“It’s winter,” said a man’s voice, half-sulky, half-defiant, “and we’ve hardly enough left for ourselves. We don’t want any more mouths here—we’ve more than we can fill as it is.” A murmur of agreement encouraged him and he went on—louder and pushing through the crowd as he spoke. “We fend for our own and he must fend for his. He ought to think himself lucky if we let him go after we’ve taken him on our land. What business had he there?” This time the murmur of agreement was stronger and a second voice called over it: “If we catch him here again he won’t get off so easily!” The assent that followed was more than assent; applause that swelled and grew almost clamorous. The old man stilled it with a lifting of his knotted hand. “Then you won’t have him here? You don’t want him?” The “No” in answer was vigorous; refusal, it seemed, was unanimous. Theodore tried to speak, to explain that all he asked ... but again the knotted hand was lifted. “And are you—for letting him go?” The words dropped out slowly and were followed by a hush—significant as the question itself.... This much was clear to the listener: that behind them lay a fear and a threat. The nature of the threat could be guessed at—since they would not keep him and dared not let him go; but where and what was the motive for the fear that had prompted the slow, sly question and the uneasy silence that followed it?... He heard his own heart-beats in the long uneasy silence—while he sought in vain for the reason of their dread of one man and tried in vain to find words. It seemed minutes—long minutes—and not seconds till a voice made answer from the shadows: “Not if it isn’t safe.” And at the words, as a signal, came voices from this side and that—speech hurried, excited and tumultuous. It wasn’t safe—what did they know of him and how could they prove his story true? He might be a spy—now he knew where to find them, knew they had food, he might come back and bring others with him! When he tried to speak the voices grew louder, over-shouted him—and one man at his side, gesticulating wildly, cried out that they would be mad to let him go, since they could not tell how much he knew. The phrase was taken up, as it seemed in panic—by man after man and woman after woman—they could not tell how much he knew! They pressed nearer as they shouted, their faces closing in on him—spitting, working mouths and angry eyes. They were handling him almost; and when once they handled him—he knew it—the end would be sure and swift. He dared not move, lest fingers went up to his throat. He dared not even cry out. It was the old man who saved him with another call for silence. Not out of mercy—there was small mercy in the lined, dirty face—but because, it seemed, there was yet another point to be considered. “If they came again”—he jerked his head towards the open—“we should be a man the stronger. Now they are stronger than we are—by nearly a dozen....”