"For two reasons: I have touched your dress, and I have given way to
earthly passion and embraced a child--twice. Therefore, according to our
rule, I am defiled."
Then Nehushta could bear it no more.
"Defiled! you puppet of a foolish rule! It is the sweet babe that is
defiled! Look, you have fouled its garments with your grimy hand and
made it weep by pricking it with your beard. Would that your holy rule
taught you how to handle children and to respect honest women who are
their mothers, without whom there would be no Essenes."
"I may not wrangle," said Ithiel, nervously; for now woman was appearing
before him in a new light; not as an artful and a fickle, but as an
angry creature, reckless of tongue and not easy to be answered. "These
matters are for the decision of the curators. Have I not told you so?
Come, let us be going. I will drive the oxen, although it is not time
to loose them from the plough, and do you and your companion walk at a
distance behind me. No, not behind--in front, that I may see that you do
not drop the babe, or suffer it to come to any harm. Truly it is sweet
to look at, and, may God forgive me, I do not like to lose sight of its
face, which, it seems to me, resembles that of my sister when she was
also in arms.
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