“I perceive that thou art of my people; wherefore comest thou here, and in this companionship? Knowest thou not that women are forbidden to be at the first of the feast?”
The young men were not in accord with the elder; they stood apart, and some whispered to others:
“It is Miriamne de Griffin.”
The maiden shrank back a little; but the saintly man with her, advancing a step, replied:
“I am the maiden’s guardian to-day, fathers, and responsible for her act. Say on!”
The elder, though knowing full well who the speaker was, and also fully understanding the import of his challenge, pretended to have neither heard nor seen him. He looked past the speaker, who was championing the maiden, and continued:
“Do thy people at home know of these indiscreet acts?”
“Hold, Rabbi! no insinuations.” The saintly man’s voice was commanding, and compelled silence. He continued: “We go our way, ye yours. Ye can not help yourselves out of your miseries; then presume not to direct us.” He checked his rising anger, remembering that he was a religious teacher, and launched out in a wayside sermon. “Ye children of Abraham, hear me, though I came not to counsel. Ye have stopped my progress, now hear God’s truth! There are dangers without, but greater ones within; though your eyes, being veiled, ye perceive not these things. I noticed as I was coming this way that the tombs and grave-stones every where have been whitened recently. They tell me this was done so as to enable your people plainly to see them and so avoid them. Yet fleeing defilement of the dead, ye live in a grave, all of you. All your prefiguring feasts have ripened into a glowing present that treads out into a full day!”
The old men seemed puzzled and angry; the young men puzzled but glad. They welcomed any sermon if it came with novelty. They reasoned within themselves that the old teachings were dead, and that a new creed could be no worse. If it were novel, it would have at least a temporary freshness.