THE BROKEN PANE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1291, 26 November 1896, Page 11

THE BROKEN PANE.

[By S. Gordon.]

The Judge sat in his study. The day's work had been unusually heavy ; sundry poachers, smugglers, horse-thieves, a political offender or two, had come up before his tribunal, and he had done his duty cbnsfciefrtioasly. That was why he now felt so comfortable a 3 he lounged in his grandfather-cfiair, wrapped in' his soft voluminous dressing-gown, warming his feet at the bright blaze in the grate. _ It was only mid autumn, but he was growing old, and" his blood ran sluggish, as if it were getting tired of the routine. On the table stood trie. tall reading lamp, burning quietly under its green shade. But suddenly the straight steady flare broke into a momentary flicker, and the heavy damask curtains at the window swayed lightly, as if unseen fingers were playing with them. Then the lamp sputtered more violently, and the drapery moved with gently widening curves. The Judge looked up ; what did this mean ? He felt a distinct gust of wind blowing into the room in a volume of chill night air. Abj he knew —a pane in the window had been brokenj his little son Eudolph had driven the bolt of his Cross bow through it that morning. A smile relaxed the set lips of the judge as he thought of the little fellow's tears at the mischief he had done—how the boy would not be soothed till his father* on his way out to the courthouse, had lifted him up and kissed him, andj for stronger evidence of his forgiveness, had presented him With a brand-new silver rouble. He had ordered old Sebastian to see that the window was mended during the day, and the stupid rascal had evidently forgotten. With an angry frown the Judge reached for the bell rope ; but just as he was about to give tongue, his arm stiffened and stopped motionless —something seemed holding it back —a sudden thought—a memory. His fist clenched as if he had caught something and would not let go. The pale, silent-eyed ghost of the past had brushed by him, and now he was clutching it by the skirts.

He was a little boy again—ten, eleven years old. It was the eve of the New Year —his father and brothers, looking spruce and clean", were coming from the house on their way to the Evening Service.

" Come to prayers, you godless little imp !" he remembered his father saying, " unless you would begin the New Year with broken bones."

" I shall be there as soon as you," the little boy had answered, pretending to be very busy collecting a basket of peat for the kitchen. And then, having watched his father out of sight, be went back to his real business, which, out of deference to his father's feelings, he had momentarily intermitted. It cannot be maintained that the business in question was more important than going to Synagogue, j but for Jacob, that is the little boy, it had much more fascination. He was stoning the weathercock. This afternoon he had been more than usually unsuccessful—the weathercock seemed invulnerable. Bub Jacob was determined not to be beaten, and that was why he sought a pretence for not following his father immediately. At last he grew desperate: from the Synagogue at the back rose the Declaration of the Unity, it was getting very dark too —just one more missile and he would be done. Carefully he poised his throw, took steady aim, let loose and—crash! Jacob felt a shiver wriggle down his back ; what had happened ? Yes, there was no doubt of it, he had broken a window the solitary window of the dingy sitting-room where the family took their meals o.i great occasions. A nameless horror took hold of the boy. He dared not face his father after this. And as the catalogue of his indictments rose before the boy's eyes he st.arl.ed away with a shriek and ran as if an army of fiends with cobbler's straps in their hands were pursuing him. The squalid Jew quarter lay already far behind, and he was still running, his head dazed and bewildered by the labyrinthine streets of the great city, his chest heaving, his eye:: staring wildly. Whither was ho running ? Ho know not —he cared not —only away from the hard pitiless face of his father and the whizzing sting of his leather thong. Suddenly he felt some one touch him on the shoulder

an! he flung himself to earth wish % howl of terror. . .-, " Spare me, father/ me—only this once," he shrieked. " Get up, I mean you no harm," fai'd ji ; strange voice, and a hand stroked hiS head saressingly- And when he looked up he saw oof ere him a, man in a long cassock who was gazing aft him compassionately. ; ~ " You are frightened —you are fleeing some danger—tell me all; you are safe with me," he said again. In flying haste and with many a backward glance of dread Jacob told him what had happened, Kis tongue lapsing now and again into his Ghetto gibberish. ''' If Igo back now." he sobbed, fl t shall.be half flayed and thrust into the Cellar over night—oh !" A greenish look crept his little sallow face, and he reeled and tottered like a drunken man.

" Starving, as I live," muttered the cassockman, looking at him closely ;■ and with that he stooped, and lifted the boy in his arms—the burden was pitifully light. Then he strode on, and by the time he was entering a doorway Jacob had so far recovered as to raise his head. . .

So it had all begun—his life in the priest's house, the acquiring of strange knowledge, the struggle between the old bonds of blood and the enticements of his new home. Once, and once only, did the former triumph. It was on the fifth anniversary of his flight, when the idle curiosity he still felt concerning the fate of his people grew to a mighty longing. So he stole out into the dark, threaded his way, as if by instinct, among the Ghetto streets until he stood before his father's house. Stealthily he crept up the ladder placed at the side of the window and peeped into the room : there they all sat round the little table—father, mother, brothers, sisters, eating and making merry as though they had no catise for sorrow in the world. A jealous anger swept through his bosom ; they did not miss him—the gap had been filled, the pane had been mended. Silently he crept down again with his resolve firm in his heart. Overhead his old enemy, the weathercock, swung and creaked —but it no longer seemed to say: "You silly little Jew boy," it said : "Wladimir, Wladimir, what a fine name we have to be sure !"

And then he hastened away, wondering why a sudden rush of blood should make his cheeks tingle so hotly through the darkness.

Henceforth he made for the goal to which his talent and ambition were to carry him, and he succeeded even beyond his own hopes. He stepped from post to post, making one office the vaultingboard from wbioh to reach the next. At last they made him a judge, and there he stopped, for he was growing aghast at his own greatness. After all, he could not get rid of his pariah instinct, he could not entirely forget the runaway little Jew boy whom the kind-hearted priest had taken for his son, to whom ho had given his love, his wealth, his knowledge—and from whom he had taken in return nothing hut his belief; on whose side had been the bargain ?

lie asked himself the question many a time —one day he got his answer. It was brought to hiin, as he sat at his tribunal, by two men, draggle-tailed, shaggy-haired, rocking with the squalor of their poverty. Oh, he knew what it was to bo Joseph in Egypt—he recognised them at once ; these two men were his brothers.

•' Why have wo smuggled 2" they whined. "Because our father lay dying and we had nothing wherewith to allay his sufferings, and we risked life and liberty to make his death-bed easier." So' ho was dead, the stern, sullenhearted man, and here were his brothers —the living types of what he would himself have been but for that broken pane. ".Risked life and liberty?" No, 1113 lxw of the land must not bo transgressed. But as he stood c uiside the penance chamber and listened to the swishiog of the lash and cries of the culprits, a feeling came over him as if his soul were being bastinadoed by proxy. True, he made amends to them, but without owning to his action, and he tock no credit for it —he knew it was no better than throwing a bono to a dog after one has kicked him.

Certainly he was now a great Judge, and judged God's creatures according to his wisdom. He himself would one day stand before the J udgment Seat of that Greater and Greatest Judge—and what

would -his verdict be ? Sometimes he thought God and he were colleagues,- two* of a tirade, as it were, and that, therefore.. he was entitled to a discount in his sentence. It was- an impious thought, a sacrilegious jes.t,' bat then be had laughed at £d manythiugs,'- o*ve laugh moie or less ■ Whew! the -wind came through the broken pane with an angry gust. Had it blown the the lamp ot*4 7 The Judge felt everything getting so dark and cold, He staggered tip from his seat, fumbling for the bell cord--he would summon Sebastian to take hicH to bed—or no, he would rather go and Kiss his little - Eudolph—what was that ? Tfoere was a short/ sharp stab going like a rapier i through his body ; it seemed to him a* if | a splinter oi the pane he had broken thousands of years ago were being driven through his bosom with quick, clean thrusts — sxfttiij nothing else could stab like that —could stab' again and again and again Until—- > The stars of the night loofeed at him as he lay there rigid and silent ;• then they turned to one another and said reassuringly : " True, we 100 are but windows — the windows of the sky } yet let us not fear —no one shall break us >' a/re we not made of adamant ?"—Jewish Chronicle-