CHAPTER XIII.

AARON COHEN PREACHES A SERMON ON LARGE NOSES.

The fire was burning brightly, and the old cat which they had brought with them to Gosport was stretched at full length upon the hearth rug. The children were gone, and Prissy had received instructions to come again at ten o'clock to extinguish the candles. It may be said of Prissy, in respect of her first visit to the house, that she came in like a lion and went out like a lamb.

It was a habit on Sabbath eve for Aaron to read to his wife something from the general literature of the times, or from the newspapers, and to accompany his reading with shrewd or sympathetic remarks, to which Rachel always listened in delight. Occasionally he read from a book of Hebrew prayers, and commented upon them, throwing a light upon poem and allegory which made their meaning clear to Rachel's understanding. Invariably, also, he blessed her, as Jewish fathers who have not wandered from the paths of orthodoxy bless their children on the Sabbath. Now, as she stood before him, he placed his hand upon her head and said:

"God make thee like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah! May the Eternal bless and preserve thee! May the Eternal cause his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee! May the Eternal lift up his countenance toward thee, and grant thee peace!"

It was something more than a blessing; it was prayer of heartfelt love. Rachel raised her face to his, and they tenderly kissed each other. Then he took his seat on one side of the fire, and she on the other. A prayer book and one of Charles Dickens' stories were on the table, but he did not open them; he had matter for thought, and he was in the mood for conversation. He was in a light humor, which exhibited itself in a quiet laugh, which presently deepened in volume.

"I am thinking of the little girl," he explained to Rachel. "It was amazing the way she puffed out the candles and poked out the fire--quick as lightning. It was the most comical thing! And her black face--and Victoria Regina's sticky fingers! Ha, ha, ha!"

His merriment was contagious, and it drew forth Rachel's; the room was filled with pleasant sound.

"I saw Mr. Whimpole to-day," said Aaron, "and I made him a bow, which he did not return. My Jewish nose offends him. How unfortunate! Yes, my life, no one can dispute that the Jew has a big nose. It proclaims itself; it is a mark and a sign. He himself often despises it--he himself often looks at it in the glass with aversion, 'Why, why have I been compelled to endure this affliction?' he murmurs, and he reflects with envy upon the elegant nose of the Christian. Short-sighted mortal, not to understand that he owes everything to his big nose! A great writer--a learned man who passed the whole of his life in the study of these matters--proclaims the nose to be the foundation or abutment of the brain. What follows? That the larger the nose of a man is the better off for it is the man. Listen, my dear." He took a book from a little nest of bookshelves, and turned over the pages. "'Whoever,' says this learned writer, 'is acquainted with the Gothic arch will perfectly understand what I mean by this abutment; for upon this the whole power of the arch of the forehead rests, and without it the mouth and cheeks would be oppressed by miserable ruins.' He lays down exact laws which govern the beautiful (and therefore large) nose. Its length should equal the length of the forehead, the back should be broad, its outline remarkably definite, the sides well defined, and near the eye it must be at least half an inch in breadth. Such a nose, this great authority declares, is of more worth than a kingdom. It imparts solidity and unity to the whole countenance; it is the mountain--bear in mind, my dear, the mountain--that shelters the fair vales beneath. How proud, then, should I be of my nose, which in some respects answers to this description! Not in all--no, not in all--I am not so vain as to believe that my nose is worth more than a kingdom; but when I am told that a large nose is a sign of sensibility, and of good nature and good humor, I cannot help a glow of conceited satisfaction stealing over me. How many great men have you known with small noses? There are, of course, exceptions, but I speak of the general rule. Our coreligionist, Benjamin Disraeli--look at his nose; look at the noses of all our great Jewish musicians and composers--it is because they are of a proper size that they have become famous. Some time since in London I had the opportunity of looking over a wonderful Bible--six enormous volumes published by Mr. Thomas Macklin nearly a century ago--embellished with grand pictures by the most eminent English artists, and there I saw the figures of Abraham and Jacob and Aaron and Moses, and other ancestors of ours. There is not a small nose on one of the faces of these great patriarchs and prophets; the great painters who drew them had learned from their studies how to delineate the biblical heroes. A big nose is a grand decoration, and I would sooner possess it than a bit of red ribbon in my buttonhole, or a star on my breast. Indeed, my life, I have it--the nose of my forefathers."

Aaron made this declaration in a tone of comic despair. "And having it I will not part with it, except with life."

There was so much playful humor in the dissertation that Rachel laughed outright. Her laugh was the sweetest in the world, and it fell like music on Aaron's heart. He smiled, and there was a gleam in his eyes, and presently he spoke again.

"I am not aware whether you have ever observed the attraction a big nose has for children. Take the most popular drama of all ages, Punch and Judy. Where is the artist who would venture to present Punch with any but an enormous nose? Are the children frightened at it? No, they revel in it. Do they sympathize with Judy when she is slain? Not at all; every whack Punch gives her is greeted with shrieks of laughter--because of his enormous nose. Introduce two strangers to a baby, one with a very small nose, the other with a very big nose. Let them both hold out their arms. Instinctively the baby flies to the man with the large nose. It is Nature's silent voice that instructs the child. He or she--the sex is not material--instinctively knows which is the better nose of the two, which is the most promising nose, the most suggestive of kisses and jumps in the air and cakes and songs, and all that is dear to a child's heart. The test is infallible. Nothing will convince me that you did not marry me because of my big nose."

"Indeed, dear," said Rachel, still laughing, "I hardly think I would have married you without it."

"Then the fact is established. I am about to make a confession to you, Rachel; I am going to tell you the true reasons for my choosing this place to reside in, where I am separated by a long distance from the friends of my youth and manhood, and where you, too, my dear child"--in his moments of tenderness he occasionally addressed her thus--"will, I fear, be for a time without friends to whom you can unbosom yourself."

"I have you, my dear husband," said Rachel in a tone of deep affection, drawing closer to him, and slipping her little hand into his great hand. A fine, large, nervous hand was Aaron Cohen's; a palmister would have seen great possibilities in it. Rachel's hand, despite her domestic work, was the hand of a lady; she took a proper pride in preserving its delicacy and beauty. "I have you, my dear husband," she said.

"Yes, my life, but you used to kiss at least a dozen female friends a day."

"I kissed Prissy and the baby to-night."

"When their faces were washed, I hope. Listen to my confession. Pride and hard-heartedness drove me from the neighborhood in which we were married. A thousand pounds did my dear father--God rest his soul--bequeath to me. It dwindled and dwindled--my own fault. I could not say no. One came to me with a melancholy tale which led to a little loan; another came and another and another--I did not make you acquainted with the extent of my transgressions. My dear, I encouraged the needy ones; I even went out of my way to lend, thinking myself a fine fellow, and flapping my wings in praise of my stupidity. Not half I lent came back to me. Then business began to fall off, and I saw that I was in the wrong groove; I had grown into bad ways, and had I remained much longer in the old neighborhood I should have been left without a penny. I thought of our future, of the injustice I was inflicting upon you. 'I will go,' said I, 'where I am not known, while I still have a little to earn a living with, among strangers who, when they borrow, will give me value in return, and where I shall not have to say to poor friends, "Come to me no more; I am poorer than yourselves." I have been foolish and weak; I will be wise and strong. I will grow rich and hard-hearted.' Yes, my dear, that is what I intend, to grow rich, and my heart will not be oppressed by the sight of suffering it is out of my power to relieve. Rachel, I am not so clever as I pretend to be; to speak the truth, I am afraid I am rather given to crowing; and when it is not alone my own welfare, but the welfare of one so dear to me as you are, that is concerned, I tremble, I begin to doubt whether I have done right. Give me your opinion of the step I have taken."

She gazed at him with serious, loving, trustful eyes.

"It is a wise step, Aaron; I am sure it is. Whatever you do is right, and I am satisfied."

Ten o'clock struck, and a knock at the door announced the faithful Prissy, come to put the fire out. She entered with the baby in her arms, sound asleep. She was flushed and excited, and she held her hand over the right side of her face.

"Victoria ought to be abed," said Rachel, taking a peep at baby.

"She can't go," retorted Prissy, "afore 'er mother's ready to take 'er."

"Where is her mother?" asked Aaron.

"At the Jolly Sailor Boy, enj'ying of 'erself."

"Ah. And where is your aunt?"

"At the Jolly Sailor Boy, too, 'aving a 'arf-quartern. There's been a reg'lar row there about Mrs. Macrory's flannin peddicut."

"What happened to it?"

"It went wrong. Yes, it did. Yer needn't larf. Call me a story, do! I would if I was you!"

"No, no, Prissy," said Aaron in a soothing tone. "How did the flannel petticoat go wrong?"

"Nobody knowed at fust. Aunty does Mrs. Macrory's washing, and a lot more besides, and the things gits mixed sometimes. Aunty can't 'elp that--'ow can she? So Mrs. Macrory's things was took 'ome without the peddicut. Mrs. Macrory she meets aunty at the Jolly Sailor Boy, and begins to kick up about it. 'Where's my peddicut?' she ses. ''Ow should I know?' ses aunty. Then, wot d'yer think? Mrs. Macrory sees somethink sticking out of aunty's dress be'ind, and she pulls at it. 'Why,' she ses, 'you've got it on!' That's wot the row wos about. Aunty didn't know 'ow it come on 'er--she's ready to take 'er oath on that. Aint it rum?"

"Very rum. Put out the fire, Prissy. It is time for all good people to get to bed."

In the performance of this duty Prissy was compelled to remove her hand from her face, and when she rose from the floor it was seen that her right eye was sadly discolored, and that she was in pain.

"O Prissy, poor child!" exclaimed Rachel; "you have been hurt!"

"Yes, mum," said Prissy. "Mrs. Macrory's gal--she's twice as big as me; you should see 'er legs! she ses, 'You're in that job,' she ses, meaning the peddicut; and she lets fly and gives me a one-er on account."

Rachel ran upstairs, and brought down a bottle of gillard water, with which she bathed the bruise, and tied one of her clean white handkerchiefs over it. Prissy stood quite still, her lips quivering; it may have been the gillard water that filled the girl's unbandaged eye with tears.

"That will make you feel easier," said Rachel. "Blow out the candles now, and be here at half-past eight in the morning."

"I'll be sure to be," said Prissy with a shake in her voice.

In the dark Aaron Cohen heard the sound of a kiss.

"Good-night, sir," said the girl.

"Good-night, Prissy," said Aaron.

The chain of the street door was put up, and the shutters securely fastened, and then Aaron and Rachel, hand in hand, went up the dark stairs to their room.

"My dear," said Aaron drowsily a few minutes after he and his wife were in bed, "are you asleep?"

"No, Aaron," murmured Rachel, who was on the borderland of dreams.

"I've been thinking"--he dozed off for a moment or two--"I've been thinking----"

"Yes, my dear?"

"That I wouldn't give Prissy's aunt any flannel petticoats to wash."

Almost before the words had passed his lips sleep claimed him for its own.