dow, and there Cis brought a quilt
and pillow, her own room being unbearably close and hot. As for Johnnie,
quite openly and boldly he shouldered his roll of bedding and took it to
the roof! (For after what Father Pat had told them that day, could he,
being a boy, fail to do the daring thing? Also, were they not now under
the protecting care of a red-headed fighter?)

Arrived on the roof, he did not lie down, but walked to and fro. A
far-off band was playing in the summer night, at some pier or in an open
space, and its music could be faintly heard. Children were shouting as
they returned from the Battery. The grind of street cars came in low
waves, not unlike the rhythmic beat of the seas which he had never seen.
He shut his ears to every sound. Eastward loomed up the iron network of
the bridges, delicate and beautiful against the starlit sky. South, and
near by, clustered the masts of scores of ships. North and West were
the sky-piercing tops of the city's highest buildings. Sights as well as
sounds were softened and glorified by the night, and by distance. But he
saw--as he heard--nothing of what was around him. He felt himself lifted
high above it all--away from it.

That was because his spirit was uplifted. Just as Big Tom, with his
harsh methods, his ignorance, his lack of sympathy and his surly tongue,
could bring out any trait that was bad in him, and at the same time
plant a few that did not exist, just so could Father Pat, kindly, wise,
gentle, gracious and manly, bring out every trait that was good. And for
a while at least, the priest had downed and driven out every vestige of
hatred and bitterness and revenge from the boy's heart.

Johnnie did not even think of Barber, or what the longshoreman had done
that day. In his brain was a picture which thrilled and held him, if at
the same time it tortured him--a picture that he saw too keenly, and
that would not go away. It was of that brave Englishwoman, face to face
with her executioners.

What a story!

He shook his head over it, comparing it with _Treasure Island_ and all
the others, and wishing he had it written down, and marveling again over
the rare courage of its heroine. To be scolded and whipped was one
thing; it was quite another to be stood up against a wall in front of a
line of guns. And he remembered that he--a boy--had not been able, this
very day, to take even a strapping! What if he had been asked to accept
death?

How far away--yes, as if