Sewell held his hands up, and though small and well-shaped they were scarred and brown.
"What I want—and it's very little—I can earn with the shovel and the drill. I've given your man his answer, but I'm going farther."
There was a clamour from one part of the crowd. "He's an insect. We've no use for him! Let up, Hall's talking. We're here to hear him!"
"What did I get for my pains?" said Sewell. "That's what the question comes to, and I'll tell you frankly, since, until we or our children bring in the new era, it's all that the man has to expect who believes this world can and ought to be made better. I've been ridden over by U. S. cavalry, and beaten by patrolmen's clubs. I've been hounded out of cities where I lawfully earned my bread, and sand-bagged by hired toughs. That would be a little thing if I were the only victim, but you know—you can read it in your papers almost any day—what happens to the men who have the grit to work as well as to hope for the dawn of better days for down-trodden humanity. You're to wait for it—on the other side of Jordan—your teachers say. Boys, we want it here and now, and it's coming, a little nearer every day. You have got to believe that, and when the outlook grows black get a tighter clinch upon your faith. Was it a shadow and a fancy that the men died for who went down in every struggle for the last ten years?—we needn't go back farther. Right across this prosperous continent you'll find their graves—men shot and sabred, strung to bridges and telegraph poles. Boys, we've been waiting—waiting a long while——"
He broke off abruptly, for a little, stolid park-warden and an equally unimpressed official of the Vancouver police pushed their way through the crowd.
"I guess," said the former, "you'll have to light out of this. You can't hold no meetings here."
The crowd was a Canadian one, good-humouredly tolerant, respectful of constituted authority, and, what was more to the purpose, reasonably contented with their lot. They were also, as usual, somewhat deficient in the quick enthusiasm which is common across the frontier. Had ample time been afforded him the orator might have got hold of them and impressed upon them a due comprehension of their wrongs, but a good many of them were by no means sure that they had very much to complain of as yet. Still, there were angry expostulations.
"Have you any ground for preventing my speaking here?" Sewell asked.
"Yes, sir," said the warden. "I guess we have. It's down in the park charter. You can't peddle those papers either. Call your boys in."
"The men who made those laws, as usual, made them to suit themselves."