“Ah, master, I’ve not yet been enamored fully of this woman. I feel a stranger to her, but I feel the meaning of the finer things thou hast just spoken. I have the need of which thou dost speak, and my life, like a babe, often now goes out crying, ‘Mother, mother.’ As we lay, yesterday night, beneath the quiet firmament, I gazed up and asked a sign of God in prayer. It was a baby cry I know, but I saw one star that staid and staid above me. It seemed to be warmed with reddish tintings, and I thought that its glitterings were proof that it was taking part in some anthem of the morning stars. Then I dreamed that my mother was in the star all luminous, holy, happy, looking down in constant guardianship of her outcast boy! Oh, can a child ever be outcast utterly to mother? Can it be that she, who so loved me and so loved God, can hate me now, loving her and loving God as I do? God knows my heart! Will he not tell her all? Her constant mandate to me was, ‘keep a loyal heart, an undefiled conscience.’ I’ve tried to do both, but then her soul loathed apostacy. Does she loathe me for leaving Israel’s fold? My heart all torn, cries to-day, ‘Mother, mother!’ I’m sure she can not hate me. To-morrow I hope I shall pray at her grave.” Then the vehement Israelite fell on the ground in an ecstasy, utterly unconscious of his companion, and, kissing the earth as if already he was by that parent’s resting place, wildly called, “Mother! my mamma! oh, I’m so lonely, so unhappy! Let me come! God, God, let me go to mother! Mother, I did it as thou saidst. I’m no leper. I’m not a heretic! I love thee. I love God. I’ve kept pure. I’ve trusted God’s care in all my trouble. Mamma, my mamma, let Ichabod embrace thee!” Exhausted and quivering he there lay. The knight was silent. It was holy ground, and the whole thicket about seemed to be glowing with the fire that burns without consuming. The travelers were encamped again under the sky, and it was now night. A shooting star sped through the constellation of Orion and fell down toward the Dead Sea. “An omen, Jew.” “Explain, brother knight.” “Life; bright, short, ending in gloom.” “Look at the fixed stars.” “They preach fate.” “Perhaps, but they have the majority. Few fall; I think, too, Someone holds them.” “Thy hopefulness colors thy faith.” “Thy murmurings run toward final madness, knight; the Rabbis, good men, so taught me.” “If one star falls may not all? If Providence hold them, why does one escape?” “Thou hast heard that the giant Orion having lost his eyes, afterward regained his sight by turning his sockets toward the rising sun; that meteor we saw shot through the constellation Orion. Look up.” “A happy simile and pungent thrust, Jew.”