f the people in the
rear of the crowd noticed the priest's presence at all. He was glad
enough of that, for suspicion was in the air and he knew it. Right in
his way was Calvalho, who had been one of his trustees and his very
best friend when he first came to the parish. It looked now as if he
had no longer a friend in all the mud-spattered, bare and coal-grimed
town. Calvalho returned his salute with a curt nod. The priest caught
a few words of Slevski's burning appeal to hatred and walked faster,
with that peculiar nervous feeling of danger behind him. He quickened
his steps even more for it.

"Company--oppressors of the poor--traitors"; even these few words,
which followed him, gave the priest the gist of the whole tirade.

The women were in the crowd or hanging about the edges of it. A crash
of glass behind him made the priest turn for an instant, and he saw
that Maria Allish had flung a stone through the bank window. She had a
shawl quite filled with large stones. With the crash came a cheer from
the crowd around Slevski, who could see the bank from their position
in front of the livery stable.

A soldier almost bumped into the priest, as he came running down the
street, gun in hand, followed by half a dozen others. One of them
saluted. "Bad business, Father," he said. "Will the lieutenant live?"

"I am afraid he will not," answered the priest.

"They will surely burn down the company's buildings," said the
soldier. "God! There they go now." And the soldier hurried on.

Later the priest watched the red glow from his window. It reminded him
of blood, and he shuddered.

His old housekeeper called him to his frugal supper.

"I can not go out much now," he said to her. "I am a Pole. What could
a Pole do with these Huns who have no sympathy with him, or the
Italians whose language he can not speak?"

He wondered if he were a coward. Why should he discuss this with his
servant?

"Slevski," she said, "makes the people do what he wants. He cursed me
on the street this morning."

"Yes," said the priest, "he speaks in curses. He has never tried to
speak to God, so he has never learned any other language; and these
men are his property now."

"There will be no one at Mass next Sunday," said the old housekeeper.
"Even the women won't come. They think you are in league with the
soldiers."

"Never mind, Judith," said the priest, "at heart they are good people,
and this will pass away. The women fear God."

"Th