Fulcon went to and fro along the passage like a brown crab³, 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 knotty⁴ 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 bent⁵ 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 hood⁶

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