666

'And is it thus that a child of Israel should speak?' replied Joshua. 'Woe is me for the degeneracy of our people, for the faintness of heart that weighs them down, as a millstone around the neck sinks the swimmer to the bottom of the sea! What wonder that we should be a broken remnant, scattered among the heathen and persecuted, when we walk not according to the light of God's law, but by that of the statutes of the Gentiles? Hath the power of judgment departed from the house of David? Is there no longer a judge, or a prophet, or a priest among us, that we cannot take counsel together in a matter that toucheth our own reputation-yea, and deal with an offending brother according as it shall seem good in our sight? Hast thou forgotten, son Levi, how that holy Daniel preferred to be cast into the den of lions rather than submit to the commandment of the Persian king? And is it not written that the priesthood shall be perpetual, and that the sceptre never shall depart out of the house of Judah? Wherefore, then, talkest thou of the laws and the usages of the Gentiles?'

"I talk of them,' replied Levi, 'because I live under them and enjoy their protection, and because, if I break them, I must lay my account with suffering for it in person or in goods. I have no mind, I tell you frankly, to place my neck in jeopardy; nor will I do so for the bidding of all the rabbis that ever sat in the synagogue.'

"Two or three of the younger Hebrews though none were present but men of middle age-deriving courage from the undaunted example of Levi, signified their concurrence in his views; and one of them suggested that, so far as the safety of the two young men who might be implicated by Speedwell's confession was concerned, that might be secured by shipping them off without delay to the Continent, or to some Eastern country, where pursuit and arrest were impossible. If

there was a lack of funds, that could readily be supplied for the Jews, though proverbially hard in their dealings with Christians, are most liberal in ministering to the necessities of their own people. As for the charge of murder, it was their decided opinion that Speedwell should be left to the operation of the law.

"Thus there were two parties in the little Jewish senate-the ecclesiastical and the secular-the former being, as is invariably the case, the fiercer and more uncompromising of the two. At length old Joshua, though visibly galled by an opposition that threatened to destroy his supremacy, made a last appeal.

---

6

"Hear me,' he said, yet a moment. Ye are like children fighting with shadows, for ye know not yet what it is that I propose. What have I said more than this-that if Speedwell hath done that for which the law will condemn him to die, better it were that he should be cut off before his infamy is bruited abroad, and the burden of the reproach cast, as it will be, upon our unhappy people? Ye talk of English justice what justice has the English people, what justice has any Gentile nation, ever extended to the Jews? Know ye not that, since the days of that King Richard who went to Palestine, and who would have forced his way into the Holy City, but that the Angel of the Lord stood in his path, as he stood in that of offending Balaam, no crime, real or fancied, was ever charged against a Jew, that was not cast in the teeth of all the race of Israel? Long ago, in the town of Lincoln, it was said that a Christian child had died by the hand of a Jewess, and straightway there was a general massacre of our people, and their goods were taken for a spoil. Ye will say that these were the deeds of a rude and barbarous age, and that no such consequences. now could follow. Ye say right; but is open violence all that we have to dread? If an Englishman

should commit a crime, horrid and hideous, such as humanity shudders to think of, do not his countrymen call him a monster, and thank God, in the same breath, that in all England there is but one such villain to be found? Yet let a Jew commit the same crime, and the cry will be that he comes of a cruel and accursed race, wanton in mischief, pitiless as the hungry lion, and bloodthirsty as the gaunt tiger of the wilderness! Thousands of the rabble will gather around the scaffold to gloat upon the dying agonies of the Jew; and not upon his children alone will his sins be visited, but his infamy will light upon the whole of his race and generation. Therefore I say that if Speedwell is condemned by the law to perish for a crime, the bare thought of which is full of horror, you, and I, and all of our blood, must submit to bear a portion of the shame.'

666

'Nay,' said Levi, 'that is true enough. I remember that, on the morning when Hyams the orangeboy, who had smashed the skull of his fancy-girl, was hanged, the mob broke all my windows; and but that the bars were of the best, would no doubt have gutted the premises.'

"And I,' said another, 'was very nearly taken to the pump only a week ago, merely for having stopped to inquire what the matter was, seeing a crowd hustling a man who, it seems, had been helping himself to a watch. "That's another of them scoundrelly Jews!" roared a ruffian. "Twig his hooked beak!" And I had enough to do to make my escape with the loss of both my coat-tails and a pocket-book of protested bills!'

"Therefore, according to your own testimony,' said Joshua, 'I have uttered no more than the truth. Now, I ask you, and I adjure you to ask yourselves, whether it would not be matter of rejoicing-yea, of thanksgiving-if this Speedwell were to die before the full extent of his infamy is made known, and blazoned throughout

the length and breadth of the land? For that which he hath done might make the very stones of the street cry out against him; and shall his iniquity be added to the burden which Jacob has yet to bear?'

"So long as you put it in that way,' said Levi, 'I am heartily with you. I would rather hear that Speedwell had been found dead in his cell, than that my heaviest speculation had succeeded. But there is a vast difference between that and conspiring to make away with him!'

"Son Levi!' replied Joshua, 'the world reputes thee wise, and such, I doubt not, thou art in thine own matters. Thou canst buy, and sell, and barter, and traffic to advantage; and thou hast heaped up gold in thy secret chamber, as other men heap wheat and grain within their garners. But thou lackest understanding, else assuredly thou wouldest not have imagined so vain a thing. Bethink thee that this Speedwell is in a prison, strong as the tower of Damascus, fenced with bolts of iron, watched over by men, fierce and vigilant as those savage island dogs that could pull down the mightiest of the bulls of Bashan - how, then, dost thou think it were possible to do a deed of violence? I tell thee, son, that not Solomon in the midst of his guards was more secure from hurt than is this wretched man, nor can any hand cut short his accursed existence save his own.'

"Nay, then,' said Levi, 'it is like he will live through his trial; for, if all be true that I have heard regarding him, Speedwell is not the man to harm his own little finger, if by doing that he could save the whole house of Israel from destruction.'

"Peace!' said the deep voice of the Jewess Miriam, who now rose among them, casting back her veil, and displaying strong masculine features and grizzled hair, no longer, since this great sorrow had come upon her, arranged with a

woman's neatness-Peace! and add not to the affliction of the hour by the idle railing of a Shimei! Peace! and hear the mother who bore this shame of Israel in her womb, and who suckled him at her breast, pronounce the sentence of his doom! O Joseph-my son, my son! Would to God thou hadst died in thy infancy, so that I could have laid thee to thy rest in the cradle of the earth, and strewn flowers upon thy grave, and mourned for thee with no worse a pang than the sacred sorrow of bereavement ! Woe is me that I should have to say the word, and to speak the ban; and yet both must be said and spoken! Thou hast forsworn thy faith as a child of Israel—thou hast disgraced thy people-thou hast broken into the sanctuary of life, as the thief in the night breaks into the house of the sleeper-thou hast stained thy hands with murder, therefore must thou die the death! I, thy mother, say it!-I who can condemn, but cannot abjure thee; for wicked as thou art, it was the will of the Lord that I should bear thee; and though the earth should open its mouth and swallow thee alive, as it did the company of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, still art thou not less my son!'

666

'Not so, Joshua-not so, my father!' replied the agonised woman, her face ghastly with emotion -'not like Deborah do I speak, for hers was a song of triumph over Sisera, smitten by the hand of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, and over his discomfited host! Rather say like Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, who sate watching her dead upon the rock, while the fowls of the air hovered above, and the beasts of the field were prowling round her for their prey. He whom I must call my son hath broken the law both of God and

man, and die for it he must! But not on the scaffold shall he expiate his crime! Lost as he is, he shall not hang upon the gallows, to be a scoff and execration to the Gentiles. The poison that he gave to others shall he drink himself, and the hand that he stretched forth against their lives shall assuredly cut short his own!'

"I will hear no more of this!' cried Levi, starting up. 'I have the nerves of a man, not of an executioner; and it makes my blood run cold to hear a mother planning the destruction of her son, doubledyed villain though he be! Resolve what ye will, but do it without me. I neither meddle nor mell with such dangerous work as this!'

"Go then,' said Joshua, 'since thou art so faint-hearted; but remember to keep silence as to what thou hast heard.'

"Trust me for that!' replied Levi. 'Not for all the gold of Ophir would I have it known that I had been present at such a council as this. I shall not sleep for a month to come without dreaming of murder and the shambles !'

"Go thy way,' said Joshua, as Levi, accompanied by one or two of his friends, left the apartment—‘Go thy way for a weak but well-meaning child of Issachar, apt to carry burdens, but without one spark of the noble spirit that glowed within our fathers of old! Miriam, my sister, for whom my soul is sad, say-how wilt thou accomplish this?'

"I will see him once more,' replied Miriam. 'I will speak with him yet again as a mother, and I will strengthen him for what he must and shall do if he would not have my curse upon his head. Wicked as he hath been, and cruel to others, he hath never openly rebelled against me, nor will he, I think, disobey me now, when he knows that his life is forfeited. Death is very terrible, but more terrible are the judgment, the shame, and the scaffold; and if he be per

suaded that he cannot escape from these, he will die in the darkness of his dungeon. I will see him, and prepare him for what must be. -Alas that such woe should light upon a mother in Israel! Two days shall he have for repentance, if he can yet repent; and on the third my messenger shall go to him, with the last gift of his despairing mother! So shall the reproach of his sin pass over us as the flight of the destroying angel passed over the dwellings of Israel, when they were yet sojourners in the land of Egypt.'

O Miriam!' cried Joshua'woman, who art so sorely tried in the furnace of affliction-worthy art thou to bear the name of the sister of Moses and of Aaron! But this messenger thou hast spoken of canst thou put thy faith in him?'

"Judge for thyself,' said Miriam. Stand forth, Reuben-old servant of my husband's house! Thou hast heard the words that have been spoken-art thou ready to do this thing?'

"I have heard, and I am ready!' replied Reuben, a broad-shouldered, beetle-browed, black-bearded Hebrew.

"And thou wilt not shrink from its accomplishment?'

"Not I-I swear by the altar and the incense!'

666

"Enough!' said Joshua. 'Now, brethren, let us to our homes, and pray for the peace of Israel. Miriam -my sister! I cannot bid thee be of good cheer, for thou art as one that walketh among the tombs in the valley of Jehoshaphat; but the shadows of the night will soon pass away, and may the light which is from Zion be thy comfort!'

"So terminated this strange conclave of the Jews."

I need hardly say that I listened to Mr Hartley's narrative with the deepest attention and interest, revealing as it did a phase of social existence perfectly new to me, and which bore so little resemblance to the usages of our modern times.

But the extreme circumstantiality of the story struck me as remarkable.

"Pardon the interruption, Mr Hartley," said I; "but may I ask how you came to be acquainted with all those particulars, which could only be communicated by a witness of the scene?"

"True, my dear sir. And not only were those particulars communicated, in the first instance, by word of mouth, but they were written down, and are contained in a document in my possession. Its extraordinary character has impressed it deeply on my memory; and you will hardly doubt of its accuracy when I tell you that Reuben, the servant of Miriam, was the person from whom we purchased the information. Our agents traced him to Germany, whither he had gone immediately after Speedwell's death; and when thoroughly assured that his disclosure would not be used to the prejudice of any party, he accepted our terms, and gave us the information we desired. We have many strange documents in our archives relating to transactions in private life; but none, I can assure you, more interesting or startling than this."

"It is indeed, as you say, a narrative of absorbing interest. Pray proceed, Mr Hartley."

One important chapter in this terrible romance, for such I may truly call it," continued Mr Hartley, "is wanting. No one knows, or ever can know, what took place at the interview between the fanatic mother and her guilty and miserable son.

Not one word regarding it did she breathe to Reuben; but when she returned from the prison, after having been there for upwards of two hours, her face was ghastly white, and she trembled in every limb.

thee! But all will soon be over. I go to my chamber to mourn in sackcloth and ashes; and on the third day thou, Reuben, must get thee to the prison. All is prepared. The men will let thee in without hindrance thy hand shall give him the fatal draught—and thy face is the last he shall behold in the land of the living. Meanwhile, take this gold and make thee ready; for thou must pass into a far country and abide there, until the memory of this thing hath gone by.'

On the day appointed, Reuben, having received his last instructions, repaired to the prison. As Miriam had predicted, no restriction was placed upon his interview, and he was left alone with Speedwell in his cell.

"A fearful change had come over the wretched being. So long as he believed that there was nothing against him but a charge of forgery, the penalty of which he might evade by betraying his accomplices, he had been reckless and defiant; but now that he stood accused of a far more atrocious crime, and felt that every avenue of escape was closed, he became a prey to the most abject terror. As Reuben entered, he started with a kind of suppressed shriek from the pallet on which he had been grovelling, the cold sweat standing on his brow, and his eyes dilated into a stare of horror; and so, for a minute's space, these two men-the messenger of death, and the wretch whose hours were numbered-confronted each other in silence.

"Reuben spoke first. "I come from thy mother, Joseph !'

"Ay-from my mother!' gasped Speedwell. But it is early yet, Reuben-early yet! See-the sun is still high in the heavens! O God -it cannot be that this is the hour appointed me to die!"

"I have not hastened in my coming, Joseph,' replied the other. 'A weight was on my feet, and my knees failed me on the way, for my heart bleeds within me, son of my

old master, when I think of the days that are gone by, and the time when you were a little child. Joseph-thou knowest what brings me here?'

66

Speedwell gnashed his teeth. "Man! I know your purpose. That she-wolf who calls me her son has sent you to take my life before the law has declared it forfeit. Why, the very beasts of the desert have stronger affections than she has, for they will fight to the death for their young! In a moment of weakness and despair I swore to obey the commandment that she laid upon me. Idiot that I was! For if there is a hell, as the rabbis say, no mother's curse can sink me deeper into perdition; and if there be none, then curses are but as idle wind, and those who fear them are the fools of their own imagination.'

66 6

Blaspheme not!' said Reuben, sternly. That there is a hell thou knowest, for its fires are burning already in thy bosom. Moreover, of this be sure, that whatever may be the doom awarded thee for the sins committed in the flesh, that which awaits the child who has sworn unto his mother and broke his oath, and who goes down into the grave with her curse upon his head, is tenfold more. terrible than the other. Blame not the mother that bore thee, because she seeks to rescue thee from shame; but submit thou to that from which there is no way to escape, nor incur a heavier condemnation.'

666

"But Reuben-Reuben-I was mad when I took that oath. I tell you that I knew not what I was doing. Why should I throw away my life while there is yet a chance that it may be saved? Look, man, the evidence may break down. The body was buried long enough to let the poison-if there was any, for I admit nothing, Reuben; no, no, I am too cunning for that!-disappear; and doctors, you know, will differ in opinion, and will swear that black is white, if by so doing they can discredit a rival. An excellent chance, Reuben-an excellent