Page:Meir Ezofovitch a novel, from the Polish of Eliza Orzeszko.djvu/362

312 body but you. It is safe here, it is qniet, nobody will suspect.”

Meir rose from the bench.

‘Sleep in peace!” he said. "I must go; my soul is full of cries, I must walk, walk. I shall go and throw myself down amongst the trees, and send my prayers up to Jehovah with the evening breeze; I must unburden my mind of the heavy load."

He was going away, but Golda held him by the sleeve.

"Meir," she whispered, "tell me what has happened. Why did the people beat and hurt you? Why must you go out in the world?"

"People have beaten and stoned me," replied Meir, gloomily, "because I would not go against the truth; and would not agree to what the people agree. I must go, because to-morrow a terrible curse will be pronounced against me, and I shall be excommunicated and expelled from Israel."

"Cherim!" (the curse) shrieked the girl, and threw her folded hands in horror above her head. She stood thus a moment; then a gentle, thoughtful smile came into her face.

"Meir!" she whispered. "zeide is cursed and I am cursed; but the mercy of the Lord is greater than the greatest terror, and His justice vester than the vastest sea. When zeide reads this he leaves off grieving and gays—'The cursed ones are happier than those that curse . . . because a time will come when the justice of the Lord will enter into the human heart, and then they will bless the names of those that have been cursed.'"