The roisterers came close, elected, indeed, just here to arrest their steps and finish out a dispute. “Black eyes are best!” averred one. “Grey eyes? Faugh! That vilest Hawthorn witch hath grey eyes! Ha, ha! Eyes like Joan Heron!” “That she hath not! They are green. A grey eye is well enough! That vile witch’s are green.” “Grey.” “I tell thee I saw them, green and wicked! Green beneath red gold hair.” “Grey! Grey as the sea, and hair like wheat when it is cut.” “Thou fool—” “Thou knave—” “Thou villain to liken my mistress’s eye to that of a vile witch and devil’s whore! My sword shall make thee eat it—” “Will it? Will it? Out, tuck—” But a third and fourth, wiser or less flushed with wine, struck between. “Will you have the watch upon us and be clapped up for whether a vile witch’s eyes are grey or green? Grey or green or blue or black or brown, ere the month be gone the crows will pick them out! Put up your blades!—I told you so! The watch—” True it was that the watch was coming back. The roisterers fell suddenly into hushed and amicable converse, began to move, too, from before the church. But the watch were coming hastily, were already within eyeshot of the porch. It was not so dark now, either. “The moon is up,” muttered Gervaise. “We should have been clear of the town—” It was rising, indeed, above the housetops. The watch and the young men were in parley, fifty yards away. The four from the prison pressed more closely into the shadow of the pillars. They stood in blackness and watched the full round moon silver the houses and the uneven floor of the square. The moonbeams touched the portal, picked out the carven figures that adorned it. Watch and the explanatory tavern group, voices and glowworm lanterns moved farther, lessened into distance, disappeared in the dark mouth of some street. Windows had been opened, householders were looking forth. It needed to wait until all was again peace and sleeping time. Aderhold spoke for the first time since the four had left the prison alley. The apprentice youth stood near him. They leaned against the one pillar, and though they thought not of it, they had among other seemings, in the lapping light and darkness, the seeming of two bound to one stake. He spoke in a whisper. “You are not afraid?” “No.” “I knew that you would not be. Little worse can come, and something that is better may.” “Yes.... I had rather sink trying.” The moon whitened the carvings of the porch. Grotesque after grotesque came into the light: the man with the head of a wolf, the woman with a bat spreading its wings across her eyes, the demons, the damned, the beatified exulting over the damned, fox and goat and ape crossed with man and woman. The silver, calm light turned all from black to grey. The wind whispered, the nearer stars shone, the moon travelled her ancient road and threw transformed sunlight upon the earth. The minutes passed, the town lay fast asleep.