“I have uncovered the man’s eyes. A woman’s face is fairer to look at than the inside of a sack. Wait and see whether there is no magic.” Merlin laughed noiselessly. “We are less proud this morning?” he said. CHAPTER XI The men of Sussex were on the march, and Father Merlin rode on a white mule, with Fulk on a forest pony beside him, and the Sussex men wondered who the priest’s prisoner might be, for Fulk was lashed to the beast he rode, and his head was swathed up in white linen. Father Merlin rode softly, smiling upon these children who were to lay all the lords and gentlemen of England in the dust. When the chance served he talked to Fulk, using a scathing, ironical, and tempting tongue, and hinting at adventures that tended towards both heaven and hell. Isoult of the Rose also went with this great company of the poor, mounted upon a black horse that had been stolen out of somebody’s stable. She had put off her gay colours and rode in russet, though the red leather shoes remained. They had given her a pony to carry her lute and her baggage, and Guy the Stallion marched at no great distance like a sergeant-at-arms, with fat Blanche trailing sulkily after him. Isoult was a silent woman that morning, but her eyes were very watchful and missed little that was to be seen. June had come; the woods were like great green clouds against the blue; the bracken was frothing round the oak stems, and lush grass stood knee-deep in the meadows. Not only was it thundery weather, but a blight seemed on the land, an oppressive stillness, an invisible terror that waited in the hot and stagnant woodland. Other companies of the poor had been on the march before them, and had left the slime of their track behind—a burnt barn here and there, an empty manor-house with the gate broken and the house door hanging askew on its hinges, and once, the body of a man with a black face dangling from a tree. The country-side seemed very empty, save at some tavern or intake where a knot of noisy oafs with bills and cudgels in their hands waited to join the great company of the poor. Very often Isoult was in the thick of these marching boors, and her nostrils showed the subtle shadow of an incipient scorn. The day was steamy, and the mob smelt and sweated, shouted and swore, spat, jostled, cracked coarse jokes, and drank out of bottles. Its breath was not pleasant. The hairy faces were leering and cruel, and their exultation belched in the face of the morning. All along the track she heard them bawling: “When Adam delved and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?” “Hinds!” she thought. “Where was all your insolent, sweating dust! I could half wish you at the mercy of a hundred galloping spears!”