Blood showed, but with it a blaze of wrath so terrible and yet so silent, that hands which were uplifted did not fling their stones. Aymery’s sword was out. He struck his beast with the spurs, and rode straight into the thick of the crowd. And though he smote only with the flat of the blade, they tumbled over each other in their hurry to give him room, while those who were safe stood open-mouthed, staring like stupid sheep.
Aymery rode through them as he would have ridden through a cornfield, swinging his sword, and laughing, the terrible laughter of a man who has no pity. No sooner did the rabble see his back, than their courage came again, the courage of dogs that yap at a horse’s heels. They scampered after him, shouting, screaming, pelting him as they ran. Thorn-in-the-Thumb, with a bloody poll from the flat of Aymery’s sword, panted along with the very first, her apron full of filth that she had brought with her from her kitchen, and kept gloatingly until too late. But Aymery never turned his head, and leaving the slobbering pack behind, rode at a canter out of Battle town.
CHAPTER XXIV
One day early in March when dust and dead leaves were whirling everywhere, old Fulcon the baker, the meanest man—so it was said—in Reigate town, went to and fro along the passage beside his house, carrying in faggots that had been unloaded from a tumbril in the street. The carter had thrown the wood against the wall, knowing that Fulcon would not give him so much as a mug of water for helping to carry the faggots into the shed behind the bakehouse.
Fulcon went to and fro along the passage like a brown crab, a man whose back seemed built for burdens, and whose bowed legs and hairy chest gave promise of great strength. He carried the faggots two at a time, and neighbours who loitered to watch him at work saw nothing but the sheaves of wood crawling along upon a knotty pair of legs. The boys of Reigate, who hated the baker because he had good apple trees and used a stick vigorously in defending the fruit, called him “tortoise,” and “snail in the shell.” Sometimes a boy would make a dash and pretend to try the snatching of a loaf from the stone counter of the little shop. But Fulcon had a dog who was as surly and as wide awake as his master. Nor was it to be wondered at that dog Ban had a sour temper, since the number of stones that were surreptitiously thrown at him would have paved the path in old Fulcon’s garden.
The baker had come near the end of the load, and had disappeared up the passage, leaving the last two faggots lying on the footway. He came back, picking up the odd bits of stick that littered the stones. A bent body seemed such a habit with Fulcon that his eyes often saw nothing more than the two yards of mother earth before his feet. Hence he had already laid a hand to one of the remaining faggots before he saw the grey folds of a cloak spread out under his very nose.
Fulcon straightened up, and showed his natural attitude towards the world by closing a big brown fist. He saw a woman sitting upon one of the faggots, a woman in a grey cloak with the hood drawn over her head. The woman’s back was turned to him, and by the stoop of her shoulders she seemed very tired.
Fulcon took her for a beggar, and Fulcon hated beggars even more than boys.
“Get up,” said he.
And since she did not stir he repeated the command.