The man got up looking dazed and foolish, with his hair full of forget-me-nots, into which he had plunged in his fall. The children gathered round him hooting and screaming; and he stared at them grinning vacantly without a word. From shouts the boys soon went on to taunts of "Shockhead! Shockhead!" but still the ragged man stood and grinned, until at last two of them caught sight of the squirrel and began to hunt it about the field. Then the man's whole demeanour changed in an instant; and charging down upon the boys he gave them a push which laid both of them flat on the ground, while the squirrel ran hastily up his leg and nestled in terror against his cheek. Then he began to look, with the air of a hunted beast, for some means of escape. The two boys got up whimpering, more frightened than hurt, and at the sight of their tears the merriment of the rest turned instantly to anger. The boys remembered suddenly that their eel was gone, and crowded round the man, yelling continuously, "Where's our ale? Where's our ale? You've stole our ale." And the ragged man with drooping shoulders and white scared face slunk along the fence under the road, looking for a weak place by which he might scramble out of the field. At last he found one and made a bound to climb up it; but the bank was too steep and he fell back. The boys seeing that he was afraid of them began to raise the cry of thief, or, as they called it, thafe. Half a dozen of them ran round to the gate of the meadow to cut him off, while the rest yelled round him like a pack of baying hounds, with cries of "Thafe! Thafe! Thafe!" The man made a second attempt to climb up the bank, and this time reached the top, where he lay for a few moments sprawling, amid the jeers of his tormentors; and Tommy Fry, who was the scapegrace of the village, picked up a clod of earth and threw it at him. The clod, which was full of little stones, struck him full on the cheek and drew blood. The man gave a little whine of pain, and struggled quickly to his feet; but the boys were in the road before him, and, worse than that, the women hearing the cry of thief were hastening to the spot; for they thought of clean clothes that might be drying on their garden hedges, and, if there be a creature which villagers dread and detest, it is a tramp. The man looked fearfully up and down the road, and saw that it was blocked on every side by hurrying women and children; and then sinking down by the roadside he buried his face in his hands and blubbered aloud, while the squirrel, fully as frightened as he was, nestled close to his bleeding cheek.