Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/282

Rh letting me know all that I can do to serve you, and God lengthen your days! My Lord, your petitioner, [signed and sealed,] Amran, the Priest. Written in Nablûs, 9th July, Western year, 1858."

Another child has been born to Yakûb, and I have heard him speak proudly, lovingly, and tenderly of his little ones, and of his young wife Shemseh, and of the flourishing Samaritan day-school.

A few days after my arrival in Nablûs, I was sitting in the divan at the hotel, with a little company of Samaritans, Greek priests, and Protestant Arabs, when a very poor Moslem woman forced her way into the room, notwithstanding that the kawass and servants at the door endeavored to prevent her entrance. She cried out, "Make way! I must speak to the English lady, the Consul's sister." I said, "Let her speak."

She was almost shrouded in an old blue-and-white check linen sheet, of native manufacture. She was very aged, and tottered across the room to me, and then partly drew aside her thick cotton vail, and kissed my head and my hands violently and impetuously, beseeching me to intercede for her son, who had been imprisoned for insulting and striking our kawass in the bazar.

She said, "I am a widow, and the offender is my only son, my sole support. Speak for him, for my sake. Speak for him, for the sake of the mother of your brother. Speak for him, that he may be set free!"

She kneeled down, and tried to kiss my feet, and embraced my knees imploringly. I raised her up, saying, "Go now in peace. I will speak to the Consul about your son."

She went away rejoicing, and cried aloud, "The gates of the prison are thrown open! The offender, my son, is already free; for the English word is spoken!"

I made inquiries about the prisoner, and, for my "word's sake," my brother applied for his release, and before sunset he was free.