"And why?" Shears asked. "Why, gentlemen? I'll tell ye!—I'll tell ye!—orders from R-rome! You mark my words—orders from Rome!"
Apprehension grew. A society was formed, with Shears at its head, to protect the village, and assist, if need be, the State itself. Meetings were held—secret and extraordinary sessions—in the Odd Fellow's Block. Watches were set on the priest's house and on St. Peter's. Resolute men stood nightly in the shrubbery near the church lest guns and cartridges should be added to the stores already there. Zealous Protestant matrons of the neighborhood supplied hot coffee to the midnight sentinels. All emergencies had been provided for. At a given signal—three pistol-shots in quick succession, and the same repeated at certain intervals—the Guards of Liberty would assemble, armed, and march at once in two divisions, a line of skirmishers under Tommy Morgan, the light-weight champion of Grassy Fordshire, followed by the main body in command of Shears. No one, however, was to fire a shot, Shears said—"not a shot, gentlemen, till you can see the whites of their eyes. Remember your forefathers!"
Every night now half the town pulled down its curtains and opened doors with the gravest caution.
"Who's there?"
"Peters, you fool."
"Oh, come in, Peters. I thought it might be—"
"I know: you thought it might be the Pope."
It was considered wise to take no chances. Assassination, it was widely known, had ever been a favorite method with conspirators, especially at Rome, and Shears made it plain, in the light of history, that "the vast fabric," as he loved to call the Romish world, was composed of men who, certain of absolution, would murder their dearest friends if so commanded by cipher orders from the Holy See!
Meanwhile, in Grassy Ford, friendships of years were crumbling. Neighbors passed each other without a word; some sneered, some jeered, some quarrelled openly in the street, and there were fisticuffs at Riley's, and in the midst of this civil strife some one remembered—Shears himself, no doubt—that Dago pictures hung shamelessly on the walls of a public school-room!
"Michael the Angelo" had been a Catholic!