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The house had been built by Seth's grandfather, a stone quarryman, and it, together with the stone quarries on Lake Erie eighteen miles to the north, had been left to his son, Clarence Richmond, Seth's father. Clarence Richmond, a quiet passionate man extraordinarily admired by his neighbors, had been killed in a street fight with the editor of a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
And dragging, as it were, with him the stupefied quarryman, whose companions did not venture to follow at the moment, struck dumb as they were by this new incident, Gabriel rapidly traversed the space which separated him from the choir, opened the iron gate, and, still holding the quarryman by the arm, led him up to the prostrate form of Father d'Aigrigny, and said to him: "There is the victim.
Skedlock came shouldering slowly forward into the cottage, a tall, strong, bright-eyed man, of fifty. His long, massive features were embrowned by habitual exposure to the weather, and he wore the mud-stained fustian dress of a quarryman. He was followed by a healthy lad, about twelve years of age, a kind of pocket-copy of himself.
"It is true," said the quarryman, surprised, after peeping into the room; "where are they, then? We were told there were a dozen of them here. They should have marched with us against the factory, or there'd 'a been a battle, and the Wolves would have tried their teeth!" "If they have not come," said another, "they will come. Let's wait." "Yes, yes; we will wait for them."
During this manoeuvre the quarryman, Ciboule, and others, advanced towards Gabriel, exclaiming, with ferocious joy: "This time we have him. Death to the poisoner!" To save Father d'Aigrigny, Gabriel would have allowed himself to be massacred at the entrance of the choir; but, a little further on, the railing, not above four feet in height, would in another instant be scaled or broken through.
"Ha! ha! ha! it's rather gamey!" said the quarryman, alluding to the infectious and cadaverous odor which this funeral conveyance left behind it. "Here's sport!" exclaimed Ciboule: "the omnibus of the dead will run against the fine coach. Hurrah! the rich folks will smell death." Indeed, the wagon was now directly in front of the carriage, and at a very little distance from it.
"Brother!" said the holy man Giovanni; "it is not just or right you should hale out so much stone, and win so little bread." Then the quarryman rose to his feet and pointing, "Master Monk," said he, "what see you up yonder on the hill?" "Brother, I see the walls of the City." "And above them?" "Above them I see the roofs of the houses, which crown the ramparts." "And higher still?"
The resistance of the victim redoubled the rage of the assailants. Cries of murderous import resounded with new violence. The quarryman again rushed upon Father d'Aigrigny, saying, "Follow me, friends! this lasts too long. Let us make an end of it." Father d'Aigrigny saw that he was lost.
Ask any quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
To abandon the half-broken door, to run to Father d'Aigrigny, to lift him in his arms, and drag him within the railing of the choir, was for the young priest an action rapid as thought; for he closed the gate of the choir just at the instant that the quarryman and his band, having finished breaking down the door, rushed in a body into the church.
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