His eyes filled as he looked at
it, with the familiar breviary on its wide arm. The crucified Christ
gazed down from His cross at him and seemed to smile; but the priest's
eyes swam with tears, and a great sob burst from him. He opened the
door, but lingered on the threshold. When he passed out on the street
his walk was slow, his lips moving, as he went along with the step of
a man very weary and bending beneath the weight of a Great Something.

The people did not know then that their one dark and muddy street was
that night a Via Dolorosa; that along it a man who loved them dragged
a heavy Cross for their sake; that it ended for him, as had another
sorrowful way ended for his Master, in a cruel Calvary.

Slevski told the whole story before the trap of the gallows was
sprung.

MAC OF THE ISLAND

When the "Boston Boat" drew near Charlottetown I could see Mac waving
me a welcome to the "Island" from the very last inch of standing space
upon the dock. When I grasped his hard and muscular hand fifteen
minutes later, I knew that my old college chum had changed, only
outwardly. True, the stamp of Prince Edward Island, which the natives
call "the Island," as if there were no other, was upon him; but that
stamp really made Mac the man he was. The bright red clay was over his
rough boots. Could any clay be redder? It, with his homespun clothes,
made the Greek scholar look like a typical farmer.

We had dinner somewhere in the town before we left for the farm. It
was a plain, honest dinner. I enjoyed it. Of course, there was meat;
but the mealy potatoes and the fresh cod--oh, such potatoes and
cod--were the best part of it. I then and there began to like the
Island for more reasons than because it had produced Mac.

We drove out of town, across the beautiful river and away into the
country, along red clay roads which were often lined with spruce, and
always with grass cropped down to a lawnlike shortness by the sheep
and kept bright green by the moisture.

"You must enjoy this immensely, you old hermit," I said to Mac, as the
buggy reached the top of a charming hill, overlooking a picture in
which the bright green fields, the dark green spruce, the blue sky and
the bluer waters were blended.

"Yes, I do," replied Mac. "This is Tea Hill. You know I think if I
were in Africa but wanted to write something about home, I could close
my eyes, think of red and green slopes and blue waters and the smell
of haymaking, a