This was the signal for a fierce demonstration. In a moment the village was in arms, men rushed for stones, women, hastily leaving the dinner-tables, gathered up every kind of village refuse; and amidst the din of execration and abuse the shopkeepers of Kilkeel climbed on their cars and fled; not, however, without taking with them specimens, more or less decayed, of the _fauna_ and _flora_ of Kilronan, in the shape of eggs redolent of sulphuretted hydrogen, a few dead cats, and such potatoes and other vegetables as could be spared from the Sunday dinner. The people of Kilronan had, of course, a perfect right to annoy and worry their own priests, especially in the cause of Trades-Unionism; but the idea of a lot of well-dressed malcontents coming over from Kilkeel to insult their beloved curate was simply intolerable. Nevertheless, that lonely walk by the sea-cliffs that Sunday afternoon was about the most miserable experience in Father Letheby's life. He did not know whither to turn. Every taunt and insult of these ignorant men came back to sting him. What would it be if the whole thing came to publicity in the courts, and he was made the butt of unjust insinuations by some unscrupulous barrister, or the object of the lofty, moral indignation of the bench! Yet he felt bound, by every law of honor, to pay these men two hundred pounds. He might as well be asked to clear off the national debt. Now and again he paused in his walk, and, leaning on his umbrella, scrutinized the ground in anxious reverie; then he lifted up his eyes to the far horizon, beneath whose thin and misty line boat and captain were sleeping. Then he went on, trying in vain to choke down his emotion. "Star of the Sea! Star of the Sea!" he muttered. Then, half unconsciously: "Stella maris! Stella maris!! Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti surgere qui curat populo!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 7: "Utopian," I suppose, the poor man meant.] CHAPTER XXIX STIGMATA?