Aymery struck his horse with the spurs, and the beast leapt his own length, stood quivering a moment, and then went away at a sharp gallop as though he had the devil on his back. Aymery’s eyes looked straight before him, eyes that caught the white glare of an inward fury, and were blind to the outer world. The snow lay white upon the roofs of the little town. Smoke ascended tranquilly into a shimmer of sunlight.
Aymery was not to ride out of Battle town at his own pace; Dom Silvius had seen to that. At the sound of a horn a crowd of figures seemed to start from nowhere; men, women, and children came running together; the whole wasps’ nest was on the wing.
Aymery drew up sharply, for the crowd in front of him filled the street. He did not grasp the meaning of it at first, but stared round at the people as though he were but a chance actor in some chance scene. A stone thrown from the crowd carried a rude hint, striking him upon the shield that hung at his back. And with the throwing of the first stone the whole mob sent up a sudden roar of anger.
“Out, out, seducer!”
“Pelt the sacrilegious dog!”
“Here is Dame Denise’s man, neighbours.”
“Drag him off.”
“Roll him in the mud.”
The uproar and the fury of the fools might have dazed any man for the moment. The crowd came tossing about Aymery’s horse, keeping a coward’s distance, content as yet with stones, and filth, and curses. Thorn-in-the-Thumb and her women were there, obscene and violent, howling like cats, and urging the men on. Some of them cut coarse capers, leering up into the knight’s face.
Aymery sat still in the saddle for a moment, looking neither to right nor left. His lips were white and pressed hard together, his eyes full of that shallow glare that fills the eyes of an angry dog. The yelling and distorted faces began to close upon him. A stone thrown by a man near struck Aymery upon the mouth.