Dr. Wright's telephone rang early next morning. The doctor was prompt to respond. His practice had not yet reached the stage that rendered the telephone a burden. His young wife stood beside him, listening with eager hope in her wide-open brown eyes.
"Yes," said the doctor. "Oh, it's you. Delighted to hear your ring." "No, not so terribly. The rush doesn't begin till later in the day." "Not at all. What can I do for you?" "Certainly, delighted." "What? Right away?" "Well, say within an hour."
"Who is it?" asked his wife, as the doctor hung up the phone. "A new family?"
"No such luck," replied the doctor. "This has been a frightfully healthy season. But the spring promises a very satisfactory typhoid epidemic."
"Who is it?" said his wife again, impatiently.
"Your friend Mrs. French, inviting me to an expedition into the foreign colony."
"Oh!" She could not keep the disappointment out of her tone. "I think Mrs. French might call some of the other doctors."
"So she does, lots of them. And most of them stand ready to obey her call."
"Well," said the little woman at his side, "I think you are going too much among those awful people."
"Awful people?" exclaimed the doctor. "It's awfully good practice, I know. That is, in certain lines. I can't say there is very much variety. When a really good thing occurs, it is whisked off to the hospital and the big guns get it."
"Well, I don't like your going so much," persisted his wife. "Some day you will get hurt."
"Hurt?" exclaimed the doctor. "Me?"
"Oh, I know you think nothing can hurt you. But a bullet or a knife can do for you as well as for any one else. Supposing that terrible man—what's his name?—Kalmar—had struck you instead of the Polak, where would you be?"
"The question is, where would he be?" said the doctor with a smile. "As for Kalmar, he's not too bad a sort; at least there are others a little worse. I shouldn't be surprised if that fellow Rosenblatt got only a little less than he deserved. Certainly O'Hara let in some light upon his moral ulcers."
"Well, I wish you would drop them, anyway," continued his wife.
"No, you don't," said the doctor. "You know quite well that you would root me out of bed any hour of the night to see any of their kiddies that happened to have a pain in their little tumtums. Between you and Mrs. French I haven't a moment to devote to my large and growing practice."
"What does she want now?" It must be confessed that her tone was slightly impatient.
"Mrs. French has succeeded in getting the excellent Mrs. Blazowski to promise for the tenth time, I believe, to allow some one, preferably myself, to take her eczematic children to the hospital."
"Well, she won't."
"I think it is altogether likely. But why do you think so?"
"Because you have tried before."
"Never."
"Well, Mrs. French has, and you were with her."
"That is correct. But to-day I shall adopt new tactics. Mrs. French's flank movements have broken down. I shall carry the position with a straight frontal attack. And I shall succeed. If not, my dear, that little fur tippet thing which you have so resolutely refused to let your eyes rest upon as we pass the Hudson's Bay, is yours."
"I don't want it a bit," said his wife. "And you know we can't afford it."
"Don't you worry, little girl," said the doctor cheerfully, "practice is looking up. My name is getting into the papers. A few more foreign weddings with attendant killings and I shall be famous."
At the Blazowski shack Mrs. French was waiting the doctor, and in despair. A crowd of children appeared to fill the shack and overflow through the door into the sunny space outside, on the sheltered side of the house.
The doctor made his way through them and passed into the evil-smelling, filthy room. For Mrs. Blazowski found it a task beyond her ability to perform the domestic duties attaching to the care of seven children and a like number of boarders in her single room. Mrs. French was seated on a stool with a little child of three years upon her knee.
"Doctor, don't you think that these children ought to go to the hospital to-day?" she said, as the doctor entered.
"Why, sure thing; they must go. Let's look at them."
He tried to take the little child from Mrs. French's knee, but the little one vehemently objected.
"Well, let's look at you, anyway," said the doctor, proceeding to unwind some filthy rags from the little one's head. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed in a low voice, "this is truly awful!"
The hair was matted with festering scabs. The ears, the eyes, the fingers were full of running sores.
"I had no idea this thing had gone so far," he said in a horrified voice.
"What is it?" said Mrs. French. "Is it—"
"No, not itch. It is the industrious and persevering eczema pusculosum, known to the laity as salt rheum of the domestic variety."
"It has certainly got worse this last week," said Mrs. French.
"Well, this can't go on another day, and I can't treat her here. She must go. Tell your mother," said the doctor in a decided tone to a little girl of thirteen who stood near.
Mrs. Blazowski threw up her hands with voluble protestation. "She says they will not go. She put grease on and make them all right."
"Grease!" exclaimed the doctor. "I should say so, and a good many other things too! Why, the girl's head is alive with them! Heavens above!" said the doctor, turning to Mrs. French, "she's running over with vermin! Let's see the other."
He turned to a girl of five, whose head and face were even more seriously affected with the dread disease.
"Why, bless my soul! This girl will lose her eyesight! Now look here, these children must go to the hospital, and must go now. Tell your mother what I say."
Again the little girl translated, and again the mother made emphatic reply.
"What does she say?"
"She say she not let them go. She fix them herself. Fix them all right."
"Perhaps we better wait, Doctor," interposed Mrs. French. "I'll talk to her and we'll try another day."
"No," said the doctor, catching up a shawl and wrapping it around the little girl, "she's going with me now. There will be a scrap, and you will have to get in. I'll back you up."
As the doctor caught up the little child, the mother shouted, "No, no! Not go!"
"I say yes," said the doctor; "I'll get a policeman and put you all in prison. Tell her."
The threat made no impression upon the mother. On the contrary, as the doctor moved toward the door she seized a large carving-knife and threw herself before him. For a moment or two they stood facing each other, the doctor uncertain what his next move should be, but determined that his plan should not fail this time. It was Mrs. French who interposed. With a smile she laid her hand upon the mother's arm.
"Tell her," she said to the little girl, "that I will go with the children, and I promise that no hurt shall come to them. And I will bring them back again safe. Your mother can come and see them to-morrow—to-day. The hospital is a lovely place. They will have nice toys, dolls, and nice things to eat, and we'll make them better."
Rapidly, almost breathlessly, and with an eager smile on her sweet face, Mrs. French went on to describe the advantages and attractions of the hospital, pausing only to allow the little girl to translate.
At length the mother relented, her face softened. She stepped from the door, laying down her knife upon the table, moved not by the glowing picture of Mrs. French's words, but by the touch upon her arm and the face that smiled into hers. Once more the mother spoke.
"Will you go too?" interpreted the little girl.
"Yes, surely. I go too," she replied.
This brought the mother's final surrender. She seized Mrs. French's hand, and bursting into loud weeping, kissed it again and again. Mrs. French put her arms around the weeping woman, and unshrinking, kissed the tear-stained, dirty face. Dr. Wright looked on in admiring silence.
"You are a dead sport," he said. "I can't play up to that; but you excite my ambition. Get a shawl around the other kiddie and come along, or I'll find myself kissing the bunch."
Once more he started toward the door, but the mother was before him, talking and gesticulating.
"What's the row now?" said the doctor, turning to the little interpreter.
"She says she must dress them, make them clean."
"It's a big order," said the doctor, "but I submit."
With great energy Mrs. Blazowski proceeded to prepare her children for their momentous venture into the world. The washing process was simple enough. From the dish-pan which stood upon the hearth half full of dirty water and some of the breakfast dishes, she took a greasy dish-cloth, wrung it out carefully, and with it proceeded to wash, not untenderly, the festering heads, faces and fingers of her children, resorting from time to time to the dish-pan for a fresh supply of water. This done, she carefully dried the parts thus diligently washed with the handkerchief which she usually wore about her head. Then pinning shawls about their heads, she had her children ready for their departure, and gave them into Mrs. French's charge, sobbing aloud as if she might never see them more.
"Well," said the doctor, as he drove rapidly away, "we're well out of that. I was just figuring what sort of hold would be most fatal to the old lady when you interposed."
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. French. "They're very fond of their children, these Galicians, and they're so suspicious of us. They don't know any better."
As they passed Paulina's house, the little girl Irma ran out from the door.
"My mother want you very bad," she said to Mrs. French.
"Tell her I'll come in this afternoon," said Mrs. French.
"She want you now," replied Irma, with such a look of anxiety upon her face that Mrs. French was constrained to say, "Wait one moment, Doctor. I'll see what it is. I shall not keep you."
She ran into the house, followed by the little girl. The room was full of men who stood about in stolid but not unsympathetic silence, gazing upon Paulina, who appeared to be prostrated with grief. Beside her stood the lad Kalman, the picture of desolation.
"What is it?" cried Mrs. French, running to her. "Tell me what is the matter."
Irma told the story. Early that morning they had gone to the jail, but after waiting for hours they were refused admission by the guard.
"A very cross man send us away," said the girl. "He say he put us in jail too. We can see our fadder no more."
Her words were followed by a new outburst of grief on the part of Paulina and the two children.
"But the Judge said you were to see him," said Mrs. French in surprise. "Wait for me," she added.
She ran out and told the doctor in indignant words what had taken place, a red spot glowing in each white cheek.
"Isn't it a shame?" she cried when she had finished her story.
"Oh, it's something about prison rules and regulations, I guess," said the doctor.
"Prison rules!" exclaimed Mrs. French with wrath rare in her. "I'll go straight to the Judge myself."
"Get in," said the doctor, taking up the lines.
"Where are you going? We can't leave these poor things in this way," the tears gathering in her eyes and her voice beginning to break.
"Not much," said the doctor briskly; "we are evidently in for another scrap. I don't know where you will land me finally, but I'm game to follow your lead. We'll go to the jail."
Mrs. French considered a moment. "Let us first take these children to the hospital and then we shall meet Paulina at the jail."
"All right," said the doctor, "tell them so. I am at your service."
"You are awfully good, Doctor," said the little lady, her sweet smile once more finding its way to her pale face.
"Ain't I, though?" said the doctor. "If the spring were a little further advanced you'd see my wings sprouting. I enjoy this. I haven't had such fun since my last football match. I see the finish of that jail guard. Come on."
Within an hour the doctor and Mrs. French drove up to the jail. There, at the bleak north door, swept by the chill March wind, and away from the genial light of the shining sun, they found Paulina and her children, a shivering, timid, shrinking group, looking pathetically strange and forlorn in their quaint Galician garb.
The pathos of the picture appeared to strike both the doctor and his friend at the same time.
"Brute!" said the doctor, "it's some beast of an understrapper. He might have let them in, anyway. I'll see the head turnkey."
"Isn't it terribly sad?" replied Mrs. French.
The doctor rang the bell at the jail door, prepared for battle.
"I want to see Mr. Cowan."
The guard glanced past the doctor, saw the shrinking group behind him and gruffly announced, "This is not the hour for visitors."
"I want to see Mr. Cowan," repeated the doctor slowly, looking the guard steadily in the eye. "Is he in?"
"Come in," said the guard sullenly, allowing the doctor and his friend to enter, and shutting the door in the faces of the Galicians.
In a few moments Mr. Cowan appeared, a tall athletic man, kindly of face and of manner. He greeted Mrs. French and the doctor warmly.
"Come into the office," he said; "come in."
"Mr. Cowan," said Mrs. French, "there is a poor Galician woman and her children outside the door, the wife and children of the man who was condemned yesterday. The Judge told them they could see the prisoner to-day."
"The hour for visitors," said Mr. Cowan, "is three in the afternoon."
"Could you not let her in now? She has already waited for hours at the door this morning, and on being refused went home broken-hearted. She does not understand our ways and is very timid. I wish you could let her in now while I am here."
Mr. Cowan hesitated. "I should greatly like to oblige you, Mrs. French. You know that. Sit down, and I will see. Let that woman and her children in," he said to the guard.
The guard went sullenly to the door, followed by Mrs. French.
"Come in here," he said in a gruff voice.
Mrs. French hurried past him, took Paulina by the arm, and saying, "Come in and sit down," led her to a bench and sat beside her. "It's all right," she whispered. "I am sure you can see your husband. Tell her," she said to Irma.
In a short time Mr. Cowan came back.
"They may see him," he said. "It is against all discipline, but it is pretty hard to resist Mrs. French," he continued, turning to the doctor.
"It is quite useless trying," said the doctor; "I have long ago discovered that."
"Come," said that little lady, leading Paulina to the door of the cell.
The guard turned the lock, shot back the bolts, opened the door and motioning with his hand, said gruffly to Paulina, "Go in."
The woman looked into the cell in shrinking fear.
"Go on," said Mrs. French in an encouraging voice, patting her on the shoulder, "I will wait here."
Clinging to one another, the woman and children passed in through the door which the guard closed behind them with a reverberating clang. Mrs. French sat on the bench outside, her face cast down, her eyes closed. Now and then through the grating of the door rose and fell a sound of voices mingled with that of sobs and weeping, hearing which, Mrs. French covered her face with her hands, while the tears trickled down through her fingers.
As she sat there, the door-bell rang and two Galician men appeared, seeking admission.
"We come to see Kalmar," said one of them.
Mrs. French came eagerly forward. "Oh, let them come in, please. They are friends of the prisoner. I know them."
Without a word the guard turned from her, strode to the office where Mr. Cowan sat in conversation with the doctor, and in a few moments returned with permission for the men to enter.
"Sit down there," he said, pointing to a bench on the opposite side of the door from that on which Mrs. French was sitting.
Before many minutes had elapsed, the prisoner appeared at the door of his cell with Paulina and his children.
"Would you kindly open the door?" he said in a courteous tone to the guard. "They wish to depart."
The guard went toward the door, followed by Mrs. French, who stood waiting with hands outstretched toward the weeping Paulina. As the door swung open, the children came forth, but upon the threshold Paulina paused, glanced into the cell, ran back and throwing herself at the prisoner's feet, seized his hand and kissed it again and again with loud weeping.
For a single instant the man yielded her his hand, and then in a voice stern but not unkind, he said, "Go. My children are in your keeping. Be faithful."
At once the woman rose and came back to the door where Mrs. French stood waiting for her.
As they passed on, the guard turned to the men and said briefly, "Come."
As they were about to enter the cell, the boy suddenly left Paulina's side, ran to Simon Ketzel and clutching firm hold of his hand said, "Let me go with you."
"Go back," said the guard, but the boy still clung to Ketzel's hand.
"Oh, let him go," said Mrs. French. "He will do no harm." And the guard gave grudging permission.
With a respectful, almost reverential mien, the men entered the cell, knelt before the prisoner and kissed his hand. The moments were precious and there was much to say and do, so Kalmar lost no time.
"I have sent for you," he said, "first to give you my report which you will send back to headquarters."
Over and over again he repeated the words of his report, till he was certain that they had it in sure possession.
"This must go at once," he said.
"At once," replied Simon.
"In a few weeks or months," continued the prisoner in a low voice, "I expect to be free. Siberia could not hold me, and do you think that any prison in this country can? But this report must go immediately."
"Immediately," said Simon again.
"Now," said Kalmar solemnly, "there is one thing more. Our cause fails chiefly because of traitors. In this city is a traitor. My oath demands his death or mine. If I fail, I must pass the work on to another. It is for this I have called you here. You are members of our Brotherhood. What do you say?"
The men stood silent.
"Speak!" said Kalmar in a low stern voice. "Have you no words?"
But still they stood silent and distressed, looking at each other.
"Tell me," said Kalmar, "do you refuse the oath?"
"Master," said Joseph Pinkas sullenly, "this is a new country. All that we left behind. That is all well for Russia, but not for Canada. Here we do not take oath to kill."
"Swine!" hissed Kalmar with unutterable scorn. "Why are you here? Go from me!"
From his outstretched hand Joseph fell back in sudden fear. Kalmar strode to the door and rattled it in its lock.
"This man wishes to go," he said, as the guard appeared. "Let him go."
"What about the others?" said the guard.
"Permit them to remain for a few moments," said Kalmar, recovering the even tone of his voice with a tremendous effort.
"Now, Simon Ketzel," he said, turning back to the man who stood waiting him in fear, "what is your answer?"
Simon took his hand and kissed it. "I will serve you with my money, with my life. I am all Russian here," smiting on his breast, "I cannot forget my countrymen in bondage. I will help them to freedom."
"Ah," said Kalmar, "good. Now listen. This Rosenblatt betrayed us, brought death and exile to many of our brothers and sisters. He still lives. He ought to die. What do you say?"
"He ought to die," answered Simon.
"The oath is laid upon me. I sought the privilege of executing vengeance; it was granted me. I expect to fulfil my oath, but I may fail. If I fail," here he bent his face toward that of Simon Ketzel, his bloodshot eyes glowing in his white face like red coals, "if I fail," he repeated, "is he still to live?"
"Do you ask me to kill him?" said Simon in a low voice. "I have a wife and three children. If I kill this man I must leave them. There is no place for me in this country. There is no escape. I must lay upon my children that burden forever. Do you ask me to do this? Surely God will bring His sure vengeance upon him. Let him go into the hands of God."
"Let him go?" said Kalmar, his breath hissing through his shut teeth. "Listen, and tell me if I should let him go. Many years ago, when a student in the University, I fell under suspicion, and without trial was sent to prison by a tyrannical Government. Released, I found it difficult to make a living. I was under the curse of Government suspicion. In spite of that I succeeded. I married a noble lady and for a time prospered. I joined a Secret Society. I had a friend. He was the rejected suitor of my wife. He, too, was an enthusiast for the cause of freedom. He became a member of my Society and served so well that he was trusted with their most secret plans. He sold them to the Government, seeking my ruin. The Society was broken up and scattered, the members, my friend included, arrested and sent to prison, exile and death. Soon he was liberated. I escaped. In a distant border town I took up my residence, determined, when opportunity offered, to flee the country with my wife and two infant children, one a babe in his mother's arms. At this time my friend discovered me. I had no suspicion of him. I told him my plans. He offered to aid me. I gave him the money wherewith to bribe the patrol. Once more he betrayed me. Our road lay through a thick forest. As we drove along, a soldier hailed us. I killed him and we dashed forward, only to find another soldier waiting. We abandoned our sleigh and took to a woodcutter's track through the forest. We had only a mile to go. There were many tracks. The soldier pursued us through the deep snow, firing at random. A bullet found a place in my wife's heart. Ah! My God! She fell to the snow, her babe in her arms. I threw myself at her side. She looked up into my face and smiled. 'I am free at last,' she said. 'Farewell, dear heart. The children—leave me—carry them to freedom.' I closed her eyes, covered her with snow and fled on through the forest, and half frozen made my way across the border and was safe. My children I left with friends and went back to bring my wife. I found blood tracks on the snow, and bones." He put his hands over his face as if to shut out the horrid picture, then flinging them down, he turned fiercely upon Simon. "What do you say? Shall I let him go?"
"No," said Simon, reaching out both his hands. "By the Lord God Almighty! No! He shall die!"
Kalmar tore open his shirt, pulled out a crucifix.
"Will you swear by God and all the saints that if I fail you will take my place?"
Simon hesitated. The boy sprang forward, snatched the crucifix from his father's hand, pressed his lips against it and said in a loud voice, "I swear, by God and all the saints."
The father started back, and for a few moments silently contemplated his boy. "What, boy? You? You know not what you say."
"I do know, father. It was my mother you left there in the snow. Some day I will kill him."
"No, no, my boy," said the father, clasping him in his arms. "You are your father's son, your mother's son," he cried. "You have the heart, the spirit, but this oath I shall not lay upon you. No, by my hand he shall die, or let him go." He stood for some moments silent, his head leaning forward upon his breast. "No," he said again, "Simon is right. This is a new land, a new life. Let the past die with me. With this quarrel you have nothing to do. It is not yours."
"I will kill him," said the boy stubbornly, "I have sworn the oath. It was my mother you left in the snow. Some day I will kill him."
"Aha! boy," said the father, drawing him close to his side, "my quarrel is yours. Good! But first he is mine. When my hand lies still in death, you may take up the cause, but not till then. You hear me?"
"Yes, father," said the boy.
"And you promise?"
"I promise."
"Now farewell, my son. A bitter fate is ours. A bitter heritage I leave you!" He sank down upon the bench, drew his boy toward him and said brokenly, "Nay, nay, it shall not be yours. I shall free you from it. In this new land, let life be new with you. Let not the shadow of the old rest upon you." He gathered the boy up in his strong arms and strained him to his breast. "Now farewell, my son. Ah! God in Heaven!" he cried, his tears raining down upon the boy's face, "must I give up this too! Ah, those eyes are her eyes, that face her face! Is this the last? Is this all? How bitter is life!" He rocked back and forward on the bench, his boy's arms tight about his neck. "My boy, my boy! the last of life I give up here! Keep faith. This," pulling out the miniature, "I would give you now, but it is all I have left. When I die I will send it to you. Your sister I give to your charge. When you are a man guard her. Now go. Farewell."
The guard appeared at the door.
"Come, you must go. Time's up," he said roughly.
"Time is up," cried the father, "and all time henceforth is useless to me. Farewell, my son!" kissing him. "You must go from me. Don't be ashamed of your father, though he may die a prisoner or wander an exile."
The boy clung fast to his father's neck, drawing deep sobbing breaths.
"Boy, boy," said the father, mingling his sobs with those of his son, "help me to bear it!"
It was a piteous appeal, and it reached the boy's heart. At once he loosened one hand from its hold, put it up and stroked his father's face as his sobs grew quiet. At the touch upon his face, the father straightened himself up, gently removed his son's clinging arm from his neck.
"My son," he said quietly, "we must be men. The men of our blood meet not death so."
Immediately the boy slipped from his father's arms and stood erect and quiet, looking up into the dark face above him watchful for the next word or sign. The father waved his hand toward the door.
"We now say farewell," he said quietly. He stooped down, kissed his son gravely and tenderly first upon the lips, then upon the brow, walked with him to the barred door.
"We are ready," he said quietly to the guard who stood near by.
The boy passed out, and gave his hand to Paulina, who stood waiting for him.
"Simon Ketzel," said Kalmar, as he bade him farewell, "you will befriend my boy?"
"Master, brother," said Simon, "I will serve your children with my life." He knelt, kissed the prisoner's hand, and went out.
That afternoon, the name of Michael Kalmar was entered upon the roll of the Provincial Penitentiary, and he took up his burden of life, no longer a man, but a mere human animal driven at the will of some petty tyrant, doomed to toil without reward, to isolation from all that makes life dear, to deprivation of the freedom of God's sweet light and air, to degradation without hope of recovery. Before him stretched fourteen long years of slow agony, with cruel abundance of leisure to feed his soul with maddening memories of defeated vengeance, with fearful anxieties for the future of those dear as life, with feelings of despair over a cause for which he had sacrificed his all.
Before summer had gone, Winnipeg was reminded of the existence of the foreign colony by the escape from the Provincial Penitentiary of the Russian prisoner Kalmar. The man who could not be held by Siberian bars and guards found escape from a Canadian prison easy. That he had accomplices was evident, but who they were could not be discovered. Suspicion naturally fell upon Simon Ketzel and Joseph Pinkas, but after the most searching investigation they were released and Winnipeg went back to its ways and forgot. The big business men rebuilding fortunes shattered by the boom, the little business men laying foundations for fortunes to be, the women within the charmed circle of Society bound to the whirling wheel of social functions, other women outside and striving to beg, or buy, or break their way into the circle, and still other women who cared not a pin's head whether they were within or without, being sufficient for themselves, the busy people of the churches with their philanthropies, their religious activities, striving to gather into their several folds the waifs and strays that came stumbling into their city from all lands—all alike, unaware of the growing danger area in their young city, forgot the foreign colony, its problems and its needs.
Meantime, summer followed winter, and winter summer, the months and years went on while the foreign colony grew in numbers and more slowly in wealth. More slowly in wealth, because as an individual member grew in wealth he departed from the colony and went out to make an independent home for himself in one of the farming colonies which the Government was establishing in some of the more barren and forbidding sections of the country; or it may be, loving the city and its ways of business, he rapidly sloughed off with his foreign clothes his foreign speech and manner of life, and his foreign ideals as well, and became a Canadian citizen, distinguished from his cosmopolitan fellow citizen only by the slight difficulty he displayed with some of the consonants of the language.
Such a man was Simon Ketzel. Simon was by trade a carpenter, but he had received in the old land a good educational foundation; he had, moreover, a shrewd head for affairs, and so he turned his energies to business, and with conspicuous success. For in addition to all his excellent qualities, Simon possessed as the most valuable part of his equipment a tidy, thrifty wife, who saved what her husband earned and kept guard over him on feast days, saved and kept guard so faithfully that before long Simon came to see the wisdom of her policy and became himself a shrewd and sober and well-doing Canadian, able to hold his own with the best of them.
His sobriety and steadiness Simon owed mostly to his thrifty wife, but his rapid transformation into Canadian citizenship he owed chiefly to his little daughter Margaret. It was Margaret that taught him his English, as she conned over her lessons with him in the evenings. It was Margaret who carried home from the little Methodist mission near by, the illustrated paper and the library book, and thus set him a-reading. It was Margaret that brought both Simon and Lena, his wife, to the social gathering of the Sunday School and of the church. It was thus to little Margaret that the Ketzels owed their introduction to Canadian life and manners, and to the finer sides of Canadian religion. And through little Margaret it was that those greatest of all Canadianising influences, the school and the mission, made their impact upon the hearts and the home of the Ketzel family. And as time went on it came to pass that from the Ketzel home, clean, orderly, and Canadian, there went out into the foul wastes about, streams of healing and cleansing that did their beneficent work where they went.
One of these streams reached the home of Paulina, to the great good of herself and her family. Here, again, it was chiefly little Margaret who became the channel of the new life, for with Paulina both Simon and Lena had utterly failed. She was too dull, too apathetic, too hopeless and too suspicious even of her own kind to allow the Ketzels an entrance to her heart. But even had she not been all this, she was too sorely oppressed with the burden of her daily toil to yield to such influence as they had to offer. For Rosenblatt was again in charge of her household. In a manner best known to himself, he had secured the mortgage on her home, and thus became her landlord, renting her the room in which she and her family dwelt, and for which they all paid in daily labour, and dearly enough. Rosenblatt, thus being her master, would not let her go. She was too valuable for that. Strong, patient, diligent, from early dawn till late at night she toiled and moiled with her baking and scrubbing, fighting out that ancient and primitive and endless fight against dirt and hunger, beaten by the one, but triumphing over the other. She carried in her heart a dull sense of injustice, a feeling that somehow wrong was being done her; but when Rosenblatt flourished before her a formidable legal document, and had the same interpreted to her by his smart young clerk, Samuel Sprink, she, with true Slavic and fatalistic passivity, accepted her lot and bent her strong back to her burden without complaint. What was the use of complaint? Who in all the city was there to care for a poor, stupid, Galician woman with none too savoury a reputation? Many and generous were the philanthropies of Winnipeg, but as yet there was none that had to do with the dirt, disease and degradation that were too often found in the environment of the foreign people. There were many churches in the city rich in good work, with many committees that met to confer and report, but there was not yet one whose special duty it was to confer and to report upon the unhappy and struggling and unsavoury foreigner within their city gate.
Yes, there was one. The little Methodist mission hard by the foreign colony had such a committee, a remarkable committee in a way, a committee with no fine-spun theories of wholesale reform, a committee with no delicate nostril to be buried in a perfumed handkerchief when pursuing an investigation (as a matter of fact, that committee had no sense of smell at all), a committee of one, namely, John James Parsons, the Methodist missionary, and he worked chiefly with committees of one, of which not the least important was little Margaret Ketzel.
It was through Margaret Ketzel that Parsons got his first hold of Paulina, by getting hold of her little girl Irma. For Margaret, though so much her junior in years and experience, was to Irma a continual source of wonder and admiration. Her facility with the English speech, her ability to read books, her fine manners, her clean and orderly home, her pretty Canadian dress, her beloved school, her cheery mission, all these were to Irma new, wonderful and fascinating. Gradually Irma was drawn to that new world of Margaret's, and away from the old, sordid, disorderly wretchedness of her own life and home.
After much secret conference with all the Ketzels, and much patient and skilful labour on the part of the motherly Lena, a great day at length arrived for Irma. It was the day on which she discarded the head shawl with the rest of the quaint Galician attire, and appeared dressed as a Canadian girl, discovering to her delighted friends and to all who knew her, though not yet to herself, a rare beauty hitherto unnoticed by any. Indeed, when Mr. Samuel Sprink, coming in from Rosenblatt's store to spend a few hurried minutes in gorging himself after his manner at the evening meal, allowed himself time to turn his eyes from his plate and to let them rest upon the little maid waiting upon his table, the transformation from the girl, slatternly, ragged and none too clean, that was wont to bring him his food, to this new being that flitted about from place to place, smote him as with a sudden blow. He laid down the instruments of his gluttony and for a full half minute forgot the steaming stew before him, whose garlic-laden odours had been assailing his nostrils some minutes previously with pungent delight. Others, too, of that hungry gorging company found themselves disturbed in their ordinary occupation by this vision of sweet and tender beauty that flitted about them, ministering to their voracity.
To none more than to Rosenblatt himself was the transformation of Irma a surprise and a mystery. It made him uneasy. He had an instinctive feeling that this was the beginning of an emancipation that would leave him one day without his slaves. Paulina, too, would learn the new ways; then she and the girl, who now spent long hours of hard labour in his service, would demand money for their toil. The thought grieved him sore. But there was another thought that stabbed him with a keener pain. Paulina and her family would learn that they need no longer fear him, that they could do without him, and then they would escape from his control. And this Rosenblatt dreaded above all things else. To lose the power to keep in degradation the wife and children of the man he hated with a quenchless hatred would be to lose much of the sweetness of life. Those few terrible moments when he had lain waiting for the uplifted knife of his foe to penetrate his shrinking eyeballs had taken years from him. He had come back to his life older, weaker, broken in nerve and more than ever consumed with a thirst for vengeance. Since Kalmar's escape he lived in daily, hourly fear that his enemy would strike again and this time without missing, and with feverish anxiety he planned to anticipate that hour with a vengeance which would rob death of much of its sting.
So far he had succeeded only partially. Paulina and Irma he held in domestic bondage. From the boy Kalman, too, he exacted day by day the full tale of his scanty profits made from selling newspapers on the street. But beyond this he could not go. By no sort of terror could he induce Paulina to return to the old conditions and rent floor space in her room to his boarders. At her door she stood on guard, refusing admittance. Once, indeed, when hard pressed by Rosenblatt demanding entrance, she had thrown herself before him with a butcher knife in her hand, and with a look of such transforming fierceness on her face as drove him from the house in fear of his life. She was no longer his patient drudge, but a woman defending, not so much her own, as her husband's honour, a tigress guarding her young.
Never again did Rosenblatt attempt to pass through that door, but schooled himself to wait a better time and a safer path to compass his vengeance. But from that moment, where there had been merely contempt for Paulina and her family, there sprang up bitter hatred. He hated them all—the woman who was his dupe and his slave, but who balked him of his revenge; the boy who brought him the cents for which he froze during the winter evenings at the corner of Portage and Main, but who with the cents gave him fierce and fearless looks; and this girl suddenly transformed from a timid, stupid, ill-dressed Galician child, into a being of grace and loveliness and conscious power. No wonder that as he followed her with his eye, noting all this new grace and beauty, he felt uneasy. Already she seemed to have soared far beyond his sordid world and far beyond his grasp. Deep in his heart he swore that he would find means to bring her down to the dirt again. The higher her flight, the farther her fall and the sweeter would be his revenge.
"What's the matter wit you, boss? Gone back on your grub, eh?"
It was his clerk, Samuel Sprink, whose sharp little eyes had not failed to note the gloomy glances of his employer.
"Pretty gay girl, our Irma has come to be," continued the cheerful Samuel, who prided himself on his fine selection of colloquial English. "She's a beaut now, ain't she? A regular bird!"
Rosenblatt started. At his words, but more at the admiration in Samuel's eyes, a new idea came to him. He knew his clerk well, knew his restless ambition, his insatiable greed, his intense selfishness, his indomitable will. And he had good reason to know. Three times during the past year his clerk had forced from him an increase of salary. Indeed, Samuel Sprink, young though he was and unlearned in the ways of the world, was the only man in the city that Rosenblatt feared. If by any means Samuel could obtain a hold over this young lady, he would soon bring her to the dust. Once in Samuel's power, she would soon sink to the level of the ordinary Galician wife. True, she was but a girl of fifteen, but in a year or so she would be ready for the altar in the Galician estimation.
As these thoughts swiftly flashed through his mind, Rosenblatt turned to Samuel Sprink and said, "Yes, she is a fine girl. I never noticed before. It is her new dress."
"Not a bit," said Samuel. "The dress helps out, but it is the girl herself. I have seen it for a long time. Look at her. Isn't she a bird, a bird of Paradise, eh?"
"She will look well in a cage some day, eh, Samuel?"
"You bet your sweet life!" said Samuel.
"Better get the cage ready then, Samuel," suggested Rosenblatt. "There are plenty bird fanciers in this town."
The suggestion seemed to anger Samuel, who swore an English oath and lapsed into silence.
Irma heard, but heeded little. Rosenblatt she feared, Samuel Sprink she despised. There had been a time when both she and Paulina regarded him with admiration mingled with awe. Samuel Sprink had many attractions. He had always plenty of money to jingle, and had a reputation for growing wealth. He was generous in his gifts to the little girl—gifts, it must be confessed, that cost him little, owing to his position as clerk in Rosenblatt's store. Then, too, he was so clever with his smart English and his Canadian manners, so magnificent with his curled and oily locks, his resplendent jewelry, his brilliant neckties. But that was before Irma had been brought to the little mission, and before she had learned through Margaret Ketzel and through Margaret's father and mother something of Canadian life, of Canadian people, of Canadian manners and dress. As her knowledge in this direction extended, her admiration and reverence for Samuel Sprink faded.
The day that Irma discarded her Galician garb and blossomed forth as a Canadian young lady was the day on which she was fully cured of her admiration for Rosenblatt's clerk. For such subtle influence does dress exercise over the mind that something of the spirit of the garb seems to pass into the spirit of the wearer. Self-respect is often born in the tailor shop or in the costumer's parlour. Be this as it may, it is certain that Irma's Canadian dress gave the final blow to her admiration of Samuel Sprink, and child though she was, she became conscious of a new power over not only Sprink, but over all the boarders, and instinctively she assumed a new attitude toward them. The old coarse and familiar horseplay which she had permitted without thought at their hands, was now distasteful to her. Indeed, with most of the men it ceased to be any longer possible. There were a few, however, and Samuel Sprink among them, who were either too dull-witted to recognise the change that had come to the young girl, or were unwilling to acknowledge it. Samuel was unwilling also to surrender his patronising and protective attitude, and when patronage became impossible and protection unnecessary, he assumed an air of bravado to cover the feeling of embarrassment he hated to acknowledge, and tried to bully the girl into her former submissive admiration.
This completed the revulsion in Irma's mind, and while outwardly she went about her work in the house with her usual cheerful and willing industry, she came to regard her admirer and would be patron with fear, loathing, and contempt. Of this, however, Samuel was quite unaware. The girl had changed in her manner as in her dress, but that might be because she was older, she was almost a woman, after the Galician standard of computation. Whatever the cause, to Samuel the change only made her more fascinating than ever, and he set himself seriously to consider whether on the whole, dowerless though she would be, it would not be wise for him to devote some of his time and energy to the winning of this fascinating young lady for himself.
The possibility of failure never entered Samuel's mind. He had an overpowering sense of his own attractions. The question was simply should he earnestly set himself to accomplish this end? Without definitely making up his mind on this point, much less committing himself to this object, Samuel allowed himself the pleasurable occupation of trifling with the situation. But alas for Samuel's peace of mind! and alas for his self-esteem! the daily presence of this fascinating maiden in her new Canadian dress and with her new Canadian manners, which appeared to go with the dress, quite swept him away from his ordinary moorings, and he found himself tossed upon a tempestuous sea, the helpless sport of gusts of passion that at once surprised and humiliated him. It was an intolerably painful experience for the self-centred and self-controlled Samuel; and after a few months of this acute and humiliating suffering he was prepared to accept help from almost any course.
At this point Rosenblatt, who had been keeping a watchful eye upon the course of events, intervened.
"Samuel, my boy," he said one winter night when the store was closed for the day, "you are acting the fool. You are letting a little Slovak girl make a game of you."
"I attend to my own business, all the same," growled Samuel.
"You do, Samuel, my boy, you do. But you make me sorry for you, and ashamed."
Samuel grunted, unwilling to acknowledge even partial defeat to the man whom he had beaten more than once in his own game.
"You desire to have that little girl, Samuel, and yet you are afraid of her."
But Samuel only snarled and swore.
"You forget she is a Galician girl."
"She is Russian," interposed Samuel, "and she is of good blood."
"Good blood!" said Rosenblatt, showing his teeth like a snarling dog, "good blood! The blood of a murdering Nihilist jail bird!"
"She is of good Russian blood," said Samuel with an ugly look in his face, "and he is a liar who says she is not."
"Well, well," said Rosenblatt, turning from the point, "she is a Galician in everything else. Her mother is a Galician, a low-bred Galician, and you treat the girl as if she were a lady. This is not the Galician manner of wooing. A bolder course is necessary. You are a young man of good ability, a rising young man. You will be rich some day. Who is this girl without family, without dower to make you fear or hesitate? What says the proverb? 'A bone for my dog, a stick for my wife.'"
"Yes, that is all right," muttered Samuel, "a stick for my wife, and if she were my wife I would soon bring her to time."
"Ho, ho," said Rosenblatt, "it is all the same, sweetheart and wife. They are both much the better for a stick now and then. You are not the kind of man to stand beggar before a portionless Slovak girl, a young man handsome, clever, well-to-do. You do not need thus to humble yourself. Go in, my son, with more courage and with bolder tactics. I will gladly help you."
As a first result of Rosenblatt's encouraging advice, Samuel recovered much of his self-assurance, which had been rudely shattered, and therefore much of his good humour. As a further result, he determined upon a more vigorous policy in his wooing. He would humble himself no more. He would find means to bring this girl to her place, namely, at his feet.
The arrival of a Saint's day brought Samuel an opportunity to inaugurate his new policy. The foreign colony was rigidly devoted to its religious duties. Nothing could induce a Galician to engage in his ordinary avocation upon any day set apart as sacred by his Church. In the morning such of the colony as adhered to the Greek Church, went en masse to the quaint little church which had come to be erected and which had been consecrated by a travelling Archbishop, and there with reverent devotion joined in worship, using the elaborate service of the Greek rite. The religious duties over, they proceeded still further to celebrate the day in a somewhat riotous manner.
With the growth of the colony new houses had been erected which far outshone Paulina's in magnificence, but Paulina's still continued to be a social centre chiefly through Rosenblatt's influence. For no man was more skilled than he in the art of promoting sociability as an investment. There was still the full complement of boarders filling the main room and the basement, and these formed a nucleus around which the social life of a large part of the colony loved to gather.
It was a cold evening in February. The mercury had run down till it had almost disappeared in the bulb and Winnipeg was having a taste of forty below. Through this exhilarating air Kalman was hurrying home as fast as his sturdy legs could take him. His fingers were numb handling the coins received from the sale of his papers, but the boy cared nothing for that. He had had a good afternoon and evening; for with the Winnipeg men the colder the night the warmer their hearts, and these fierce February days were harvest days for the hardy newsboys crying their wares upon the streets. So the sharp cold only made Kalman run the faster. Above him twinkled the stars, under his feet sparkled the snow, the keen air filled his lungs with ozone that sent his blood leaping through his veins. A new zest was added to his life to-night, for as he ran he remembered that it was a feast day and that at his home there would be good eating and dance and song. As he ran he planned how he would avoid Rosenblatt and get past him into Paulina's room, where he would be safe, and where, he knew, good things saved from the feast for him by his sister would be waiting him. To her he would entrust all his cents above what was due to Rosenblatt, and with her they would be safe. For by neither threatening nor wheedling could Rosenblatt extract from her what was entrusted to her care, as he could from the slow-witted Paulina.
Keenly sensitive to the radiant beauty of the sparkling night, filled with the pleasurable anticipation of the feast before him, vibrating in every nerve with the mere joy of living his vigorous young life, Kalman ran along at full speed, singing now and then in breathless snatches a wild song of the Hungarian plains. Turning a sharp corner near his home, he almost overran a little girl.
"Kalman!" she cried with a joyous note in her voice.
"Hello! Elizabeth Ketzel, what do you want?" answered the boy, pulling up panting.
"Will you be singing to-night?" asked the little girl timidly.
"Sure, I will," replied the lad, who had already mastered in the school of the streets the intricacies of the Canadian vernacular.
"I wish I could come and listen."
"It is no place for little girls," said Kalman brusquely; then noting the shadow upon the face of the child, he added, "Perhaps you can come to the back window and Irma will let you in."
"I'll be sure to come," said Elizabeth to herself, for Kalman was off again like the wind.
Paulina's house was overflowing with riotous festivity. Avoiding the front door, Kalman ran to the back of the house, and making entrance through the window, there waited for his sister. Soon she came in.
"Oh, Kalman!" she cried, throwing her arms about him and kissing him, "such a feast as I have saved for you! And you are cold. Your poor fingers are frozen."
"Not a bit of it, Irma," said the boy—they always spoke in Russian, these two, ever since the departure of their father—"but I am hungry, oh! so hungry!"
Already Irma was flying about the room, drawing from holes and corners the bits she had saved from the feast for her brother. She spread them on the bed before him.
"But first," she cried, "I shall bring to the window the hot stew. Paulina," the children always so spoke of her, "has kept it hot for you," and she darted through the door.
After what seemed to Kalman a very long time indeed, she appeared at the window with a covered dish of steaming stew.
"What kept you?" said her brother impatiently; "I am starved."
"That nasty, hateful, little Sprink," she said. "Here, help me through." She looked flushed and angry, her "burnin' brown eyes" shining like blazing coals.
"What is the matter?" said Kalman, when he had a moment's leisure to observe her.
"He is very rough and rude," said the girl, "and he is a little pig."
Kalman nodded and waited. He had no time for mere words.
"And he tried to kiss me just now," she continued indignantly.
"Well, that's nothing," said Kalman; "they all want to do that."
"Not for months, Kalman," protested Irma, "and never again, and especially that little Sprink. Never! Never!"
As Kalman looked at her erect little figure and her flushed face, it dawned on him that a change had come to his little sister. He paused in his eating.
"Irma," he said, "what have you done to yourself? Is it your hair that you have been putting up on your head? No, it is not your hair. You are not the same. You are—" he paused to consider, "yes, that's it. You are a lady."
The anger died out of Irma's brown eyes and flushed face. A soft and tender and mysterious light suffused her countenance.
"No, I am not a lady," she said, "but you remember what father said. Our mother was a lady, and I am going to be one."
Almost never had the children spoken of their mother. The subject was at once too sacred and too terrible for common speech. Kalman laid down his spoon.
"I remember," he said after a few moments' silence. A shadow lay upon his face. "She was a lady, and she died in the snow." His voice sank to a whisper. "Wasn't it awful, Irma?"
"Yes, Kalman dear," said his sister, sitting down beside him and putting her arms about his neck, "but she had no pain, and she was not afraid."
"No," said the boy with a ring in his voice, "she was not afraid; nor was father afraid either." He rose from his meal.
"Why, Kalman," exclaimed his sister, "you are not half done your feast. There are such lots of nice things yet."
"I can't eat, Irma, when I think of that—of that man. I choke here," pointing to his throat.
"Well, well, we won't think of him to-night. Some day very soon, we shall be free from him. Sit down and eat."
But the boy remained standing, his face overcast with a fierce frown.
"Some day," he muttered, more to himself than to his sister, "I shall kill him."
"Not to-day, at any rate, Kalman," said his sister, brightening up. "Let us forget it to-night. Look at this pie. It is from Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and this pudding."
The boy allowed his look to linger upon the dainties. He was a healthy boy and very hungry. As he looked his appetite returned. He shook himself as if throwing off a burden.
"No, not to-night," he said; "I am not going to stop my feast for him."
"No, indeed," cried Irma. "Come quick and finish your feast. Oh, what eating we have had, and then what dancing! And they all want to dance with me," she continued,—"Jacob and Henry and Nicholas, and they are all nice except that horrid little Sprink."
"Did you not dance with him?"
"Yes," replied his sister, making a little face, "I danced with him too, but he wants me to dance with no one else, and I don't like that. He makes me afraid, too, just like Rosenblatt."
"Afraid!" said her brother scornfully.
"No, not afraid," said Irma quickly. "But never mind, here is the pudding. I am sorry it is cold."
"All right," said the boy, mumbling with a full mouth, "it is fine. Don't you be afraid of that Sprink; I'll knock his head off if he harms you."
"Not yet, Kalman," said Irma, smiling at him. "Wait a year or two before you talk like that."
"A year or two! I shall be a man then."
"Oh, indeed!" mocked his sister, "a man of fifteen years."
"You are only fifteen yourself," said Kalman.
"And a half," she interrupted.
"And look at you with your dress and your hair up on your head, and—and I am a boy. But I am not afraid of Sprink. Only yesterday I—"
"Oh, I know you were fighting again. You are terrible, Kalman. I hear all the boys talking about you, and the girls too. Did you beat him? But of course you did."
"I don't know," said her brother doubtfully, "but I don't think he will bother me any more."
"Oh, Kalman," said his sister anxiously, "why do you fight so much?"
"They make me fight," said the boy. "They try to drive me off the corner, and he called me a greasy Dook. But I showed him I am no Doukhobor. Doukhobors won't fight."
"Tell me," cried his sister, her face aglow—"but no, I don't want to hear about it. Did you—how did you beat him? But you should not fight so, Kalman." In spite of herself she could not avoid showing her interest in the fight and her pride in her fighting brother.
"Why not?" said her brother; "it is right to fight for your rights, and if they bother me or try to crowd me off, I will fight till I die."
But Irma shook her head at him.
"Well, never mind just now," she cried. "Listen to the noise. That is Jacob singing; isn't it awful? Are you going in?"
"Yes, I am. Here is my money, Irma, and that is for—that brute. Give it to Paulina for him. I can hardly keep my knife out of him. Some day—" The boy closed his lips hard.
"No, no, Kalman," implored his sister, "that must not be, not now nor ever. This is not Russia, or Hungary, but Canada."
The boy made no reply.
"Hurry and wash yourself and come out. They will want you to sing. I shall wait for you."
"No, no, go on. I shall come after."
A shout greeted the girl as she entered the crowded room. There was no one like her in the dances of her people.
"It is my dance," cried one.
"Not so; she is promised to me."
"I tell you this mazurka is mine."
So they crowded about her in eager but good-natured contention.
"I cannot dance with you all," cried the girl, laughing, "and so I will dance by myself."
At this there was a shout of applause, and in a moment more she was whirling in the bewildering intricacies of a pas seul followed in every step by the admiring gaze and the enthusiastic plaudits of the whole company. As she finished, laughing and breathless, she caught sight of Kalman, who had just entered.
"There," she exclaimed, "I have lost my breath, and Kalman will sing now."
Immediately her suggestion was taken up on every hand.
"A song! A song!" they shouted. "Kalman Kalmar will sing! Come, Kalman, 'The Shepherd's Love.'" "No, 'The Soldier's Bride.'" "No, no, 'My Sword and my Cup.'"
"First my own cup," cried the boy, pressing toward the beer keg in the corner and catching up a mug.
"Give him another," shouted a voice.
"No, Kalman," said his sister in a low voice, "no more beer."
But the boy only laughed at her as he filled his mug again.
"I am too full to sing just now," he cried; "let us dance," and, seizing Irma, he carried her off under the nose of the disappointed Sprink, joining with the rest in one of the many fascinating dances of the Hungarian people.
But the song was only postponed. In every social function of the foreign colony, Kalman's singing was a feature. The boy loved to sing and was ever ready to respond to any request for a song. So when the cry for a song rose once more, Kalman was ready and eager. He sprang upon a beer keg and cried, "What shall it be?"
"My song," said Irma, who stood close to him.
The boy shook his head. "Not yet."
"'The Soldier's Bride,'" cried a voice, and Kalman began to sing. He had a beautiful face with regular clean-cut features, and the fair hair and blue grey eyes often seen in South Eastern Russia. As he sang, his face reflected the passing shades of feeling in his heart as a windless lake the cloud and sunlight of a summer sky. The song was a kind of Hungarian "Young Lochinvar." The soldier lover, young and handsome, is away in the wars; the beautiful maiden, forced into a hateful union with a wealthy land owner, old and ugly, stands before the priest at the altar. But hark! ere the fateful vows are spoken there is a clatter of galloping hoofs, a manly form rushes in, hurls the groom insensible to the ground, snatches away the bride and before any can interfere, is off on a coal-black steed, his bride before him. Let him follow who dares!
The boy had a voice of remarkable range and clearness, and he rendered the song with a verve and dramatic force remarkable in one of his age. The song was received with wild cheers and loud demands for more. The boy was about to refuse, when through the crowding faces, all aglow with enthusiastic delight, he saw the scowling face of Rosenblatt. A fierce rage seized him. He hesitated no longer.
"Yes, another song," he cried, and springing to the side of the musicians he hummed the air, and then took his place again upon the beer keg.
Before the musicians had finished the introductory bars, Irma came to his side and entreated, "Oh, Kalman, not that one! Not that one!"
But it was as though he did not hear her. His face was set and white, his blue eyes glowed black. He stood with lips parted, waiting for the cue to begin. His audience, to most of whom the song was known, caught by a mysterious telepathy the tense emotion of the boy, and stood silent and eager, all smiles gone from their faces. The song was in the Ruthenian tongue, but was the heart cry of a Russian exile, a cry for freedom for his native land, for death to the tyrant, for vengeance on the traitor. Nowhere in all the Czar's dominions dared any man sing that song.