g or old, handsome or ill-favoured, but her attitude
was unmistakable. The men in the forefront of the crowd were trying to
drag her away from the shelter of the gate to which she clung with
desperate obstinacy.

Her repeated cries of "For the love of Christ!" only provoked loud and
bibulous laughter. Obviously she was losing her hold of the ground, and
was gradually being dragged out into the open.

"For the love of Christ, let me go, kind sirs!"

"Come out quietly then," retorted one of the men in front, "let's have a
look at you."

"We only want to see the colour of your eyes," said another with mock
gallantry.

"Are you Spanish spies or are you not, that's all that we want to know,"
added a third. "How many black-eyed wenches are there among ye? Papists
we know you are."

"Papists! Spanish spies!" roared the crowd in unison.

"Shall we bait the Papists too, O Diogenes?" came in dulcet tones from
out the shadow of the stuccoed wall.

"Bah! women and old men, and only twenty of these," said his companion
with a laugh and a shrug of his broad shoulders, "whilst there are at
least an hundred of the others."

"More amusing certainly," growled Socrates under the brim of his hat.

"For the love of Christ," wailed the woman piteously, as her bare feet
buried in the snow finally slid away from the protecting threshold, and
she appeared in the full light of the resin torches, with black unkempt
hair, ragged shift and kirtle and a wild terror-stricken look in her
black eyes.

"Black eyes! I guessed as much!" shouted one of the men excitedly.
"Spaniards I tell you, friends! Spanish spies all of them! Out you come,
wench! out you come!"

"Out you come!" yelled the crowd. "Papists! Spanish spies!"

The woman gave a scream of wild terror as half a dozen stones hurled
from the rear of the crowd over the heads of the ringleaders came
crashing against the wall and the gate all around her.

One of these stones was caught in mid air.

"I thank thee, friend," cried a loud, mocking voice that rang clearly
above the din, "my nose was itching and thou didst strive to tickle it
most effectually. Tell me does thine itch too? Here's a good cloth
wherewith to wipe it."

And the stone was hurled back into the thick of the crowd by a sure and
vigorous hand even whilst a prolonged and merry laugh echoed above the
groans and curses of the throng.

For an instant after that the shouts and curses were still, the
crowd--as is