“What do we wait for, un miracle?  Do we wait for Gaviller’s heart to soften?  We wait a long tam for that I fink, me!  While we wait I think Gaviller get busy.  He say he come and cut our grain.  Will we wait and let him?”

The old man interrupted here:  “If Gaviller put his men on our land we fight,” he said.

“Aha!” cried Jean Bateese.  “He will not wait then.  You say let us cut our grain and store it and wait for one to buy,” he went on.  “What will Gaviller do?  I tell you.  He will go to law!  It is not the first time.  He mak’ the law to serve him.

“We all owe him for goods.  He will send out and get law papers to say because we owe him money for goods our grain is his grain.  If he got law-papers the police come and take our grain for him.  Wat you say to t’at, hein?”

Old Simon was plainly disconcerted.  He turned to Ambrose.  “Will you speak?”

Ambrose’s heart sank.  How is a dead man to sway passionate, living men?  However, he rose with the best assurance he could muster.

“I have only one thing to say,” he began, conscious of the feebleness of his words.  “John Gaviller is a sick man.  I have seen the doctor.  You cannot fight a sick man.  I say do not accept his price—­do not refuse it.  The grain is not ripe yet.  Wait till he is well.”

A murmur of dissent went around the room.  Ambrose being a stranger, there was a note of politeness in it.

Jean Bateese sprang to his feet again.  “Ambrose Doane say wait!” he said.  “He is good man.  We lak him.  But me, I am sick of waiting!

“To-day we hear John Gaviller is sick.  All are sorry.  All forget we have trouble wit’ him.  We wait to hear how he is.  Wa! he say to us right out of his bed dollar-fifty or starve!  Why should we wait till he get well?  He does not wait!”

Another man, a burly, purple-cheeked son of earth, took up the harangue at the point where Jean Bateese dropped it.  This was Jack Mackenzie, Simon said.

“Me, I am sick of waiting, too!” he cried.  “Always we wait, and John Gaviller do what he like!  Why he put down the price of grain?  Why he do everything?  It is to keep us in his debt.  We can work till our backs break, but he fix it so we are still in debt.

“Because we can do not’ing when we are in his debt.  We are his slaves!  We got to break our slave chains.  It is time to act.  Now I say out loud what all are whispering:  let us burn the store!”

Thirty men took a sharp breath between their teeth.  There was a little silence; then quick cries of approval broke out.  The meeting was with the speaker.

Ambrose, thinking of Colina, turned a little sick with apprehension.  Simon rose to still the noise, but Mackenzie held the floor.

“I know w’at Simon Grampierre goin’ to say!” he cried, pointing.  “He goin’ to say if you break the law you fix yourselves.  They send many police and put you all in jail.  Simon Grampierre got good property.  He not want lose it.