"God never cheats," said Jeremy calmly.
"God…" said the visitor, and was about to raise a discussion and try to convert these pilgrims from their superstition. But Jeremy interrupted him. For the old man, though a peasant, had a singular dignity.
"Hush! Pronounce not His name lightly. I will tell you a story."
"Silence now!" cried several. "Hear grandfather's story!"
The old man then told the story of an aged pilgrim who had died on his way to Jerusalem. I thought he was repeating the story of the life of Mikhail, so like were his present words to those that had gone before. But the issue was different. In this case the pilgrim died and was buried in a little village near Odessa.
He was a penniless beggar. In grandfather's picturesque language, "he had no money; instead of which he bore the reproach of Christ. He found other men's charity….
"All his life he wandered towards Bethlehem. He used to say he pilgrimaged not towards Calvary, but towards Bethlehem. The thought that the Roman officials had treated Christ as a thief was too much for him to bear.
"He who possessed all things they treated as one who had stolen a little thing…."
The old man paused at this digression, and stared around him with an expression of terror and stupefaction.
There was a silence.