Some of the less timorous of the older inhabitants, curious to learn what doctrine this interloper had to proclaim, thrust their way that evening into the City Hall, which was crowded, as the papers said, “to suffocation.”  Not prepossessing, this modern Robespierre; younger than he looked, for life had put its mark on him; once, in the days of severe work in the mines, his body had been hard, and now had grown stout.  In the eyes of a complacent, arm-chair historian he must have appeared one of the, strange and terrifying creatures which, in times of upheaval, are thrust from the depths of democracies to the surface, with gifts to voice the longings and passions of those below.  He did not blink in the light; he was sure of himself, he had a creed and believed in it; he gazed around him with the leonine stare of the conqueror, and a hush came over the hall as he arose.  His speech was taken down verbatim, to be submitted to the sharpest of legal eyes, when was discovered the possession of a power—­rare among agitators—­to pour forth in torrents apparently unpremeditated appeals, to skirt the border of sedition and never transgress it, to weigh his phrases before he gave them birth, and to remember them.  If he said an incendiary thing one moment he qualified it the next; he justified violence only to deprecate it; and months later, when on trial for his life and certain remarks were quoted against him, he confounded his prosecutors by demanding the contexts.  Skilfully, always within the limits of their intelligence, he outlined to his hearers his philosophy and proclaimed it as that of the world’s oppressed.  Their cause was his—­the cause of human progress; he universalized, it.  The world belonged to the “producer,” if only he had the courage to take possession of his own....

Suddenly the inspirer was transformed into the man of affairs who calmly proposed the organization of a strike committee, three members of which were to be chosen by each nationality.  And the resolution, translated into many tongues, was adopted amidst an uproar of enthusiasm.  Until that moment the revolt had been personal, local, founded on a particular grievance which had to do with wages and the material struggle for existence.  Now all was changed; now they were convinced that the deprivation and suffering to which they had pledged themselves were not for selfish ends alone, but also vicarious, dedicated to the liberation of all the downtrodden of the earth.  Antonelli became a saviour; they reached out to touch him as he passed; they trooped into the snowy street, young men and old, and girls, and women holding children in their arms, their faces alight with something never known or felt before.

Such was Antonelli to the strikers.  But to those staid residents of Hampton who had thought themselves still to be living in the old New England tradition, he was the genius of an evil dream.  Hard on his heels came a nightmare troop, whose coming brought to the remembrance of the imaginative the old nursery rhyme:—­“Hark!  Hark!  The dogs do bark, The beggars are come to town.”