THE STEADFAST HEART
erect Angus into a hero. Not so. If he had been one of themselves, if he had been Harold Cuyler or Pazzy Brooks or any lad with whom they had been brought up, played with at recess, and known daily, a hero he might have become, endowed with a dread and terrible greatness. But Angus was an uitlander, an enemy in the nature of things, and therefore to be dealt with as an enemy…. It was a game, a make-believe—but to Angus it was no game….
“We got you,” they shouted, bearing down upon him. “We said we’d git you, and we got you.” So runs the time-honored formula.
Angus was terrified. His knowledge of boyhood was trifling. How could he be aware that these beings of his own age were harmless—were engaged in a game which came naturally to them, the game of harrying a living creature? He backed away from their onslaught until he found himself checked by a store front and could retreat no farther…. On all sides he saw young faces alight with the lust of the hunt….
“We got you…. We got you….” they shouted, and Angus faced them as he would have faced a pack of wolves, not aware that they would have taken to their heels at the first hostile movement on the part of so illustrious a criminal as himself. To him they were as ominous as a
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