"Never mind," said Major Downing, quickly; "we will go on with the parade just as if he were here."
Old Tom saluted and withdrew. He went up stairs and stood on the front steps of the church, looking up at the clear starlit April sky. Presently, however, his reveries were interrupted by the sound of many feet and a sort of distant humming noise, and looking down the avenue, he saw a crowd of men approaching. He thought at first it was a body of street-cleaners or some other gang of night-workmen; but as they came nearer he recognized them as Poles, iron-workers from the mills. There must have been a hundred or more, and half of them carried bludgeons. They did not pass by the church, as old Tom had thought they would, but, seeing him standing there, they paused, and one bearded fellow, who spoke English fairly well, asked, "Is this the Brick Church?"
"Yes," answered the janitor, curtly.
"Is Dunworthy inside?"
"Mr. Dunworthy is not here to-night," continued old Tom.
The crowd grumbled.
"Come off!" shouted another. "We know he's here; he's at a meeting.
"He is not," replied the janitor: and seeing that the men were gradually crowding in from the sidewalk through the iron gates, old Tom went down to them, and said:
"See here, you fellows, I tell you Mr. Dunworthy is not here, and you have got to get out. You are disturbing the meeting."
"Ah-h-h-h!" shouted the crowd, like an angry sea; and a piece of sod, torn up from the grass-plot in front of the church, knocked off the janitor's hat. This angered the old cavalryman, and he gave the men nearest to him a vigorous shove, and tried to close the gates. He was unwise in this, for the Poles seized him, and soon there was a general fight, in which old Tom was the target for every Polander's fist and foot.