THREE:"Have adone do wud your preaching. I'm ashamed[Pg 380] of you, led astray by lunies as if you wur no better nor poor Harry. You're a hemmed lousy traitor, you are, the worst of 'em all."
THREE:First came the band of musicians, mounted on gaily caparisoned horses, and clad in jacks of crimson-damasked satin, laced round with gold; the arms of the city richly emblazoned on the back and front, and the white velvet sleeves of their jerkins so closely laced and interlaced with gold, as almost to conceal the material on which it was wrought. Then two heralds in white-damasked velvet tabards, worked with gold in a variety of fanciful patterns, and with the city arms also emblazoned on the back. Then the sword-bearer of the chief magistrate, in a suit of polished scale armour, and on a steed accoutred in all the panoply of war. Then the Lord Mayor himself, in a flowing mantle of rich crimson velvet trimmed with ermine, and with a collar of fine gold adorned with gems, and mounted on a stately horse, whose velvet housing, fringed with gold, almost touched the ground. Two pages suitably attired walked on either side. Next appeared the two sheriffs in their scarlet mantles and gold chains. Then rode the four-and-twenty aldermen, two abreast, in loose gowns or robes of damasked-velvet or brocaded silk; and, finally, the members of the common-council closed the train.
THREE:Reuben struggled untiringlyhe tried manure as in his first enterprising days, and a horrible stink of guano told traffic on the road it was passing through Odiam territory. Spades and ploughshares and harrows scored and pulped the earth. Sometimes with breaking back and aching head, the sweat streaming over his skin, he would lift himself stiffly from the plough-handles, and shake his fist at the desert round him. He had never had such a tussle before, and put it down to the fact that he was now for the first time on the high ground, on the hard and sterile scab of the marl, where it seemed as if only gorse would grow. He felt as if now for the first time he was fighting against odds, his earlier struggles were tame compared with this."There's no one gone from here as has ever come back."
TWO:Notwithstanding the recent flush of pleasure which warmed the heart of the yeoman, his resolution appeared again to forsake himhe endeavoured to speak, but in vainhe appeared to be overwhelmed by a variety of contending emotions; but the stern voice of De Boteler aroused him, and in a choked voice, he pronounced after Calverley the fealty of a bondman, holding his right hand over the book:"No! no! no!" from a hundred voices, overpowered the address of John Ball.