“Get up, there,” and he reached out to take her by the cloak.
The woman rose, and overtopped Fulcon by some five inches. She turned and looked at him with great brown eyes that seemed tired with the dust and the wind. The baker stared hard at her, catching the gleam of splendid hair drawn back under the grey hood. The woman’s face had a silence such as one sees on the face of a statue.
“The wood’s mine,” he said, grumbling into his beard, and pointing a very obvious finger.
The woman looked at him, and then at the shop.
“I want bread,” she answered.
Fulcon’s eyes retorted “pay for it.”
The woman had a leather bag in her hand. She felt in it, and brought out money. Fulcon’s frown relaxed instantly. He stooped under the wooden shutter propped up by its bar, picked up a loaf, and handed it to her.
To his astonishment she sat down again on the faggot, as though she had a right there now that she had bought the loaf. Fulcon opened his shrewd but rather sleepy eyes wider, and stared. The words “get up” were again on the tip of his tongue. But he smothered them, picked up the other faggot, and giving a warning whistle to the dog Ban who was lying in the shop, went away up the narrow passage.
When Fulcon returned, he stared still harder, for the dog Ban was sitting with his muzzle resting on the woman’s knee, and looking up steadily into her face. She was breaking the bread slowly, and giving the dog a crust from time to time. Fulcon might have reasoned with her over such extravagance, had he not been the creature of a strong affection with regard to the big brown dog, one of the two living things in the world to whom he grudged nothing.
The baker stood by, scratching his beard, something very much like a smile glimmering in his eyes. Then he gave a half audible chuckle as though the scene seemed peculiarly quaint.