"And Isaac, his father, answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and the dew of heaven from above;
"And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.
"And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob."
As Parson Gell at the reading-desk mumbled these words through his toothless gums, it seemed to Jason as though he were awakening from a long sleep—a sleep of four years, a sleep full of dreams, both sweet and sad—and that everything was coming back upon him in a dizzy whirl. He remembered his mother, her cruel life, her death, and his own vow, and so vivid did these recollections grow in a moment that he trembled with excitement.
A woman in a black crape bonnet, who sat next to him in the pew, saw his emotions, and put a Bible into his hands. He accepted it with a slight movement of the head, but when he tried to find the place he turned dizzy and his hands shook. Seeing this the good woman, with a look of pity and a thought of her runaway son who was far off, took the Bible back, and after opening it at the chapter in Genesis, returned it in silence. Even then he did not read, but sat with wandering eyes, while nervous twitches crossed his face.
He was thinking that he had forgotten his great vow of vengeance, lulled to sleep by his vain dream of love; he was telling himself that his vow must yet be fulfilled or his mother who had urged him to it, would follow him with her curse from her grave. For some minutes this feeling grew more and more powerful, and more and more his limbs and whole body quivered. The poor woman in the crape saw that he trembled, and leaned towards him and asked if he was ill. But he only shook his head and drew back in silence into the corner of the pew.
"I must be going mad," he thought, and to steady his mind he turned to the book, thinking to follow the old parson as he lisped along.
It was a reference Bible that the woman had lent him, and as his eyes rambled over the page, never resting until they alit on the words, then will I slay my brother Jacob, he shuddered and thought "How hideous!" All at once he marked the word slay in the margin with many references to it, and hardly knowing what he was doing he turned up the first of them. From that moment his senses were in a turmoil, and he knew nothing clearly of all that was being done about him. He thought he saw that through all ages God had made man the instrument of his vengeance on the wrongdoer. The stories of Moses, of Saul, of Samson, came back to him one by one, and as he read a chill terror filled his whole being.
He put the book down, trying to compose himself, and then he thought, "How childish? God is King of earth and heaven, and needs the help of no man." But his nervous fingers could not rest and he took up the Bible again, while the parson prosed through his short sermon. This time he turned away from the passages that haunted him, though "Esau, Esau, Esau," rang in his head. Rolling the leaves in his hand he read in one place how the Lord visits His vengeance upon the children for the sins of the fathers, and then in another place how the nearest of kin to him that is killed shall avenge the blood spilt, and then again in yet another place how if man keeps not his covenant with the Lord, the Lord will send a faintness upon him, and a great and woeful trembling, so that the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase him.
"Am I then afraid?" he asked himself, and shut the book once more. His head swam with vague thoughts. "I must keep my vow," he thought. "I am losing my senses," he thought again. "I am an Esau," he thought once more.