§ 3.
His first sensation on returning to consciousness was of being jolted. It was, like most half-realised experiences, on the boundary line between sensation and emotion, an affair almost of the heart. Then gradually it became more physical, the heart-pain separated itself from the body-pain. His body was being jolted, his heart was just sick with the dregs of hate.
Then he saw Orion hanging over him, very low in the windy sky, shaking with frost. His eyes fixed themselves on the constellation, then gradually he became aware of the sides of a cart, of the smell of straw, of the movement of other bodies that sighed and stirred beside him. The physical experience was now complete, and soon the emotional had shaped itself. Memory came, rather sick. He remembered the fight, his terror, the flaming straw, the crowd that constricted and crushed him like a snake. His rage and hate rekindled, but this time without focus—he hated just everyone and everything. He hated the wheels which jolted him, his body because it was bruised, the other bodies round him, the stars that danced above him, those unknown footsteps that tramped beside him on the road.
Where was he? He raised himself on his elbow, and immediately a head looked over the side of the cart.
"Wot's the matter wud you?" asked a gruff voice.
"I want to know where I'm going, surelye."
"You're going to Rye, that's where you're going, just fur a täaste of the rope's end, you young varmint."
The tones were not unkindly, and Reuben plucked up courage.
"Is the fight over?"
"Surelye! It all fizzled out, soon as them beasts saw the constables. Fifty speshul constables sworn in at Rye Town Hall, all of 'em wud truncheons! You couldn't expect any rabble-scrabble to face 'em."