They That Mourn
Now as these two sat silent, the door at the far end of the room,
looking on Cornhill, opened, and a man came in and shut it again, and
stood in the shadow.
"Wat?" said Langland.
"Art thou he men call Long Will?" asked the man out of the dark.
"Yea, I am he. Who art thou that fearest light? I took thee for Wat
Tyler that is my friend."
"I am another friend," said the man, and came down the room. "My name
is Peter. I have run from Devon."
"So,--Peter!" quoth Langland, and rose up to meet him. "And for that
is thy name, and haply thou art a ploughman, dost thou believe that
the truth resteth with thee?"
Calote, who knew her father's voice, saw also the grim smile that
curled his lip, but the man could not see because of the twilight.
"I believe thou art a true prophet," he made answer; "I have heard thy
Visions; many read them and tell them again."
"Even so," retorted the lank priest; "I did not counsel thee to run."
"Nay, 't was mine own wit counselled me there," the man replied; "mine
own wit, fed on the Statute o' Labourers."
"'T is famine fare," said Langland. "Calote, if there be aught in the
cupboard, bring it hither.--And now, friend Peter, wherefore art thou
come?"
"Lead us poor!" cried the man. "Arise, and strike down the unjust!"
"I am a prophet," said Langland. "I abide by my calling. Thou must go
elsewhere for one shall do deeds. I only prophesy. 'T is safe; and I
had ever a gift for song."
The man lifted an uncertain hand and scratched his rough head. So, for
a moment, he stood irresolute. At last he said:--
"I am a dull fellow; but dost thou mock me?"
Then Langland came to him swiftly, pressing his hands on the bowed
shoulders and saying:--
"Thou art my brother."
"'T is a word one understands," replied the man; "God and Mary bless
thee!" and turned at the sound of a footstep. 'T was a woman came in
with a bowl in her hands, and Calote followed her, bringing bread.
"This is thy wife Kitte," said the man, "and this is thy daughter
Calote."
The poet smiled,--"Thou dost read, Peter?"
"Nay, I have a young son will be a parson one day. Thy Vision
concerning the ploughman is meat and drink to him."
"To us, likewise," said Kitte. "There be days we taste little else; 't
is a dish well spiced. Natheless, for this is Holy Trinité, we've fed
on whey and bread; it maketh an excellent diversité. Wilt eat?"
As she passed her husband he turned her face to the light, whereat she
smiled on him,--and in her smile was yet another kind of love made
manifest.
The man ate his bread and whey noisily the while his host leaned
against the door-frame. Kitte withdrew into the inner room, and Calote
sat in the window looking on the street. The moon rose and cast the
poet's shadow thin along the floor. There was a murmur in the street.
"Father," called Calote, "there is some ill befallen. Men stand about
by twos and threes, so late, and speak low. And now,--oh,
father!--Dame Emma hath fell a-weeping and shut her tavern door. Here
's Wat!--Here 's Wat and another!"
Two men ran in from Cornhill, hurriedly. They were as shadows in the
room until they came to the patch of moonlight, where shadow and
substance fell apart.
"The Prince is dead in Kennington Palace," said the taller, darker
man; "the Black Prince is dead!" And he struck the door-jamb with his
clenched fist and burst forth into one loud, sharp cry. There was rage
in the sound, disappointment, and grief.
"Art silent, thou chantry priest?" said the other man gloomily. "Here
's occasion to ply thy trade; but where 's thy glib prayer for the
dead?"
"Who am I that I should pray for this soul?" cried Langland bitterly.
"Here 's the one brave man in all England--dead. Now is it time to
pray for the living, Jack Straw; for my soul, and thine, and all these
other poor, that be orphaned and bereaved o' their slender hope by
this death. Oh, friend Peter, thou art run too late from Devon! The
doer o' deeds, the friend o' ploughmen and labourers, he is dead."
"One told me he did not welcome death. He was fain to live," said Wat
Tyler.
"Doth a good prince go willingly into heaven's bliss if he must leave
a people perplexed,--a nest of enemies to trample his dreams?" asked
the poet.
"I have heard them that served yonder in the war with France, who say
the Prince hath a sin or two of 's own to answer for," said Jack
Straw. "Who shall rest secure o' heaven's bliss?"
"Were I so honest a sinner as he that is gone, e'en punishment and
stripes were a taste o' blessing!" Langland exclaimed, and bent his
head in his hands.
The rustic had stared at one then another of these men, and now he
opened his great mouth, and the words came forth clumsily:--
"I be grieved full sore for this death, and for the King's sake that
is an old man. Natheless, 't was no prince led the wildered folk in
the Vision."
"Oh, Piers!" said Langland; and suddenly he laughed, and still with
eyes bent upon this rude, shock-headed, and slow creature, he laughed,
and laughed again, merrily, without malice, like a child.
But Wat Tyler leapt to his feet and paced the room back and forth:--
"'T is a true word," he cried. "He that delivereth the poor out of his
misery shall taste that misery; he shall be one of those poor. Hath
the Black Prince encountered cold and hunger as I have so
encountered,--not for a siege's space, but to a life's end and with
tied hands? Hath he oped his eyen into the world chained to a
hand's-breadth o' soil? Nay, England was his heritage, and he had
leave to get France likewise, if he might. Can the overlord rede the
heart of the villein that feedeth him? The Black Prince hath died
disappointed of his kingdom"--
"And thou wilt die disappointed of thine," said Langland, gravely
intent upon him.
"Nay, but I live in disappointment daily,--and Jack Straw, and this
honest fellow, and"--
"Who may the honest fellow be?" queried Jack Straw.
This Jack Straw had lint locks that glistened under the moon; the
lashes of his eyes were white. His was a dry utterance.
"'T is a villein hath run from his hand's-breadth o' soil," answered
Langland. "One of many."
"I plough, I reap, I ditch," said Peter; "somewhile I thatch. I am of
Devon."
"They have a quaint device of thatching in Devon," quoth Jack Straw.
"Ay, they set a peak like to a coxcomb above the gable. Art a Devon
man?" asked Peter eagerly.
"Nay, but I be thatcher. I learned of a Devon man. 'T was the year
next after the great pestilence. Like thee, he had run."
Wat Tyler had been pacing up and down, but now he stood before his
host and asked uneasily, albeit his voice was bold and harsh:--
"Will, what's thy meaning,--that I shall die disappointed of my
kingdom?"
"Ah, Wat, Wat!" said Langland, "and wilt thou lead the people? And
wherefore?"
Jack Straw edged farther within the moonlight and peered into his
comrade's dark and lowering countenance:--
"Now which o' they seven deadly sins doth he call to repent?" he
drawled, and with a sudden change to sharp speech, keeping his eye
ever upon Wat's face: "A day cometh when there shall be no king, nor
no overlord, nor no rich merchant to buy food away from the people,
and store it up, and sell it at a price. But every man shall be leader
of his own soul, and every man king. There shall not be poverty nor
richesse, but one shall share as another, and nothing shall be mine
nor thine."
Peter rested his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, such
fashion that his jaw hammered upward and downward; and the table, that
had one leg a bit short, hammered likewise. Said he:--
"Christ came a poor man, poor men to comfort. He suffereth my sorrow.
I knew not there was question of any kingdom, but only Christ's. And
if Christ is King, how then do ye say there will be no leader?"
Will Langland looked at the other two with a strange smile; but Wat
turned to the ploughman and cried:--
"Yet if Christ delay His second coming, must another lead till he
come. How else shall folk know His way?"
"Of a surety," answered Peter; "I am come to Long Will."
And Long Will covered his face and so remained. And they all sat
silent and as it were ashamed, till Kitte put her head in and said:--
"Calote, get thee to bed, child!"