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.

"Go on, Jeremy," said some one impatiently.

Jeremy proceeded.

"He always journeyed towards Bethlehem, and whenever he saw a little
child, a little baby, he would say to the mother that it foretold him
what it would be like for him at the Holy Land. And of the cradles he
would always say they were just the shape of the manger where the baby
Christ was laid.

"He was very dear to mothers, you may be sure, and he never lacked
their blessing.

"He travelled very slowly, for in Moscow a motor-car ran over his
foot, and he always needed a strong staff. He was ill-treated
sometimes in the towns, where the dogs bit him and the street children
aimed stones. But he never took offence. He smiled, and thought how
little his sufferings had been compared with those of the saints.

"So he grew old.

"'You are old, grandfather; you will never reach Jerusalem,' the
peasant women told him. But he always smiled and said, 'As God wills.
Perhaps if I die I shall see it sooner.'

"And he died, poor, wretched, uncared for, in the streets of a little
village near Odessa, and children came and beat off the hungry dogs
from his body with sticks.

"'What is this?' said one policeman to another.

"'A _Bogo-moletz_ (God-prayer) dead, that's all,' was the reply.

"'No money?'

"'None. If he had any his pockets have been picked.'

"By his passport he belonged to Petchora province, far away. No one
knew him. No one claimed him.

"'It means he must be buried at the public expense,' said the head man
of the village, and spat upon the ground.

"In the whole village only the coffin maker rejoiced, and he had small
cause, since a pauper's coffin costs but a shilling.

"'He must be buried on the common,' said the head man. 'There's no
room in th