed of brushwood and rushes, sat shepherd Eli, with only a dog or two to keep him company. Beside him lay his shepherd's crook, his club tipped with iron the better to protect his charges, and his sling with which he was wont to throw stones just beyond his sheep to bring them back when they were going astray.
Ezra chose to leap over the rude stone wall that enclosed this sheepfold instead of passing through the narrow gateway. The two great sheep dogs, gaunt and rough, who had spied him on the edge of the pasture land long before he had seen them, leaped fawning upon him with sharp yelps of affection.
"Down! Down!" cried Ezra, half laughing, half impatient. "Eli, my father sends thee greeting. As for me, I would fain spend the night with thee here in the fields. I am crowded out of my father's house by visitors from Nazareth who come to be listed for the census. I will make myself useful, Eli. Perhaps thou canst steal a nap while I keep watch of the sheep. But why art thou alone to-night? Where are the other shepherds? And the dogs?"