When I had helped this good-natured little man and his horse to the top of the hill, he invited me to jump into the cart if my way lay in his direction. "I am in search of the Baal Shem," I explained. "Indeed," said he; "he is easily to be found." "What, do you know the Baal Shem?" I cried excitedly. He seemed amused at my agitation. His black eyes twinkled. "Why, everybody in these parts knows the Baal Shem," said he. "How shall I find him, then?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. "You have but to step up into my cart." "May your strength increase!" I cried gratefully; "you are going in his direction?" He nodded his head. I climbed up the wheel and plumped myself down between two flour-sacks. "Is it far?" I asked. He smiled. "Nay, if it was far I should scarcely have asked you up." Then we both fell silent. For my part, despite the jolting of the vehicle, the lift was grateful to my spent limbs, and the blue sky and the rustling leaves and the near prospect of at last seeing the Baal Shem contributed to lull me into a pleasant languor. But my torpor was not so deep as that into which my new friend appeared to fall, for though as we approached a village another vehicle dashed towards us, my shouts and the other driver's cries only roused him in time to escape losing a wheel. "You must have been thinking of a knotty point of Torah (Holy Law)," said I. "Knotty point," said he, shuddering; "it is Satan who ties those knots." "Oho," said I, "though a _Shochet_, you do not seem fond of rabbinical learning." "Where there is much study," he replied tersely, "there is little piety." At this moment, appositely enough, we passed by the village Beth-Hamidrash, whence loud sounds of "pilpulistic" (wire-drawn) argument issued. The driver clapped his palms over his ears. "It is such disputants," he cried with a grimace, "who delay the redemption of Israel from exile." "How so?" said I. "Satan induces these Rabbis," said he, "to study only those portions of our holy literature on which they can whet their ingenuity. But from all writings which would promote piety and fear of God he keeps them away." I was delighted and astonished to hear the _Shochet_ thus deliver himself, but before I could express my acquiescence, his attention was diverted by a pretty maiden who came along driving a cow. "What a glorious creature!" said he, while his eyes shone. "Which?" said I laughingly. "The cow?" "Both," he retorted, looking back lingeringly. "I understand now what you mean by pious literature," I said mischievously: "the Song of Solomon." He turned on me with strange earnestness, as if not perceiving my irony. "Ay, indeed," he cried; "but when the Rabbis do read it, they turn it into a bloodless allegory, Jewish demons as they are! What is the beauty of yonder maiden but an emanation from the divine? The more beautiful the body, the more shiningly it leads us to the thought of God."