“You may go your own way,” said the mother, not quite pleasantly. “Young folks are that headstrong! I can’t look for my children to be better than other folks’. If they are as good, it’s as much as one need expect in this world.”
Flemild had been busily tying on a red hood while her mother spoke, and signing to her little sister to do the same. Then the elder girl took from a corner, where it hung on a hook, a budget or pail of boiled leather, a material then much used for many household vessels now made of wood or metal: and the girls went out into the narrow street.
The street was called Kepeharme Lane, and the city was Oxford. This lane ran, in old diction, from the Little Bayly to Fish Street—in modern language, from New Inn Hall Street to Saint Aldate’s, slightly south of what is now Queen Street, and was then known as the Great Bayly. The girls turned their backs on Saint Aldate’s, and went westwards, taking the way towards the Castle, which in 1159 was not a ruined fortress, but an aristocratic mansion, wherein the great De Veres held almost royal state.
“Why don’t you like Saint Martin’s Well, Flemild?” demanded the child, with childish curiosity.
“Oh, for lots of reasons,” answered her sister evasively.
“Tell me one or two.”
“Well, there is always a crowd there towards evening. Then, very often, there are ragamuffins on Penniless Bench (Note 2) that one does not want to come too near. Then—don’t you see, we have to pass the Jewry?”
“What would they do to us?” asked the child.
“Don’t talk about it!” returned her sister, with a shudder. “Don’t you know, Derette, the Jews are very, very wicked people? Hasn’t Mother told you so many a time? Never you go near them—now, mind!”
“Are they worse than we are?”