Christian socialism -- Fiction; German Americans -- Fiction; Shoemakers -- Fiction
Such an assemblage of lowering brows and sullen, brooding eyes as
followed Tina Kellar to the grave had never been seen in Micklegard; the
men had nothing to do and nowhere to go; they might as well go to the
funeral, they said; and two by two, on foot and silently, they walked
after the coffin, through the streets where once Frank Randolph had
lured away the dead woman’s sister (though only _two_ of them thought of
that), and up the hill to the quiet cemetery where Ernest Clare had
taught Ritter Fritz the duties of true knighthood.
There was silence still, while the body was committed to the ground;
silence through the dull falling of the first clods and the steady
filling-up of the grave; then Paul Kellar cried with a strained, loud,
hoarse voice,—
“Men! brothers! I call upon you for vengeance on the murderers of my
wife!”
A hoarse murmur of assent, more terrible than words, swept over that
sombre crowd; but once again the arms of the pastor were thrown upward,
blackly outlined against the brilliant, clear October sky.
“Not for my daughter!” he cried, “no vengeance for her who bears the
name of Christ! ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!’”
The crowd dispersed, silently and sullenly; they were not quite ready
yet. There was to be a meeting that night, not, however, at Männerchor
Hall; _that_ was a victory which even the Emperor had not been able to
achieve. This, and the knowledge that Louis, his only son, Louis, to
whom he had been both father and mother, that Louis clung to his rival
and condemned his father’s course, filled Karl Metzerott’s tongue with
fire. His rugged features glowed, his strong frame trembled, as he
pictured the rich man’s home, where the cost of one single picture would
have been wealth—nay, length of days, to the bowed figure, old beyond
her years, whose life slowly ebbed from her, as she toiled through the
gorgeous rooms and up and down the wide, richly carpeted stairs.
“We will have revenge, my brothers,” he said; “not now, the time is not
yet. We must be stronger first, then we will call Henry Randolph to
account, then”—
“Then?” cried a wild, shrill voice, as Paul Kellar leaped upon the
platform; “then? I say now! What are they doing now in that gorgeous
palace? Repenting of the murder they have done? I tell you they are
feasting! Feasting while my wife lies yonder on the hillside, while my
children are motherless and my home a desert. The son of the murderer is
to marry the daughter of another, of Dare, the great grain-operator, who
managed that clever corner in wheat which starved thousands! And they
are feasting and making merry!”—His words were lost in a hoarse and
terrible roar.
“Burn down the mill! Let us teach him what poverty means!”
Then Karl Metzerott, carried away from all power of reason or
self-control by the spirit to which he had so long yielded, sprang upon
his feet for the last time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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