The rabbis in Jerusalem would look down upon him, I fear, as a son of a dog of Edom.

How came he in possession of the Orchard?
And how has he been able to hold it against the greed of Roman governors ?" "If blood derives excellence from time, son of Arrius, then is old Ilderim a man, though he be an uncircumcised Edomite." Malluch spoke warmly.
"All his fathers before him were sheiks.

One of them--I shall not say when he lived or did the good deed--once helped a king who was being hunted with swords.

The story says he loaned him a thousand horsemen, who knew the paths of the wilderness and its hiding-places as shepherds know the scant hills they inhabit with their flocks; and they carried him here and there until the opportunity came, and then with their spears they slew the enemy, and set him upon his throne again.

And the king, it is said, remembered the service, and brought the son of the Desert to this place, and bade him set up his tent and bring his family and his herds, for the lake and trees, and all the land from the river to the nearest mountains, were his and his children's forever.