Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/87

 bawling “Brick-top!” Let a mendicant with a peg leg make his appearance in town, and he will be harried by shouts of “Limpt,” and more than likely by showers of vegetables…. What is not indigenous to their soil must be enemy. It is a throwback, perhaps, to the day when any stranger was a foe.

But in this descent upon Angus Burke there was more than this—there was imitation, and even encouragement. Last Sunday had taught them the stand they should take; the conversation in their homes had instructed them in how they should behave toward Angus, and last, but by no means negligibly, was Malcolm Crane, the public prosecutor of the county. Crane was a man who could hold a grudge against a child. The acquittal of Angus, he felt, had dimmed his reputation, and he hated Angus. His bitterness, loosed in words, found ready lodgment in his son’s ears, and young Malcolm, planning as boys will plan with his compeers, had laid out a campaign, “to git the murderer.” “I’ll git you,” is a part of boyhood’s ritual. “I’ll git you after school…. I’ll git you when your pa ain’t around….” So Malcolm, Junior, in conference with his fellows, had instructed them in their duty, which was to “git” Angus Burke….

It might be suspected that, boy-like, they would