“A little, sir, now and then—a very little.”
“That is to say, when the security is bad, you have no money in hand; but when the security is good, nobody has ever found the bottom of Isaac Levi's purse.”
“Our people,” said Isaac apologetically, “can trust one another—they are not like yours. We are brothers, and that is why money is always forthcoming when the deposit is sound.”
“Well,” said Meadows, “what you are, I am; what I do on the sly you do on the sly, old thirty per cent.”
“The world is wide enough for us both, good sir—”
“It is!” was the prompt reply. “And it lies before you, Isaac. Go where you like, for the little town of Farnborough is not wide enough for me and any man that works my business for his own pocket—”
“But this is not enmity, sir.”
Meadows gave a coarsish laugh. “You are hard to please,” cried he. “I think you will find it is enmity.”
“Nay! sir, this is but matter of profit and loss. Well, let me stay, and I promise you shall gain and not lose. Our people are industrious and skillful in all bargains, but we keep faith and covenant. So be it. Let us be friends. I covenant with you, and I swear by the tables of the law, you shall not lose one shilling per annum by me.”
“I'll trust you as far as I can fling a bull by the tail. You gave me your history—take mine. I have always put my foot on whatever man or thing has stood in my way. I was poor, I am rich, and that is my policy.”
“It is frail policy,” said Isaac, firmly. “Some man will be sure to put his foot on you, soon or late.”
“What, do you threaten me?” roared Meadows.
“No, sir,” said Isaac, gently but steadily. “I but tell you what these old eyes have seen in every nation, and read in books that never lie. Goliath defied armies, yet he fell like a pigeon by a shepherd-boy's sling. Samson tore a lion in pieces with his hands, but a woman laid him low. No man can defy us all, sir! The strong man is sure to find one as strong and more skillful; the cunning man one as adroit and stronger than himself. Be advised, then, do not trample upon one of my people. Nations and men that oppress us do not thrive. Let me have to bless you. An old man's blessing is gold. See these gray hairs. My sorrows have been as many as they. His share of the curse that is upon his tribe has fallen upon Isaac Levi.” Then, stretching out his hands with a slight but touching gesture, he said, “I have been driven to and fro like a leaf these many years, and now I long for rest. Let me rest in my little tent, till I rest forever. Oh! let me die where those I loved have died, and there let me be buried.”
Age, sorrow, and eloquence pleaded in vain, for they were wasted on the rocks of rocks, a strong will and a vulgar soul. But indeed the whole thing was like epic poetry wrestling with the Limerick Chronicle or Tuam Gazette.
I am almost ashamed to give the respectable western brute's answer.
“What! you quote Scripture, eh? I thought you did not believe in that. Hear t'other side. Abraham and Lot couldn't live in the same place, because they both kept sheep, and we can't, because we fleece 'em. So Abraham gave Lot warning as I give it you. And as for dying on my premises, if you like to hang yourself before next Lady-day, I give you leave, but after Lady-day no more Jewish dogs shall die in my house nor be buried for manure in my garden.”
Black lightning poured from the old Jew's eyes, and his pent-up wrath burst out like lava from an angry mountain.
“Irreverent cur! do you rail on the afflicted of Heaven? The Founder of your creed would abhor you, for He, they say, was pitiful. I spit upon ye, and I curse ye. Be accursed!” And flinging up his hands, like St. Paul at Lystra, he rose to double his height and towered at his insulter with a sudden Eastern fury that for a moment shook even the iron Meadows. “Be accursed!” he yelled again. “Whatever is the secret wish of your black heart Heaven look on my gray hairs that you have insulted, and wither that wish. Ah, ah!” he screamed, “you wince. All men have secret wishes—Heaven fight against yours. May all the good luck you have be wormwood for want of that—that—-that—that. May you be near it, close to it, upon it, pant for it, and lose it; may it sport, and smile, and laugh, and play with you till Gehenna burns your soul upon earth!”
The old man's fiery forked tongue darted so keen and true to some sore in his adversary's heart that he in turn lost his habitual self-command.
White and black with passion he wheeled round on Isaac with a fierce snarl, and lifting his stick discharged a furious blow at his head.
Fortunately for Isaac wood encountered leather instead of gray hairs.
Attracted by the raised voices, and unseen in their frenzy by either of these antagonists, young George Fielding had drawn near them. He had, luckily, a stout pig-whip in his hand, and by an adroit turn of his muscular wrist he parried a blow that would have stopped the old Jew's eloquence perhaps forever. As it was, the corn-factor's stick cut like a razor through the air, and made a most musical whirr within a foot of the Jew's ear. The basilisk look of venom and vengeance he instantly shot back amounted to a stab.
“Not if I know it,” said George. And he stood cool and erect with a calm manly air of defiance between the two belligerents. While the stick and the whip still remained in contact, Meadows glared at Isaac's champion with surprise and wrath, and a sort of half fear half wonder that this of all men in the world should be the one to cross weapons with and thwart him. “You are joking, Master Meadows,” said George coolly. “Why the man is twice your age, and nothing in his hand but his fist. Who are ye, old man, and what d'ye want? It's you for cursing, anyway.”
“He insults me,” cried Meadows, “because I won't have him for a tenant against my will. Who is he? A villainous old Jew.”
“Yes, young man,” said the other, sadly, “I am Isaac Levi, a Jew. And what is your religion” (he turned upon Meadows)? “It never came out of Judea in any name or shape. D'ye call yourself a heathen? Ye lie, ye cur; the heathen were not without starlight from heaven; they respected sorrow and gray hairs.”
“You shall smart for this. I'll show you what my religion is,” said Meadows, inadvertent with passion, and the corn-factor's fingers grasped his stick convulsively.
“Don't you be so aggravating, old man,” said the good-natured George, “and you, Mr. Meadows, should know how to make light of an old man's tongue; why it's like a woman's, it's all he has got to hit with; leastways you mustn't lift hand to him on my premises, or you will have to settle with me first; and I don't think that would suit your book or any man's for a mile or two round about Farnborough,” said George with his little Berkshire drawl.
“He!” shrieked Isaac, “he dare not! see! see!” and he pointed nearly into the man's eye, “he doesn't look you in the face. Any soul that has read men from east to west can see lion in your eye, young man, and cowardly wolf in his.”
“Lady-day! Lady-day!” snorted Meadows, who was now shaking with suppressed rage.
“Ah!” cried Isaac, and he turned white and quivered in his turn.
“Lady-day!” said George, uneasily, “Confound Lady-day, and every day of the sort—there, don't you be so spiteful, old man—why if he isn't all of a tremble. Poor old man.” He went to his own door, and called “Sarah!”
A stout servant-girl answered the summons.
“Take the old man in, and give him whatever is going, and his mug and pipe,” then he whispered her, “and don't go lumping the chine down under his nose now.”
“I thank you, young man,” faltered Isaac, “I must not eat with you, but I will go in and rest my limbs which fail me, and compose myself; for passion is unseemly at my years.”
Arrived at the door, he suddenly paused, and looking upward, said:
“Peace be under this roof,