rather than
spoken this last invocation, he was unconscious that Jacob had ceased
to follow him and had started away from his knees; but pausing he saw,
as by a sudden flash, that the lad had thrown himself on his hands with
his feet in the air, mountebank fashion, and was picking up with his
lips a bright farthing which was a favorite among his pocket treasures.
This might have been reckoned among the tricks Mordecai was used to,
but at this moment it jarred him horribly, as if it had been a Satanic
grin upon his prayer.

"Child! child!" he called out with a strange cry that startled Jacob to
his feet, and then he sank backward with a shudder, closing his eyes.

"What?" said Jacob, quickly. Then, not getting an immediate answer, he
pressed Mordecai's knees with a shaking movement, in order to rouse
him. Mordecai opened his eyes with a fierce expression in them, leaned
forward, grasped the little shoulders, and said in a quick, hoarse
whisper--

"A curse is on your generation, child. They will open the mountain and
drag forth the golden wings and coin them into money, and the solemn
faces they will break up into ear-rings for wanton women! And they
shall get themselves a new name, but the angel of ignominy, with the
fiery brand, shall know them, and their heart shall be the tomb of dead
desires that turn their life to rottenness."

The aspect and action of Mordecai were so new and mysterious to
Jacob--they carried such a burden of obscure threat--it was as if the
patient, indulgent companion had turned into something unknown and
terrific: the sunken dark eyes and hoarse accents close to him, the
thin grappling fingers, shook Jacob's little frame into awe, and while
Mordecai was speaking he stood trembling with a sense that the house
was tumbling in and they were not going to have dinner any more. But
when the terrible speech had ended and the pinch was relaxed, the shock
resolved itself into tears; Jacob lifted up his small patriarchal
countenance and wept aloud. This sign of childish grief at once
recalled Mordecai to his usual gentle self: he was not able to speak
again at present, but with a maternal action he drew the curly head
toward him and pressed it tenderly against his breast. On this Jacob,
feeling the danger well-nigh over, howled at ease, beginning to imitate
his own performance and improve upon it--a sort of transition from
impulse into art often observable. Indeed, the next day he undertook to
terri