Right and left and behind them they saw no one. He stopped. The key went in noiselessly, turned noiselessly, the door opened outward, they felt, instead of the heavy breath of the gaol, the air of the wide night. They stepped into an alley, black as pitch. Gervaise stooped, reinserted the key, and turned it. “Lock Discovery in overnight, anyway! Take the key and drop it in the river with your bundle.”
Joan touched his arm. “There are two men standing yonder by the wall.”
Gervaise nodded. “There’s hope they’re Lantern and the other. We agreed—”
They crept toward the two. Hope changed to certainty. There were some whispered words; then in the darkness the four figures stole forward, away from the prison walls that towered like the very form of Death. The night was black and quiet, but at the mouth of the alley as they left it for the wide darkness of the square they heard voices, and staves striking against the stones, and saw the lanterns of the watch. The pillory was at hand; they drew into its shadow, pressing close beneath the platform.
Swinging lanterns, forms ebon and tawny, footsteps, voices, approached, seemed to envelop them, passed, lessened in bulk toward the High Street. The orange spheres of light dwindled to points, the voices from frightfully hoarse and loud thinned to a murmur afar. The four, Gervaise leading, moved from the pillory, friendly for once, and struck across the considerable open place. The hour was late and the townspeople housed. They saw no one in all the square. But as they came into the shadow of the great church tower they again heard voices nearing them—roistering voices of young men, petty gallants and citizens’ sons, homeward bound from some place of drinking and outcasts’ favours. “The church porch,” motioned Gervaise. Like swallows they sped across and lodged themselves in the shadow-filled, cavernous place.
The roisterers came close, elected, indeed, just here to arrest their steps and finish out a dispute. “Black eyes are best!” averred one. “Grey eyes? Faugh! That vilest Hawthorn witch hath grey eyes! Ha, ha! Eyes like Joan Heron!”
“That she hath not! They are green. A grey eye is well enough! That vile witch’s are green.”
“Grey.”
“I tell thee I saw them, green and wicked! Green beneath red gold hair.”
“Grey! Grey as the sea, and hair like wheat when it is cut.”