Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 098.djvu/345

Rh Isaac standing before him, the tears started to his eyes, and coursed each other down ms pale cheeks into his long white beard.

"Farewell, my son!" be exclaimed, laying his hand on Isaac's head. "The hand of the Lord rests heavily on thee for thy backsliding. I will not curse thy house, but 1 leave it, lest its roof should fall down upon me!"

So saying he walked out of the house, and his son made no attempt to detain him. But the weeping Benjamina followed him, and Veit followed them both at a little distance, in order to afford them assistance if the mob should attack them; for the tumult of the preceding evening was recommencing, and there were even more ill-disposed persons gathering in the streets than before. Veit saw the old man take the way towards the gates of Altona, hand in hand with Benjamina, whom he had in vain besought to return to her uncle's family, and Veit therefore concluded that they intended leaving Hamburg, and seeking an asylum in Altona. He determined still to follow them, so as to obtain shelter for them at the house of a friend of his there, in case they should find any difficulty in procuring such for themselves. But before they reached the Altona gates they were intercepted by a mob of the lowest rabble and a number of tradesmen's apprentices, who were flocking from all parts of the town, and wandering from street to street, breaking the windows of the Jews' houses.

"Stop, stop!" roared the rabble. "Where are you taking that pretty girl, you old Jew rascal?" Some of them then commenced pulling the old man by the beard, while others began to treat the pale and trembling Benjamina with rudeness and indignity. But at that moment Veit rushed to the rescue, and drawing a sword from his walking-stick, he laid about furiously among the offenders; some gentlemen, and other members of more respectable classes of the Hamburg population, took his part; and while the police were endeavouring to disperse the mob, Veit succeeded in getting Philip Moees and his granddaughter away, and conveying them through a side gate into a small back street: after a rather long circuit through deserted by-lanes and narrow streets, he was so fortunate as to reach his father's house without further molestation, and the old doctor received his unexpected guests with kind cordiality, and did all he could, both as host and physician, to minister to their wants and comforts. Benjamina was half dead from terror, and the unfortunate old man had sunk in a state of insensibility on the floor the moment he was safely within the door of the house.

Philip Moses returned to consciousness, he stared wildly about him, tore his hair, and then, like Job, he opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

"Let the day perish whereon I was born—let darkness and the shadow of death stain it—let a cloud dwell upon it—wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul? For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me!"

He speedily, however, became exhausted; and a violent fever ensued. In his delirium he raved of the destruction o£ his people—of Sodom and