Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/25

20 those in power, are trying to keep the rest of us under their heels; but I am sure that justice hasn't been done in your case, and if things like this keep on happening in our courts, something is going to drop in this country some day."

"I believe you," she replied; "and when it does drop, I pray that the first man it hits will be the one who is responsible for—this."

She turned, with a slight gesture, toward the unobserving and apparently unthinking clod in the wheel-chair. Her face, visible now to the rector, with its glowing eyes and parted lips, was a picture of subdued but vindictive anger.

Apparently the juror thought it time to bring the conversation to an end, for he said:

"Well, I must be going. I just stopped to say I was sorry for you, and to say if I could help you any way I'd be glad to. My name is Samuel Major. I'm a wagon-maker. My shop is around on Mill Street."

He held out his hand to her and she took it.

"Thank you," she said, "for your sympathy and kindness, and for your interference in our behalf. It didn't amount to anything, of course; it couldn't. But it showed where you stood, and that's what we want, nowadays, men who think, and who are not afraid to say what they think. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

He hurried away, but turned back again to ask:

"Are you going to take the case up to a higher court? or haven't you decided about that yet?"

"I have decided," she replied. "I shall not take it up. I'm done with law and lawyers, and trying to get justice through the courts. Hereafter I'll get it in my own way."

It was not until the juror mentioned his name that the clergyman recognized him as an occasional attendant on the services at Christ Church. He had no pew nor sitting; but his children went to the Sunday