Richard was going to market. He was rather a small boy to be going on
that errand, especially as he carried on his shoulder a bundle nearly
as big as he was. But his mother, with whom he lived in a little,
whitewashed timber-and-plaster hut at the edge of the common, was too
ill to go, and the Cloth Fair was not likely to wait until she was well
again.
The boy could hardly remember his father. Sebastian Garland was a
sailor, and had gone away so long ago that there was little hope that he
would ever come back. Ever since Richard could remember they had lived
as they did now, mainly by his mother's weaving. They had a few sheep
which were pastured on the common, and one of the neighbors helped them
with the washing and shearing. The wool had to be combed and sorted and
washed in long and tedious ways before it was ready to spin, and before
it was woven it was dyed in colors that Dame Garland made from plants
she found in the woods and fields. She had been a Highland Scotch girl,
and could weave tyrtaine, as the people in the towns called the plaids.
None of the English people knew anything about the different tartans
that belonged to the Scottish clans, but a woman who could weave those
could make woolen cloth of a very pretty variety of patterns. She worked
as a dyer, too, when she could find any one who would pay for the work,
and sometimes she did weaving for a farm-wife who had more than her
maids could do.
Richard knew every step of the work, from sheep-fleece to loom, and
wherever a boy could help, he had been useful. He had gone to get elder
bark, which, with iron filings, would dye black; he had seen oak bark
used to dye yellow, and he knew that madder root was used for red, and
woad for blue. His mother could not afford to buy the turmeric, indigo,
kermes, and other dyestuffs brought from far countries or grown in
gardens. She had to depend on whatever could be got for nothing. The
bright rich colors which dyers used in dyeing wool for the London market
were not for her. Yellow, brown, some kinds of green, black, gray and
dull red she could make of common plants, mosses and the bark of trees.
The more costly dyestuffs were made from plants which did not grow wild
in England, or from minerals.
Richard was thinking about all this as he trudged along the lane, and
thinking also that it would be much easier for them to get a living if
it were not for the rules of the Weavers' Guild. This association was
one of the most important of the English guilds of the twelfth century,
and had a charter, or protecting permit, from the King, which gave them
special rights and privileges. He had also established the Cloth Fair at
Smithfield in London, the greatest of all the cloth-markets that were so
called. If any man did the guild "any unright or dis-ease" there was a
fine of ten pounds, which would mean then more than fifty dollars would
to-day. Later he protected the weavers still further by ordaining that
the Portgrave should burn any cloth which had Spanish wool mixed with
the English, and the weavers themselves allowed no work by candle-light.
This helped to keep up the standard of the weaving, and to prevent
dishonest dealers from lowering the price by selling inferior cloth. As
early as 1100 Thomas Cole, the rich cloth worker of Reading, whose wains
crowded the highway to London, had secured a charter from Henry I., this
King's grandfather, and the measure of the King's own arm had been taken
for the standard ell-measure throughout the kingdom.
Richard knew all this, because, having no one else to talk to, his
mother had talked much with him; and the laws of Scotland and England
differed in so many ways that she had had to find out exactly what she
might and might not do. In some of the towns the weavers' guilds had
made a rule that no one within ten miles who did not belong to the guild
or did not own sheep should make dyed cloth. This was profitable to the
weavers in the association, but it was rather hard on those who were
outside, and not every one was allowed to belong. The English weavers
were especially jealous of foreigners, and some of their rules had been
made to discourage Flemish and Florentine workmen and traders from
getting a foothold in the market.
Richard had been born in England, and when he was old enough to earn a
living, he intended to repay his mother for all her hard and lonely work
for him. As an apprentice to the craft he could grow up in it and belong
to the Weavers' Guild himself some day, but he thought that if there
were any way to manage it he would rather be a trader. He felt rather
excited now as he hurried to reach the village before the bell should
ring for the opening of the market.
King's Barton was not a very big town, but on market days it seemed very
busy. There was an irregular square in the middle of the town, with a
cross of stone in the center, and the ringing of this bell gave notice
for the opening and closing of the market. It was not always the same
sort of market. Once a week the farmers brought in their cattle and
sheep. On another day poultry was sold. In the season, there were corn
markets and grass markets, for the crops of wheat and hay; and in every
English town, markets were held at certain times for whatever was
produced in the neighborhood. Everybody knew when these days came, and
merchants from the larger cities came then to buy or sell--on other
days they would have found the place half asleep. In so small a town
there was not trade enough to support a shop for the sale of clothing,
jewelry and foreign wares; but a traveling merchant could do very well
on market days.
When Richard came into the square the bell had just begun to ring, and
the booths were already set up and occupied. His mother had told him to
look for Master Elsing, a man to whom she had sometimes sold her cloth,
but he was not there. In his stall was a new man. There was some trade
between London and the Hanse, or German cities, and sometimes they sent
men into the country to buy at the fairs and markets and keep an eye on
trade. Master Elsing had been one of these, and he had always given a
fair price. The new man smiled at the boy with his big roll of cloth,
and said, "What have you there, my fine lad?"
Richard told him. The man looked rather doubtful. "Let me see it," he
said.
The cloth was a soft, thick rough web with a long furry nap. If it was
made into a cloak the person who wore it could have the nap sheared off
when it was shabby, and wear it again and shear it again until it was
threadbare. A man who did this work was called a shearman or sherman.
The strange merchant pursed his lips and fingered the cloth. "Common
stuff," he said, "I doubt me the dyes will not be fast color, and it
will have to be finished at my cost. There is no profit for me in it,
but I should like to help you--I like manly boys. What do you want for
it?"
Richard named the price his mother had told him to ask. There was an
empty feeling inside him, for he knew that unless they sold that cloth
they had only threepence to buy anything whatever to eat, and it would
be a long time to next market day. The merchant laughed. "You will never
make a trader if you do not learn the worth of things, my boy," he said
good-naturedly. "The cloth is worth more than that. I will give you
sixpence over, just by way of a lesson."
Richard hesitated. He had never heard of such a thing as anybody
offering more for a thing than was asked, and he looked incredulously
at the handful of silver and copper that the merchant held out. "You had
better take it and go home," the man added. "Think how surprised your
mother will be! You can tell her that she has a fine young son--Conrad
Waibling said so."
Richard still hesitated, and Waibling withdrew the money. "You may ask
any one in the market," he said impatiently, "and if you get a better
price than mine I say no more."
"Thank you," said Richard soberly, "I will come back if I get no other
offer."
He took his cloth to the oldest of the merchants and asked him if he
would better Waibling's price, but the man shook his head. "More than
it is worth," he said. "Nobody will give you that, my boy." And from
two others he got the same reply. He went back to Waibling finally,
left the cloth and took his price.
He had never seen a silver penny before. It had a cross on one side and
the King's head on the other, as the common pennies did; it was rather
tarnished, but he rubbed it on his jacket to brighten it. He thought
he would like to have it bright and shining when he showed it to his
mother. All the time that he was sitting on a bank by the roadside,
a little way out of the town, eating his bread and cheese, he was
polishing the silver penny. A young man who rode by just then, with a
black-eyed young woman behind him, reined in his horse and looked down
with some amusement. "What art doing, lad?" he asked.
"It's my silver penny," said Richard. "I wanted it to be fine and bonny
to show mother."
"Ha!" said the young man. "Let's see." Richard held up the penny. "Who
gave you that, my boy?"
"Master Waibling the cloth-merchant," said Richard, and he told the
story of the bargain.
The young man looked grave. "Barbara," he said to the girl, "art anxious
to get home? Because I have business with this same Waibling, and I want
to find him before he leaves the town."
The girl smiled demurely. "That's like thee, Robert," she said. "Ever
since I married thee,--and long before, it's been the same. I won't
hinder thee. Leave me at Mary Lavender's and I'll have a look about her
garden."
The two rode off at a brisk pace, and Richard saw them halt at a gate
not far away, and while the girl went in the man mounted his horse again
and came back. "Jump thee up behind me, young chap," he ordered, "and
we'll see to this. The silver penny is not good. He probably got it in
some trade and passed it off on the first person who would take it. Look
at this one."
Edrupt held up a silver penny from his own purse.
"I didn't know," said Richard slowly. "I thought all pennies were
alike."
"They're not--but until the new law was passed they were well-nigh
anything you please. You see, this penny he gave you is an old one.
Before the new law some time, when the King needed money very badly,--in
Stephen's time maybe--they mixed the silver with lead to make it go
further. That's why it would not shine. And look at this." He took out
another coin. "This is true metal, but it has been clipped. Some thief
took a bag full of them probably, clipped each one as much as he dared,
passed off the coins for good money, and melted down the parings of
silver to sell. Next time you take a silver penny see that it is pure
bright silver and quite round."
By this time they were in the market-place. Edrupt dismounted, and gave
Richard the bridle to hold; then he went up to Waibling's stall, but the
merchant was not there.
"He told me to mind it for him," said the man in the next booth. "He
went out but now and said he would be back in a moment."
But the cloth-merchant did not come back. The web of cloth he had bought
from Richard was on the counter, and that was the only important piece
of goods he had bought. Quite a little crowd gathered about by the time
they had waited awhile. Richard wondered what it all meant. Presently
Edrupt came back, laughing.
"He has left town," he said to Richard. "He must have seen me before I
met you. I have had dealings with him before, and he knew what I would
do if I caught him here. Well, he has left you your cloth and the price
of the stuff, less one bad penny. Will you sell the cloth to me? I am a
wool-merchant, not a cloth-merchant, but I can use a cloak made of good
homespun."
Richard looked up at his new friend with a face so bright with gratitude
and relief that the young merchant laughed again. "What are you going to
do with the penny?" he asked the boy, curiously.
"I'd like to throw it in the river," said Richard in sudden wrath. "Then
it would cheat no more poor folk."
"They say that if you drop a coin in a stream it is a sign you will
return," said Edrupt, still laughing, "and we want neither Waibling nor
his money here again. Suppose we nail it up by the market-cross for a
warning to others? How would that be?"
This was the beginning of a curious collection of coins that might be
seen, some years later, nailed to a post in the market of King's Barton.
There were also the names of those who had passed them, and in time,
some dishonest goods also were fastened up there for all to see. When
Richard saw the coin in its new place he gave a sigh of relief.
"I'll be going home now," he said. "Mother's alone, and she will be
wanting me."
"Ride with me so far as Dame Lavender's," said the wool-merchant
good-naturedly. "What's thy name, by the way?"
"Richard Garland. Father was a sailor, and his name was Sebastian," said
the boy soberly. "Mother won't let me say he is drowned, but I'm afraid
he is."
"Sebastian Garland," repeated Edrupt thoughtfully. "And so thy mother
makes her living weaving wool, does she?"
"Aye," answered Richard. "She's frae Dunfermline last, but she was born
in the Highlands."
"My wife's grandmother was Scotch," said Edrupt absently. He was trying
to remember where he had heard the name Sebastian Garland. He set
Richard down after asking him where he lived, and took his own way home
with Barbara, his wife of a year. He told Barbara that the town was well
rid of a rascal, but she knew by his silence thereafter that he was
thinking out a plan.
"Some day," he spoke out that evening, "there'll be a law in the land to
punish these dusty-footed knaves. They go from market to market cheating
poor folk, and we have no hold on them because we cannot leave our work.
But about this lad Richard Garland, Barbara, I've been a-thinking. What
if we let him and his mother live in the little cottage beyond the
sheepfold? The boy could help in tending the sheep. If they've had sheep
o' their own they'll know how to make 'emselves useful, I dare say. And
then, when these foreign fleeces come into the market, the dame could
have dyes and so on, and we should see what kind o' cloth they make."
This was the first change in the fortunes of Richard Garland and his
mother. A little more than a year later Sebastian Garland, now captain
of Master Gay's ship, the _Rose-in-June_, of London, came into port and
met Robert Edrupt. On inquiry Edrupt learned that the captain had lost
his wife and son many years before in a town which had been swept by the
plague. When he heard of the Highland-born woman living in the Longley
cottage, he journeyed post-haste to find her, and discovered that she
was indeed his wife, and Richard his son. By the time that Richard was
old enough to become a trader, a court known as the Court of Pied-poudre
or Dusty Feet had been established by the King at every fair. Its
purpose was to prevent peddlers and wandering merchants from cheating
the folk. The common people got the name "Pie-powder Court," but that
made it none the less powerful. King Henry also appointed itinerant
justices--traveling judges--to go about from place to place and
judge according to the King's law, with the aid of the sheriffs of
the neighborhood who knew the customs of the people. The general
instructions of these courts were that when the case was between a rich
man and a poor man, the judges were to favor the poor man until and
unless there was reason to do otherwise. The Norman barons, coming from
a country in which they had been used to be petty kings each in his own
estate, did not like this much, but little the King cared for that.
Merchants like young Richard Garland found it most convenient to have
one law throughout the land for all honest men. Remembering his own hard
boyhood, Richard never failed to be both just and generous to a boy.