The Man O' Words
One night, when Long Will was gone forth to copy a writ of law for a
city merchant, Calote sat up to wait for him in the moonlight by their
door that opened on the lane. Calote and her father had not spoke
together of her pilgrimage since that night, now more than a year
past, when Long Will was so wroth with Jack Straw. Nevertheless, each
one knew that the other had not forgotten. But now the time was short;
there must be unlocking of tongues.
Calote braided her hair in a tress, unbound it, braided it anew, the
while she waited and pondered the words that she would speak. In the
lane something grunted and thrust a wet snout against her bare foot;
one of Dame Emma's pigs had strayed. It was a little pig; Calote took
it up in her arms and bore it through the dark room and out on
Cornhill. The tavern door was shut, but there was a noise of singing
within, and Dame Emma came at the knock.
Hobbe Smith sat in the chimney trolling a loud song, and two or three
more men sprawled on a bench by the wall, a-chaunting "Hey, lolly,
lolly," out of time and out of tune. One of these, that was most
drunk, came running foolishly so soon as he saw Calote, and made as to
snatch a kiss, but Dame Emma thrust piggie in his face; and when
Calote turned about at her own door, breathless, she saw where Hobbe
had the silly fellow on the floor and knelt upon his belly, and
crammed the pig's snout into his mouth; and Dame Emma beat Hobbe over
the noddle with a pint-pot, for that he choked her squealing pig.
Calote bethought her, sorrowful, that there would be no Dame Emma and
kindly Hobbe to take up her quarrel in other taverns. So she went back
to the braiding of her hair until her father came in.
Then she said:--
"Father,--they do affirm 't is full time for me to begone on the
King's errand. Thou wilt not say me nay? Thou wilt bless me?"
He sat down on the doorstone and took her in his arm. He was smiling.
"Sweet, my daughter; and dost thou truly think that this puissant
realm of England shall be turned up-so-down and made new by a plotting
of young children and rustics?"
"Wherefore no, if God will?"
"Nay, I 'll not believe that God hath so great spite against us
English," he made answer, whimsical.
"But the Vision, father? If thy ploughman be no rustic, what then is
he?"
"I fell eft-soon asleep," quoth Long Will,--
"'and suddenly me saw,
That Piers the Ploughman was painted all bloody,
And come in with a cross before the common people,
And right like, in all limbs, to our Lord Jesus;
And then called I Conscience to tell me the truth.
"Is this Jesus the Jouster?" quoth I, "that Jews did to death,
Or is it Piers the Ploughman?--Who painted him so red?"
Quoth Conscience, and kneeled then, "These are Piers arms,
His colours and his coat-armour, and he that cometh so bloody
Is Christ with his Cross, conqueror of Christians."'"
"Who is 't, then, we wait for?" Calote cried. "Is it Christ, or is it
Piers? O me, but I 'm sore bewildered! An' if 't were Christ, yet may
not Piers do his devoir? Do all we sit idle with folded hands because
Christ cometh not? Surely, 't were better He find us busy, a-striving
our weak way to come into His Kingdom! What though we may not 'do
best,' yet may we do well."
"Yea, do well," her father answered. "But now tell me, dost believe
Jack Straw and Wat seek Truth,--or their own glory?"
"How can I tell?" she asked. "But for myself, I do know that I seek
Truth. To gain mine own glory, were 't not easy to go another way
about? May not I wear jewelled raiment and be called Madame? But I
will not. And Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, they believe that they are
seekers of Truth."
"Thou wilt not trust thy little body in the hand of Jack Straw, my
daughter; and yet wilt thou give up all this thine England into his
clutch?"
"'T is the King shall rule England," she faltered.
"And who shall rule the King?"
"Is 't not true, that the ploughman shall counsel the King? There be
honest ploughmen."
"Peter of Devon is an honest man," assented Langland; "he cannot read
nor write, almost he cannot speak. Wilt thou give over the kingdom
into his keeping?"
"Wilt not thou?" she said; and her father made no answer.
Suddenly she arose and stood before him, and laid her two hands on his
shoulders as he sat on the doorstone.
"'T is well enough to say, 'Wait!' 'T is well enough to say, 'Not this
ploughman,--Not this King,--Not thou,--Nor I.' 'T is well enough to
say, 'Not to-day!' But a man might do so forever, and all the world go
to wreck."
"Not if I believe in God,--and Christ the King's Son of heaven."
"And is this the end of all trusting in God, that a man shall fold his
hands and do nothing?"
He winced, and she had flung her arms about his neck, and pressed her
cheek to his, and she was sobbing; he tasted the salt of her tears
against his lips.
"Father, forgive me! Say thou dost forgive me!--But all my little
lifetime thou hast laboured on this poem--when I was a babe I learned
to speak by the sound of thy voice a-murmuring the Vision. All the
light o' learning I have to light me to Godward and to my fellows, I
got it from the Vision. All the fire o' love I have in my heart was
kindled at its flame;--yea--for all other love I quench with my tears;
I will not let no other love burn. And now, when the fire is kindled
past smothering, and the light burns ever so bright, thou dost turn
the Vision against itself, for to confound all them that have believed
on thy word. Wilt thou light a light but to snuff it back to darkness?
Wilt thou kindle a fire but to choke us with smoke? 'T is now too
late. Haply 't is thy part to sit still and sing; but I--I cannot
sing, and I cannot sit still. I am not so wise as thou, nor so
patient. Is 't kind to 'wilder me with thy wisdom, my father? Is 't
wise to cover me with a pall of patience, if I must needs die to lie
quiet?"
"An I give thee leave, what is 't thou 'lt do?" he asked her, in a
level, weary voice.
"I 'll follow the King to Gloucester, and there have speech of him and
a token. After, I 'll bid the people to know the King loveth
them,--and they are to come up to London to a great uprising, what
time John Ball, and Wat, and Jack Straw shall give sign. Then there
shall be no more poor and rich; but all men shall love one another,
the knight and the cook's knave, the King and the ploughman. Much more
I 'll say, out of the Vision; and of fellowship, such as John Ball
preacheth."
"The clergy clap John Ball into prison for such words, whensoever they
may."
"And for this reason is it better that I should be about when he may
not; for what am I but a maiden? Clergy will not take keep of me. I 'm
not afeared of no harm that may befal me;--though haply--harm may."
"Knoweth that young squire aught of this journey?"
"Nay, father."
"Hast thou bethought thee of what folk will say if thou go to
Gloucester in the tail of the court? There be many on Cornhill have
seen that youth; they know whence he is.--If thou go, and come not
again for many months?"
He felt her cheek grow hot against his own, and then she drew away
from him and looked in his eyes piteously:--
"Dost thou not believe I must do that Conscience telleth me is right,
father?"
"Yea."
"Then wherefore wilt thou seek to turn me from well-doing?"
"Thou art my daughter," he answered gravely; "small wonder if I would
shield thee from dangers and evil-report. Shall I not be blamed of all
men, and rightly, if I let thee go o' this wild-goose chase?"
"All thy life I have never known thee give a weigh of Essex cheese for
any man's praise or blame."
"'T is very true!" he assented in moody fashion; and sat still with
his head bent.
After a little she touched him, and "Thou 'lt bless me, father?" she
said.
"To Gloucester, sayst thou?" he questioned absently; and then, "That
's nigh to Malvern Priory, and the Hills,--the Malvern Hills."
She had sat down below him on the ground and laid her chin upon his
knee, and so she waited with her eyes upon his face.
"My old master that learned me to read and to write, and unloosed the
singing tongue of me, dwelleth in Malvern Priory. He said, if ever I
had a golden-haired daughter--Well, thou shalt take a copy of the
Vision to him, Calote. Give it to the porter at the gate,--and bide.
Thy mother shall say round and about Cornhill that thou art gone to
mine old home, to take the Vision to the old master. He is called
Brother Owyn."
"Father, father!" she cried, "I am filled full of myself, and mine own
desire. Wherefore dost thou not beat me and lock me behind doors,--so
other fathers would do?"
He smiled wistfully, and kissed her: "So! now thou hast thy will, thou
'lt play penitent. Nay,--hush thee, hush thee, my sweet! 'T is time
for laughter now, and joyousness. Thou 'rt going forth to learn all
men to love one another. Be comforted; dry thy tears!"
"I am a very wicked wight!" she sobbed. "I will not leave thee."
"Thou art aweary, my dear one, the dawn cometh. Go thou to rest, and
the morrow all will be bright. When dost thou set forth o' this
pilgrimage?"
"On the morrow!" she whispered; and then with more tears, "But I will
not go, father,--forgive me!"
He gathered her into his arms and carried her through the weeds and up
the wooden stair to the door of the gabled room.
"Go in," he said, "and sleep! There are yet a fifty lines lacking to
the copy of the Vision that thou wilt take with thee; I must write
them in."
But when he was come back to the long dark room, he lit no rush for an
hour or more; instead, he paced back and forth, talking with
himself:--
"Pity me, God! I am a weak man!--I did never no deeds but them I
thought not to do;--never, all my life long! Count my deeds, O
God,--they are so few,--and all of them have I condemned afore in
other men. Now, I let my daughter go forth on a fool's errand, and in
a child's plot that must fail; mayhap she will meet worse than death
on the road; but I give her my blessing. Jesu,--Mary,--guard this my
daughter that I have so weakly put forth upon the world! How may a man
dare say nay to his child, if she be a better man than he,--an actyf
man, a doer o' deeds? How may a man dare forbid any soul to follow
Conscience? Good Jesu, I am but a jongleur,--a teller o' tales,--I am
afeared o' deeds. I see them on so many sides that I dare move nor
hand nor foot. And if I do, I trip. Best never be doing.--If a man
might be all words, and no deeds!"
PART II
The Pilgrimage
"And I shall apparaille me in pilgrimes wise,
And wende with yow I wil til we fynde Treuthe."
_The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._
B. PASSUS V.
CHAPTER I
In the Cloisters
King Richard stretched himself and yawned, took off his velvet bonnet
and thrust his fingers through his long light-brown hair, rubbed his
left leg, and looked on his favourite squire with a smile
half-quizzical, half-ashamed.
They two stood in the cloisters of the Abbey at Gloucester, in that
part of the cloisters that was not yet finished. The workmen carving
the fan-tracery--that Abbey's proud boast and new invention--looked
aside from their blocks of stone to the young King, then bent their
heads and went on chinking. From somewhere about came a kind of
clamorous noise that was the Commons still sitting in the Chapter
House,--though 't was past dinner time. John of Gaunt strode laughing
down the cloisters by the side of a gray-beard Oxford priest who
carried a parchment in his hand, and they went together into the
church. Lord Richard Scrope, the new-appointed chancellor, stood out
in the middle of the cloister garth, under the noon sun, and Master
Walworth and Philpot and other merchants of London with him, their
heads together, their speech now buzzing low, now lifted in protest,
now settling to a chuckle.
Richard whacked his leg smartly and stiffened it.
"My foot 's asleep," said he. "'T is a most deep-seated chair. An I
must listen many more days to mine uncle's long-winded friend from
Oxenford, thou wert best get me a fatter cushion. My legs do dangle
out of all dignity."
"'T shall be found to-morrow, sire!" Etienne answered.
"Nay, not to-morrow, mon ami; to-morrow I go a-hunting, and the next
day, and the next, if I will."
"A-hunting!" exclaimed Etienne; "but Parliament sits."
"Saint Mary!" cried Richard; "and who should know this better than I?
Sits!--One while methought I 'd sent forth rootlets and must go
through life a-sitting. Almost I 'll welcome old days, and Sir Simon
Burley's stinging birch, to start me out of my numbness."
A stone-cutter laughed, and checked him short in his laughter; whereat
Richard smiled in the frank fashion that made the common folk his
friends, and went and looked over the man's shoulder.
"What a pretty tracery is this, pardé," he said presently. "Why do we
not make a roof like to it at Westminster?"
Etienne lifted his eyebrows; "Westminster?" he asked.
And Richard coloured and bit his lip, saying, "True,--I had forgot
Westminster is not good friends with us. 'T was all mine uncle's
doing," he continued angrily. "Lord knows, I 've fallen asleep or ever
I 've done my prayers, each night since the poor wretch was slain. I
've prayed him out of Purgatory ten times over, and paid for Masses.
Dost thou not mind thee, Etienne, how I wept that day the murder was
done, and would have stripped me body-naked to be whipped for 't in
penance; but my confessor said was no need? Natheless, John Wyclif is
a wily cleric. Dost mark how he ever passeth over the murder, soft,
yet standeth on our right to make arrest in the church? For mine own
part I do believe he is in the right; for wherefore is a king a king,
if he may not do as him list, but is bound by time and place?"
"Yea, sire!" said Etienne absently; he was looking across, through the
open door into the church. In the dim distance there he saw a little
kneeling figure, and a gleam of golden braided hair. Almost he thought
it was Calote, and his heart leaped; but he remembered that this could
not be if Calote were in London. There were other golden-haired maids
in England.
"Yet do I not like his doctrine," the King mused. "For why?--the half
on 't I cannot understand. Yesterday I fell asleep, upright,
a-listening to the sound of his Latin. My confessor saith this Wyclif
turneth the Bible into the English tongue for common folk to
read,--and that 's scandal and heresy, to let down God's thoughts into
speech of every day. But Master Wyclif's own thoughts be not God's, if
all is true the Church teacheth, and I 'd liever listen to him in
English.--or better, in French. Etienne, I go a-hunting, I 'm aweary
of Latin, and Sanctuary, and all this cry of the Commons concerning
expense. How is 't my fault if mine uncles and Sudbury and the council
be spendthrifts? By Saint Thomas of Kent, I 'll stop this French war
when I 'm a man. Yea, and I 'll stop the mouth of Parliament that
talks me asleep."
The workmen glanced at one another and grinned. Etienne made a step to
the church door; the maid within had risen up off her knees and now
crossed herself and went away down the nave.
"Sire!" cried Etienne sharply; "methought I saw--Calote."
One of the workmen looked up at the name, and let his work lie.
"Calote?" said Richard. "Coeur de joie, but she 's in London."
Etienne shook his head and peered into the dimness of the church, but
the maid was gone.
"Ay, me," sighed Richard wistfully, "I would thou didst love thy King
but the half as well as thou lovest this peasant maid."
"Beau sire," said Etienne, kneeling, "I am thy loyal servant. Trust
me, my heart plays no tricks."
"Chéri," then smiled the King, and laid his hand on Etienne's
shoulder, "my head aches. Let us to my chamber and thou shalt sing me
a little song, and I 'll sleep. We have not spoke of Calote these
three weeks. Come, tell me a tale and be merry. To-morrow we 'll ride
up to the forest at Malvern, and hunt there the next day; the prior
yonder is a courteous gentleman, writes in French, and prays me
partake of his hospitality. After All Hallows we 'll come back and
hear the end of these great matters. I 'll pray mine uncle; I 'll fret
and fume. I 'll go, will he nil be. Come let 's say a prayer in church
beside my great-grandfather's tomb. Give you good-day, good fellows,"
he said to the workmen, and went away hanging upon his squire's arm.
"There 's a king!" said one of the stone-cutters. "His father's own
son!"
"Sayst thou so?" grumbled another. "Didst mark how he would stop the
mouth o' Parliament when he 's a man?"
"Pish!--'t was a jest turned in weariness," a third made excuse; "a
child's jest. For mine own part, I 'm none so fond o' Parliament with
its throngings, and setting a town topsy-turvy, and forever getting
under a man's feet when he 's at his stone work peaceable."
"They say his mother's done her best to spoil him. I 've heard tell
she was a light woman."
"Natheless, I 'd liever have him than another. He has a merry smile. I
could have took him o' my knee and kissed him and rubbed his sleepy
foot,--but I minded me he was a king."
"And well for thee."
"Now I wonder," said the workman who had lifted his head at mention of
Calote,--"now I wonder what the young squire meant by those words he
said? There 's a maid biding in my cot; her name 's Calote. She can
sing the Vision concerning Piers Ploughman better than any teller o'
tales ever I heard. 'T was her own father writ it. One Jack Straw sent
her my way. She goeth afoot to Malvern to-day, to give her father's
greeting to a monk at the Priory."
"Jack Straw? Him that spake of the people's wrongs and these evil
taxings, at Tavern in January past?"
"Yea."
"Will such-like a maid be known to so fine a gentleman as yon squire?"
"Haply not. Yet I 'll swear by Saint Christopher 't was her I saw in
the church when he looked through the door."
"Eh, well,--the little King 's a good fellow, say I," quoth the man
that had first spoken, and added, "So is Jack Straw."
Whereupon there fell silence upon all of them, and only the clinking
of hammer against stone was heard till the Commons came out of the
Chapter House with a great clatter.
CHAPTER II
In Malvern Chase
The porter at the gate of Malvern Priory was a very old man, but he
had good eyes, and he knew a pretty thing when he saw it.
"Thou wilt speak with Brother Owyn, wilt thou?" he said to Calote in
his toothless voice. "By my troth, I 'll have thee to know, hussy,
that this is no household of gadding friars, but a sober and
well-conducted priory. Our monks do not come and go at the bidding of
wenches."
"Good brother, I come not of myself," said Calote, "I am sent a
message of my father."
"And thy father, I make no doubt, is the Father of Lies,--Christ give
him sorrow!"
"My father was put to school one while in Malvern Priory," answered
Calote. "Brother Owyn was his master and loved him well."
"Sayst thou so?" the porter retorted, yet with something of curiosity
awaking within his bright eyes. "Is no lad hath gone in and out this
gate in forty year, but hath one day or other tasted my rod for a
truant. How do they call thy father?"
"In London men call him Long Will, and Will Langland 's his name."
The porter opened wide his mouth, and, "By Goddes Soul!" quoth he,
"Will Langland!--Let me look on thee,"--albeit he had done naught but
look on her for ten minutes past. "Yea, 't is true; I 'd know thee by
thine eyen, that are gray, and thoughtful, and dark with a something
that lies behind the colour of them,--and shining by the light of a
lamp lit somewhere within.--So! Will Langland hath got him a wench! 'T
is a hard nut to crack. Moreover, eyen may be gray as glass, and yet
speak lies. What for a token hast thou that thou 'rt true messenger?"
"I have a poem," she answered.
"Let 's see it."
"Nay, 't is for Brother Owyn."
"And how shall Brother Owyn have it, if not by me?" rejoined the
porter testily.
"Wilt thou get me speech of him if I show it thee?" asked Calote.
"Shall a lay-brother of Malvern stoop to play handy-dandy for
favours?" said the porter, casting up his chin in a way feebly to
imitate his prior; yet his curiosity overcame his pride and he added:
"Do thou show me first the poem. After, I 'll think on 't."
Whereupon Calote drew forth the parchment from her breast, and he
unrolled it and spread it upon his knee, and "H-m-m, h-m-m!" said he.
But he could not read a word, being no scholar.
"Find me a pretty passage," he bade her presently, "and say it me, the
while I follow with my finger."
So she began;--and neither one of them knew the place in the
parchment:--
"'Right so, if thou be religious run thou never further
To Rome, nor to Rochemadour, but as thy rule teacheth,
And hold thee under obedience, that highway is to heaven.'"
"Tut chut! Thou 'rt a bold wench! Wilt teach thy grandmother to suck
eggs?" cried the porter.
Calote laughed, but began anew:--
"'Grace ne groweth not but amongst the low;
Patience and poverty is the place where it groweth,
And in loyal-living men, and life-holy,
And through the gift of the Holy Ghost as the gospel telleth'"--
"Lord, Lord, enough!" cried the porter. "'T is very true that never
none but Will Langland writ such-like twaddle."
"But thou wilt bid Brother Owyn to the gate?" said Calote, rolling up
her parchment.
"How may I bid him to the gate when he 's gone forth yonder in the
Chase with hook and line and missal to catch fish for supper?"
"Ah! good brother, gramerci," laughed Calote.
"Then kiss me," said he. "Nay, what harm? An old man that might be thy
father twice over!"
But she shook her head and sprang swiftly from him.
"I 've a long journey afore me," she said, "and if I kiss every man
that doeth me service, there 'll be no kisses left for my True Love."
So she ran away among the trees, and the old man went into the
gate-house and sat chuckling.
All about Malvern Priory was forest, and a part of this was the King's
Chase. The woodland climbed the hill part way, thinning as it climbed.
"'I was weary with wandering and went me to rest
Under a broad bank by a burn's side.'"
hummed Calote as she went upward. "Belike he 's there catching his
fish."
The day was mild; Saint Martin's summer was at hand; all around trees
were yellowing, leaves were dropping. The little haze that is ever
among the Malverns dimmed the vistas betwixt the tree-trunks to
faintest blue. The voices of the hunt floated upward from the level
stretch of forest in the plain,--bellowing of dogs, a horn, a distant
shouting.
"Please God I may not meet the King, nor Stephen," said Calote. "They
do say he came hither last night to hunt."
Even as she spoke, a roe fled across her path, and immediately after,
two huntsmen came riding.
"Which way went the--Coeur de joie!" cried a boy's voice.
The other huntsman sat dumb upon his horse. Calote, rosy red, her lips
a-quiver, stood with her hands crossed on her breast, that frighted
but yet steadfast way she had. Then:--
"Light down, Etienne, thou laggard lover! 'T is thy true love hath
followed thee from London town these many miles," laughed Richard, and
flung himself off his horse.
"Oh, me, harrow, weyl a way!" said Calote, covering up her face. "'T is
not true! I am not so unmaidenly; my heart is full of other matter
than light love." She turned to Stephen, who was also lighted off his
horse, and "Dost thou believe I followed for love of thee?" she cried.
"Alas and alack!--but I would it were so!" answered Stephen.
"Yet thou didst follow," said the King. "Wherefore?"
She turned her eyes away from Stephen and looked on Richard, and as
she looked she sank down on her knees before him.
"Thou art the King!" she gasped, "and I knew thee not!"
In very truth, here was not the little lad she had known. The grace of
childhood was gone from Richard. Some of the mystery had gone out of
his eyes, though they were yet, and would ever be, thoughtful; all of
the shyness had gone out of his manner, albeit none of the courtesy.
He was well used to being a king; he was already, at thirteen years of
age or thereabout, the most of a gentleman in his very foppish and
gentleman-like court. Calote had sat still in the window-seat that
time he came to the crown by his grandfather's death, but to-day,
before she knew wherefore, she was on her knees. Then only were her
eyes opened, and she knew that this was the King.
He looked upon her friendly-wise, half-laughing. Kingship and
comradeship were ever a-wrestle in Richard's heart to the end of the
chapter. He liked to be a king, none better; he kept his state as
never king kept it before in England,--as few have kept it since. But
also, he loved to be loved, not from afar and awesomely as subjects
love, but in the true human fashion that holds betwixt friends,
betwixt kindly master and friendly servant.
Now, he put out his hand to Calote and lifted her up, and when they
stood face to face, his eyes were a-level with hers, so big was
he;--or haply she so small.
"I am grown tall; is 't not so?" he said. "Very soon I shall be tall
as Etienne. No wonder thou didst not know me. But now, see thou tell
me true wherefore thou art so suddenly come to Malvern, and I 'll
forgive thy forgetting. Nay,--not on thy knees again."
"Sire, hast thou forgot that I told thee--of a plot? And whether thou
wouldst be King of all the people of England, or only puppet to the
nobles?"
"I am not so good at forgetting as thou," he made reply, and she could
not but marvel to hear him so froward of speech. She was aware that
this was no little child, but a boy that had listened, perforce, a
year and more, to the counsels of grown men, some of them wise, all of
them shrewd.
"This plot moveth on," she continued, taking up her tale. "There is
forming, and shall be formed, a great society of men over all England.
I, and others, we go out across the land, one here, one there, north,
south, east, and west, to bind the people into brotherhood. And it is
my task to tell the people that the King is one of this
brotherhood,--if so be 't is true."--She paused, but Richard did not
speak, so she went on: "It is my task to tell the people that the King
approveth this gathering together of the people. And, when the time
cometh, he will stand forth and be their leader,--against those that
oppress them. If so be 't is true."
"And the people want?"--
"Freedom, sire! Not to be a part of the land, like stocks and stones
and dumb cattle. Not to be villeins any longer, but freed men, with
leave to come and go of their own will."
"But noblesse,--villeinage,--these are fixed,--may not be overthrown."
"Not by the King?" asked Calote.
Richard looked on her uncertain, then his face flushed and he struck
his long-bow vehement into the earth:--
"The King may do what he will!" he cried; "else wherefore is he King?
Tell me, will they aid me to put down mine uncle, John of Gaunt, and
all these that tie my hands, and the Council that now is the verray
governor of this realm? Will they do all these things for me, if I
make them free men?"
"This and more than this, sire!" Calote exclaimed; "For they 'll build
up a kingdom whereof the foundation is love, and the law will be not
to take away by tax, but to see that every man hath enough."
"Shall it be soon?" asked Richard.
"That I cannot tell. The realm of England is a wide realm, not easy to
traverse."
Richard turned hesitating to his squire: "I would it were wise, this
that the maid telleth. In vérité, is 't so? What dost say, Etienne?
I--I fear mine uncle and Sudbury would laugh."
"I say, 't is a wicked and evil counsel that sendeth forth a young
maid to encounter perils. No love ruleth the hearts of them that send
her."
"Art thou my true lover, in good sooth?" cried Calote, "and would undo
that I have most at heart?"
"Moreover, 't is beside my question," Richard added fretfully. "I
would know but only if an uprising, like to this Calote stirreth, is
of power to succeed against nobilité?"
"I am no prophet, sire."
"Thou thinkest not of thy King, neither of his kingdom, but of thine
own self only," said Richard, in the sulks, driving an arrow
spear-fashion into the earth and wrenching it forth with a jerk that
snapped the shaft.
"I think of her," Etienne answered him sadly.
"There is more kinds of love than one," Calote protested. "Is there
not a love for the whole people that is as worthy as the love for one
woman? Yea, and more worthy, for 't is Christ's fashion of loving.
What matter if I lose my life, if so be the people is free?"
Richard kindled to her words. "So must the King love!" he cried. "Fie,
for shame, Etienne! But only yesternight thou wert persuading me how
honourable 't is when a man lose his life for the world's sake and
Christ Jesu--as crusaders and such."
"And what is this I preach, but a crusade," demanded Calote, "to free
the people?"
"A crusade?" the King questioned. Then his face came all alight. "A
crusade!--And when the preaching 's done I 'll be the leader of the
crusade.--And I 'll make all England my Holy Land!"--For if Richard
had not been a king, he might have been a poet.
"Now praise be to Christ and Mary Mother!" said Calote joyously. "And
what for a token dost give me, sire, that the people may know me a
true messenger?"
"A token, pardé!" and he looked him up and down hastily. He had on a
green jerkin all embroidered over with R's entwined in a pattern of
gold threads, and buttoned with little bells of gold. His one leg was
scarlet, his other was green. About his neck, at the end of a long
jewelled chain, hung a little hunting-horn of silver, with his badge
of the white hart graven upon it and set round with pearls.
"Take this!" he said, and flung the chain over her head.
"By God's will, I 'll call the King's ményé to him with this horn,"
quoth Calote, a-kissing it.
The King laughed merrily then, and went and cast himself upon his
squire's neck:--
"Etienne, chéri, mignon,--be not so glum! When Richard is King in the
Kingdom of Love, not Dan Cupid's self shall dare to cross thy suit to
thy lady. Thou shalt be married to Calote, and I 'll make thee chief
counsellor. I 'll take mine Uncle John's land and richesse in forfeit
and give them to thee."
"Ah, no, no!" Calote exclaimed.
"But I will if I 'm King?" said Richard.
And then did Stephen laugh.
"Now wherefore so merry?" Richard asked, eyeing him in discontent.
"Beau sire, you bade me be merry," Stephen made answer, and to Calote
he said "When dost thou start a-preaching, and whither?"
"When Parliament is departed,--I go about in the villages to the south
and west of Gloucester. Meanwhile, I 'll lodge with a kindly
forester's wife in Malvern here. But now I must away to find an old
monk, my father's schoolmaster. My father was put to school in Malvern
Priory."
"Why, 't is very true!" cried the King. "The Vision maketh a beginning
in the Malvern Hills."
"I bring the Vision to this monk; and he 's a-fishing hereabout in
the Chase, the porter saith. Saw ye a burn as ye came hither?"
"Yea, verily!" Richard answered her. "We crossed it but fifty paces
back, and 't was there the dogs went off the scent and back to the
pack and the other folk, in the lower chase. Hark to them now! We 've
lost the hunt; let us go with the maid, Etienne. If her father's
schoolmaster is the same that sat at my side yestere'en and told me
tales, he 'll wile an hour right prettily for us. He said Dan Chaucer,
our Chaucer, came hither a little lad years agone, afore mine Uncle
Lionel died. I 'd rather fish than hunt. Leave Robert de Vere and my
brother John Holland to slay the deer."
So they went through the wood leading their jennets; and Calote, with
the King's horn about her neck, walked by the King's side.
CHAPTER III
By a Burn's Side
Brother Owyn gazed dreamily into the flashing waters of the burn. His
fish-basket was empty; twice he had lost his bait. But if the hunger
and thirst of a man be in his soul, 't is little he recks if he have
not fish for supper. Forty years past, when Brother Owyn was a young
man, he had fled into the Church in the hope to escape the world. But
he learned that monastery gates are as gossamer; and the world, the
flesh, and the devil, all three, caper in cloister. To-day he was in
disgrace with his prior--not the old dull prior, but a newer, narrower
man--for defending the doctrine and opinions of Master John Wyclif,
concerning sanctuary, and the possession of property, and the wrong
that it is for prelates to hold secular office.
"Dost thou defend a devil's wight that is under ban of Holy Church,"
quoth the prior, "and yet call thyself a servant to God and the Pope?"
"Which Pope?" saith Brother Owyn; for at this time there were two
popes in Christendom, the one at Avignon and the other at Rome, and
they were very busy cursing each other.
"Such levity in one of thy years is unseemly, brother," the prior made
answer, and turned his back.
Nevertheless, Brother Owyn was sore perplexed. Having that vision of
the Holy City ever before his eyes, and his daughter awaiting him on
the other side of the River of Death, he was altogether minded to keep
him from heresy. He began to be an old man now; haply the time was
short till he might enter into that other Kingdom. Was Master John
Wyclif the Devil, who taketh the word out of the mouth of Dame Truth?
Yet a many of those men, even his enemies who reviled him for his
doctrine, revered him for a holy man and a scholar. Some said there
was not so great a man in England, nor so good, as John Wyclif. Here,
then, was the old perplexity, to know what was truth. But Brother Owyn
erred in that he thought to save his soul alive by flight.
"Malvern coveteth a hermit," he mused; "but if I go apart, and sleep
in a cave, and never wash me, nor cut my beard, straightway there 'll
be a flocking of great folk to look on me, and to question me of their
wives' honour, and of the likelihood of these French wars, for that I
'm a holy man. Alack, my Margaret, my Pearl, now lead me out of this
quandary away into a quiet place to pray, for John Wyclif's word
draweth. Soon I 'll be a heretic and accursed."
Hereupon Brother Owyn lifted up his eyes, and suddenly cried out
aloud; for, on the other side of the burn, there stood a golden-haired
maid.
"Ho! thou hast lost a fine fish, see him!--gone!" cried a merry
voice, and the boy that was the King of England came a-leaping and
laughing from stone to stone across the sun-flecked water. After
him tiptoed the maid, but the squire with the two horses bode on
the farther side.
"Nay, climb not to thy feet, good brother," said the King. "Thy fright
hath shaken thee; in sooth, we meant it not."
"My lord, my lord," murmured Brother Owyn, and there were tears in his
eyes; "methought 't was my young daughter come to take me home,--home
where a man sinneth no more, and the walls of the city are jasper, and
the gates are twelve pearls." He covered his face with his hands, and
the tears trickled down his beard.
Richard knelt beside him and put his arm about the bent shoulders:
"Oh, but I 'm sorry!" he said distressfully. "Don't weep! prythee,
don't weep!"
"If I be not thy daughter, yet my father was as a son to thee," Calote
assured him, kneeling at his other side. "'T was thou taught him to
sing, and to-day he 's sent his song to thee."
Brother Owyn had lifted up his face to look on her, and now he touched
her bright hair, soft, with his finger, and "Will Langland's voice was
wonderly sweet," said he, "and low. 'T is nigh on thirty years since
he went out from Malvern, but his was not a voice to be forgot. His
daughter, thou?--He ever did the thing he had not meant to do." He
looked on her with a curiosity most benevolent, staying his gaze a
long while at her eyes; and:--
"Doth Will Langland sing at court?" he asked.
Calote laughed, her father's image in the threadbare gown flashing
sudden in her mind.
"Nay, he hath not yet; but he shall one day, when Calote cometh again
to London," declared the King. "'T is not so merry a poet as Master
Chaucer; but I do love his solemnité. Whiles he jesteth, but his
tongue 's a whip then,--stingeth."
Brother Owyn nodded his head, as he were hearing an old tale; and
turned him again to Calote:--
"Will Langland went a-seeking Truth, his lady, thirty years past. Hath
he found her?"
"She is here," Calote answered simply; and unrolled the parchment to
set it open before him.
The old man looked on her keenly: "Thou hast a great trust in thy
father?"
"More than in all men else," she said; and the squire on the other
side of the burn thrust his foot among the fallen leaves noisily, and
jingled the bridles of the horses.
"I am in sore straits to find Truth," quoth Brother Owyn, with a
half-smile. "Many a man will thank Will Langland heartily, if so be he
hath found her."
He turned the pages, slow, reading to himself a bit here and there.
"Give me thy rod, brother," said the King, "I 'll fish."
"There 's a-many horns blowing, sire," Stephen warned him from the
other side of the burn. "No doubt they seek thee and are troubled."
"Coeur de joie! Let them seek!" replied Richard. "'T will give them
a merry half-hour to think I 'm come to hurt, or slain. Then would
there be one less step to the throne for mine Uncle Lancaster. Look
not so sourly, Etienne! I 'll catch but one little fish. Hist!--Be
still!"
For a little while there was no voice but the brook's voice, and no
other sound but the slow turning of parchment pages. The monk busied
him with the poem and Richard looked into the water. Meanwhile,
Calote's gaze strayed to the squire and found his eyes awaiting her.
Straightway he plucked his dagger from his belt, flashed it in the sun
that she might see, and kissed it; after, he took it by the point and
held it out, arm's length, as he would give it to her; and so he stood
till she might rede his riddle. Presently, her eyes frowning a
question, she put forth her hand, palm upward, uncertain. The squire
smiled and nodded, and because their two hands might not meet across
the brook, he thrust the dagger in the trunk of a tree and wedged the
sheath betwixt the bark and the slant of the blade. All this very
silently.
Brother Owyn pursed his lips, or shook his head, or turned the pages
backward to read again. The King wagged his fishing-line up and down
in the water, impatiently. The distant horns blew more frequent.
"My lord," Stephen ventured once again.
Richard got to his feet and threw away the rod. "Eh, well; let 's be
going, since thou wilt have it so," he agreed. "The holiday is over.
On the morrow Gloucester again, and to say whether Urban or Clement is
true Pope."
Brother Owyn's face was grave; rebuke and displeasure trembled in his
voice:--
"My lord, and dost thou think 't is England maketh the Pope?"
Richard was halfway across the burn; he laughed, and looked over his
shoulder:--
"Ma foy, but I 'm very sure 't is not France!" said he.
After, when he was in the saddle, he felt for his horn, and,
remembering, called:--
"Prythee, Calote, blow thrice, that they may know whence I come. Now,
give thee good day, sweet maid, and success to thine adventure.
I 'll watch for thee in London."
And Calote had not blown the third blast when king and squire were off
and away; and she turned to meet Brother Owyn's disapproving eye.
"'T would seem that thou art well acquaint at court, though thy father
is not," he said.
She opened her lips to speak, then hung her head and answered nothing.
"Now, thanks be to Christ Jesus, the Lamb and the Bridegroom, that my
little daughter is dead, and safe away from this world of sin," said
Brother Owyn. "She dwelleth as a Bride in the house of the
Bridegroom,--in the Holy City that John the beloved and I have seen in
a vision. Thou art so fair that I could wish thou mightst dwell
therein likewise."
"Yea, after I 'm dead, and my devoir is done," Calote assented to him.
"Beseech thee, judge me not, good brother! I carry a message of
comfort to all these poor English folk that sweat beneath the burden
of wrong. Haply, thy daughter, were she quick, would go along with me
this day."
"Is this thy message?" he asked, pointing to the parchment.
"This, and more. I may not tell all to thee, for thou 'rt a monk."
"A strange reason," he averred. "'T must be a most unholy message.
Have a care of thy soul, maiden; the pure only shall see the
Bridegroom. Here am I sheltered in monastery, yet have I much ado to
withstand the Devil, that I may keep me clean and a true believer, and
so see Christ and my daughter at the last."
"I cannot forever take keep of mine own soul, brother, when there be
so many other in peril to be thought on. Wilt thou that I hide my head
in monastery and sing plain-song, and watch perpetual at the altar
lest the lamp go out; and, all the while, without the gate, the poor
till the fields that I may have leisure to pray? The poor likewise be
anhungered after truth. They cry, 'Wherefore did God make us to be
starved of the fat prelates!'"
"So did thy father rail in years gone by," answered the monk, "and
Master John Wyclif would have more preaching. But monasteries are
holy; they are ordained of God and the--the Pope. They shall endure."
"Brother, what wilt thou do, thou and thy monastery, when the villeins
all are free, when they need no longer grind at the abbot's mill, nor
plough the abbey's fields, nay, nor even pay quit-rent to rid them of
service?"
"Free!" cried Brother Owyn, "and who shall set them free?"
"Themselves, and Piers Ploughman, and Christ the King's Son of Heaven,
which cureth all ills by love."
The old man drew away from her: "Surely, thou hast a devil," he said.
"Then an thou lov'st me, call it forth," quoth she; and smiled, and
spread her arms wide, waiting.
But he cried, "Woe, woe!" and cast up his hands to heaven; and after,
"Lord, I 'm content my daughter died at two years old."
"Had she lived, she might have saved souls other than her own."
"She hath saved mine, mine most sinful," the monk interrupted her
sternly; "and dost thou think I 'll lose it now to thee? Get thee
gone, with thy strange beliefs and blasphemies!"
She got to her feet very slow, and stepped down the bank to the edge
of the burn; so, standing close at his knee, she spoke once again:--
"In the city where the wall is jasper and the gates are twelve pearls,
will there be any villeins to labour while other men feast?"
Her face was very near to his, her hand was on his arm.
"Nay, but I trow we 'll all be villeins there," he answered gently;
"villeins of one Lord, and bound to the soil; and the streets of that
city are as pure gold." So saying, he made the sign of the cross upon
her brow.
She trod the stepping-stones in silence, but on the other bank she
turned:--
"Natheless, though bond, yet we 'll be free!" she cried; and, catching
up the squire's dagger, was quickly gone.
CHAPTER IV
A Boon
When Parliament was come to an end in Gloucester, and on the night
before the day that the court set out for London, Stephen craved a
boon of his King.
Richard sat on his bed's edge in his shirt, humming a tune and picking
it out on his lute with:--
"Went it not this way, Etienne?" or "Was 't thus?" or "A plague on 't,
but I 'll have it yet!" And then would he begin again.
The squire was setting forth the morrow's riding-coat and gloves and
furred hood by the light of a cresset, for the start was early. A pot
of charcoal stood by the window. The night was cold, and Richard, as
he played on the lute, tucked his bare feet under him.
"My lord," said Stephen, on a sudden, coming across to the bed and
kneeling down, "I 've a grace to ask of thee."
"Thou!" cried Richard, throwing away the lute. "Here 's a marvel!" and
he leaned out and flung his arms, linked, around Stephen's neck, and
so peered, mischievous, into his face. "The others are at it all day
long, but when hast thou asked aught of me? Be sure 't is granted or
ever 't is spoke, sweet friend."
"Natheless, my heart doth not so assure me, sweet lord," made answer
Stephen, very sad. "Belike I 'm froward, but I do believe thou lovest
me dear, and for that cause 't will go hard with thee or thou grant
this boon."
Richard wrinkled his brow. "What a riddle is here?" quoth he. "I 'll
love thee, and yet prove a churl to thy desire?"
Stephen looked steadily beyond him for a moment before he began:--
"Is it fitting, _beau sire_, that one so young and fair and
helpless as Calote should go alone through this realm on perilous and
haply hopeless business?"
"Do not many so?" asked Richard uneasily.
"They are but seldom young, my lord, nor never so fair. They go to a
shrine to do penance for sins; they are old in the world's ways."
There was a pause, then Richard broke forth hotly:--
"If 't is not good that she go forth on this emprise, if 't is not
true that the common folk is strong enough to put down the nobles,
wherefore didst not thou prevent me when I gave consent? Thou art
older than I. Is this thy loyauté, to let thy King play the fool?"
"Oh, my lord!" said Stephen, and hung his head; but not for shame of
himself. Presently he looked up into the eyes of the sulky boy and
spoke on: "I do not know if the people be strong enough and wise
enough to do this thing. I do not know the people. I have lived among
courtiers since I was a little lad and my father died. But if they do
fail, my lord, the world will but wag as it did afore. Thine is not
the blame; thou art too young to bear blame for 't; 't is the people
that will be blamed."
Richard flushed slowly, and looked away.
"But I will not be laughed at neither," he said, with quivering lip.
"I wish I had not given her my hunting-horn."
"Trust me, sire," said Stephen, "if the people do ever rise up in
England against the oppression of the nobles, 't will be no laughing
matter,--even though in the end it fail. And mayhap Calote knoweth
that she speaketh,--mayhap 't will win."
"I 'll not tell any one I gave her leave to use the King's name,"
half-whispered Richard, shamefaced and scarlet; "nor must thou."
"Of surety, no; 't would spoil all, to tell," Stephen assented, but he
was so filled with his own thoughts and how he should ask the boon he
had to ask, that he failed to see how the King was ashamed.
Richard gave a quick sigh of relief. "Nay,--we 'll not tell," he
repeated. "'T would not be wise for Calote's sake to tell." Yet his
cheeks did not cool.
"Oh, my lord, and my King, this that I would ask of thee is likewise
for Calote's sake," Stephen cried. "Thou dost know well, Calote is my
love and my lady. I have tried, but I cannot love no other damosel.
And now she is going out to strange peril alone. My soul crieth shame
to me, sire; shame, for that I stay behind a-living easefully. Is this
knightly demeanour? Is this to be a defender of ladies?"
Richard's hand closed tight upon Stephen's collar, as if he felt him
slipping away and would keep him.
"My liege," the squire pleaded, "my lord, let me go follow my love!"
The King sat up very straight on the bed; there was fright in his
eyes. It seemed almost he could not understand that he heard.
"And leave me?" he said at last, in amaze.
Stephen made no answer, and, after astonishment, anger came into
Richard's face.
"A peasant maid!" he cried. "How am I scorned!" And then, "I hate
thee!--I hate, hate, hate thee!"
He pushed the squire from him. He tore his linen shirt open at the
throat and sprang to the floor.
"Hear me!" Stephen begged.
"Nay; I 've heard enough!" screamed Richard, his teeth chattering
'twixt wrath and cold. "Go, an thou wilt! Go now; now! I 'll take
Robert de Vere to my love. I 'll make him thrice an earl and give him
my jewelled buckle. He 'll not leave me so cruel."
"In pity, sire," protested Stephen; "the night is cold; thou 'lt take
an ague standing on the stone floor."
"And if I do, what 's that to thee? Thou dost not love me!" shouted
the King, his voice breaking in a sob. "Nay, do not touch me! I 'll
not to bed,--I 'll not to bed! I 'll stand all night and shiver. Let
be!--Ah, woe, harrow!"
He beat at Stephen with both hands, wildly, when the squire would have
wrapped a mantle round him.
"My lord, thy gentlemen will hear."
"I hope they may!" cried Richard, hoarse with screaming. "Mayhap I 'll
die of the cold, and then they 'll behead thee for a traitor, and
quarter thee, and hang thee up over London Bridge,--and I 'll laugh."
Thereupon he did, noisily, with tears.
Stephen looked on him for a space in silence and then went out at the
door and left him alone.
When he came again, bringing wine, spiced and honeyed, in a cup,
Richard's mood had changed. He lay on the bed, weeping.
"Here 's good clarré will warm thee, sire,--drink!" coaxed Stephen
gently.
"No!" said the King, strangling in his sobs, "No!--take away!" and
struck the cup out of Stephen's hand so that the wine flew all about.
Then on a sudden he was in the squire's arms, shivering, clinging,
crying:--
"Etienne, Etienne, methought thou didst love me!"
"And do I not so, my lord?"
"Then stay with me. I am the King. What 's a peasant maid?"
"What 's knighthood, my lord, what 's honour?"
"Is no knighthood in following after a peasant," sobbed Richard.
"Such-like maids be for pleasure of the noblesse. Robert de Vere told
me."
"I do never pattern my demeanour after his Lordship of Oxford," said
Stephen coldly.
"When I was a little lad, they sang me tales of how all the world did
love to do the bidding of the King," said Richard; "but it is not
true. O me, it is not true! I hate Calote!"
"Yet 't is she that puts body and soul in peril to do thee service."
"I 'd liefer she stayed at home, and wedded thee peaceable."
"God wot, so would I!" Stephen exclaimed. "But she will not."
"I 'll bid her stay," cried Richard; "and I 'm the King."
"The King is a truthteller, my lord; he may not give his word and
take it again. The King is pattern to his people and servant likewise;
doth not the Vision say this?"
"I 'm sick of the Vision," whined Richard, and clung more close to his
squire. "Thou 'lt not go! Say thou 'lt not go! How alone shall I be,
and unloved, if thou go. Etienne, I want thee to stay with me."
"And how alone will she be, that peasant maid that I have chose to
make my lady," said Stephen. "Think, sire! a kingdom is no plaything.
Be sure Christ Jesus, of all men the Judge, will not let thee off of
thy devoir to the least man or maid born in England,--when the last
day cometh. And when thou and Calote stand face to face, and the great
angel a-blowing his trump, and all the world rising up fearful out of
its grave, wilt thou say to the Judge: 'Christ, King of Heaven, this
was a maid that went out to do me service. My kingdom was full of a
quarrel 'twixt peasant and noblesse, 'twixt monk and friar, and
merchant. There was no man but had a grievance against his brother.
And this maid said, I will bring love out of this hate, and truth out
of this lying; the King and the peasant shall kiss the kiss of peace.'
And wilt thou say again, 'I had knights and nobles in my court to
guard me well and to do my will, O Christ! but I would not give one of
all these to go follow the maid and shield her from peril in her
lonely pilgrimage. I would not let go even a squire to be her
body-guard. If she hath come to harm, it is by me, and in my cause.'"
"No, no, no!" whispered Richard very piteous; "I will not do so." He
had ceased his weeping, but now and again a sob shook him. "Etienne, I
will be a true King. Ah, who will learn me to be true when thou art
gone!"
"The wisest men in the kingdom are at thy bidding, King Richard,"
Stephen answered him gravely.
"But they are too wise," the boy complained. "They weary me. I love
thee best."
"Natheless, 't were scarce fitting that Master John Wyclif, or Lord
Percy of Northumberland, be sent to follow Calote in my stead," quoth
Stephen, half-mischievous.
The King laughed a tearful little laugh. But presently he said:--
"Calote flouteth thee. She will not let thee go with her."
"She shall not know," Stephen answered. "Will my lord hear what I
purpose? 'T is no wonted adventure."
"Yea," Richard agreed. "But do thou first cover me in bed, and give me
a tippet; I 'm cold. Is there any of the clarré left in the cup?"
Thereupon Stephen covered him and gave him the cup to drink, and after
told him what he purposed to do,--a long tale.
"O Etienne, what a true lover art thou!" sighed Richard. "But I shall
miss thee sore."
"And I 'll lodge in poor men's cots, and take them to be my friend,
and learn if they be strong enough to overcome the nobles."
"I 'd rather be thou than the King," Richard said wistfully. "Here 's
a merry adventure, and 't is dull in the Palace at Westminster. Tell
on!"
So they spoke peacefully together, and at the last the King fell fast
asleep, and Stephen kissed his hand very soft, and left him.
CHAPTER V
The Adventure in Devon
Calote was in the south of England that winter, in Hampshire, and
Wiltshire, and Somerset; resting, now a week, now a night only, in
town or village or lonely hut. She travelled off the highway as much
as she might, and slept in poor folks' cots. She bought bed and
victual with a ballad or a gest, and because she could spin and bake
as well as tell a tale, the goodwives of the countryside harboured her
willingly, and sent her on her way with bread in her bag and milk in
her bottle, and her head bret-full of messages to distant friends;
as:--
"If thou 'lt take yon three fields as the crow flieth, then turn thee
on thy left hand, through a wood and up a hill and down again, thou
'lt come, in a good ten mile, to a river and a white thatched house on
t' other side; there be three yew trees behind. Do thou go in boldly
and call for Cristina atte Ford; she 's my brother's second wife. I
've not seen her this six year and more, but she was a kindly soul at
that time. Say 't was Cecily Ayr sent thee; and here 's a piece of new
linen for the latest baby and six new-laid eggs. God and Saint Mary
keep thee, wench! Yonder 's Roger Stokfisshe in his dung-cart a-going
thy way; he 'll give thee a ride."
When she came into a village, she went and stood by the cross, or in
the street before the tavern, and blew a blast on the King's horn; and
when the people began to gather round, she sang a song of Robin Hood,
or Earl Randle of Chester; and after, of Piers Ploughman; and she said
as how she was Will Langland's daughter; and if there were but common
folk, or a knight or two in the company, she told of the Brotherhood,
and at the last of the young King.
Whiles they were sullen and afraid; whiles they scoffed and would
believe but only that 't was a merry gest of a jongleuse; whiles they
waited not to hear the end, but drifted away by twos and threes
a-shaking their heads. Yet, more often, they stayed by, and crowded
closer, and fingered the silver horn curiously. A-many had heard
already something of this matter, as how the peasants should arise;
and these questioned her of when and where. Others told their
grievances loudly and said: "Will this be cured?"--"Will that be done
away?" Ofttimes she might not know all that they would say, for that
their speech was strange; and they on their part said: "What is
't?"--"What 's that to mean?" for Englishmen spoke a diverse language
in that day. Nevertheless, because of the going to and fro of peddlers
and merchants and minstrels, of pilgrims and friars, over the land,
there began to be a scattering of words from one shire to another; and
Calote, being quick of wit, had soon the jargon of the south country
and the west at the tip of her tongue.
'T would seem there was a young peddler journeying in these parts
about this same time; ever and anon Calote met him in tavern or
marketplace. There was never a lonely stretch of road but she found
him jogging on before, or looked behind to see him coming after. He
spoke not overmuch, and then with a grievous stammer. He was not
goodly to look upon, having no eyebrows and black hair very wild about
his head; yet, in his company Calote ever found her heart light with a
content and surety the which she was at a loss to understand. He wore
a tawny tabard, and a bright blue flannel hood of the kind that is
cape and hood in one, with a hole to thrust the face out. His hosen
were of coarse yarn, twixt white and gray, streaked. He carried a
light pack, with pins and ribbons and trinkets in it, and a lute slung
under his arm. Twice or thrice he had sat on the steps of a market
cross and twanged his lute that Calote might the better sing her
ballads, but if she thanked him, he would scowl.
At Salisbury, in the spring, she came upon Wat Tyler a-walking the
High Street, and 't would be hard to tell which had more joy of other.
He caught her up and kissed her heartily; and she, laughing, with the
tears on her cheeks, had well-nigh choked him with her arms around his
neck.
He told her as how her father was very silent, and ever busy with the
Vision. And her mother said: "If so be thou find Calote,"--for they
knew she was in that part of England where she was,--"here is a pair
of warm shoes for her feet."
He told her also how 't was rumoured that a poll tax was toward;
because, forsooth, some fool averred that "the wealth of the kingdom
is in the hands of the workmen and labourers." Wat smacked his own
empty hands together loudly and laughed so that men turned in the
street to look on him.
He lingered around and about Salisbury a month and more, and Calote
stayed with him, singing her songs in Wilton and Bemerton, and in the
taverns and at the poultry cross. That elfish peddler likewise rested
in the town, and ever he was at Wat's elbow, questioning of when the
people should rise; and how many shires were already awake to these
matters. But when May was come in, Wat set Calote on the road to
Exeter and himself turned his face to Londonward. And all that month
of May she was a-wandering over the moors of Devon, she and the
peddler, for he had never been in these parts and he lost his way.
"I know a man of Devon," quoth Calote; "he lives by the sea. If we
could come at him, he 'd succour us and set us in the right road."
They went in a circle ofttimes, and twice at nightfall they came back
to the same farm-house. Then the peddler bruised his foot, and they
stayed three nights under the open sky, in the heather. The silence of
the moors wrapped them round, and also the peddler's stammer was a
burden to his speech. The third evening a shepherd came upon them, and
gave them beans to eat.
It was June the day they came out upon a great red foreland above the
sea. The chief colour of the water was a flashing blue, but at the
edges it changed to clear green, fringed white with foam; there were
cloud shadows of purple lying on that blue, and here and there a
wondrous rosy patch, as it might be apple blossoms were melted there.
They followed along the cliffs after this, a dizzy way, and once
Calote was fain to lie down and cling to the short grass and cry.
"G-get up," quoth the peddler; "f-for sh-sh-shame to cry. I-I-I--
G-give me th-th-thy hand!"
And so twixt coaxing and comforting he got her to her feet again, and
they went on, he walking on the side of the sea as much as he might.
Ever and anon they came upon a handful of fishermen's cottages in a
wooded coombe, and at one of these hamlets they heard that Calote's
friend Peter dwelt some three miles farther on, inland about a mile.
So when they were come to Peter's cot, which was wreathed all about
with a riot of honeysuckle and wild rose, the peddler gave Calote
good-day, and she leapt the dry ditch and went into the yard through
the gate; and there was Peter a-sitting on the doorstone, mending a
hoe.
"O mistress!" he cried, and she laughed and shook him by the shoulders
and kissed him. And Peter's son, that was now a parson, came out of
the house with a book in his hand.
When the peddler saw this parson in the doorway, and how young he was,
he half turned as he would go back; but then he thought better of it,
and went on till he came to the church of the parish. In the
churchyard he sat down to rest under an old yew tree, and here the
parson found him after vespers, and took him in to lodge in his own
house.
Meanwhile, in Peter's cot, Calote went to bed supperless.
"We ate our bread at noon," said Peter. "The morrow morn I 'll make
shift to sell our black cock to the steward of the manor-house. 'T is
an ancient bird, but I have heard tell the cook is wonderly skilful to
disguise tough meat."
"Nay, not for my sake shalt thou sell it!" cried Calote.
But Peter answered her: "We also must eat, mistress. I am in arrears
to Bailiff for that my plough broke in the furrow three days past; I
could not beg no wood to mend it, but Forester found me in the park
with mine axe. Wherefore I sat yesterday in the stocks."
Peter had no shoes, and there were raw rings about his ankles where
the stocks had galled him, also his neck was bruised. He was very
ragged, his tabard full of holes. Nevertheless, he was not the only
one in that village went bare.
So soon as all the people heard that this was Long Will's daughter,
who was Peter's friend in London, they came eagerly to see her. They
were a big and kindly and simple folk, slow and obstinate. They heard
Calote's tales in silence, stolidly; yet they came again and again to
hear. Now it was before the door of Peter's cot that they gathered;
now it was at the foot of the cliffs when the tide was out; now it was
in the churchyard of a Sunday after Mass, the parson sitting by
a-copying her words; for his own book of the Vision was a tattered
thing, never complete, that he had bought at a Devon fair.
Meanwhile, the parson and the peddler were close comrades. The peddler
had to answer many questions; as, how did John Wyclif appear? And was
he so learned a man as John Ball? And did William Courtney, Devon's
son, still bear him arrogant, now he was Bishop of London? And was it
true, what the friars in these parts said, that John Wyclif was a
sorcerer and in the Devil's pay? And had the peddler been in
Oxford?--this with a lingering sigh. But ever the questioning came
round at the last to love, for concerning this matter the parson was
very curious; not that love Long Will sang in the Vision, but the more
common kind; and throughout whole days of June, as they walked
together over the wide rose-blossoming country on the top of the
cliffs, the parson to carry comfort to the sick or the aged, the
peddler to sell his wares, they discoursed of lovers and loving; and
it was the peddler who learned the parson the Romaunt of the Rose.
"And didst thou ever suffer this malady of love, to know it?" the
parson queried one day.
"Ay, a-and do suffer," the peddler answered. "B-b-but she 'll n-none
of me."
"A foolish maid, to judge by the outside," said the parson; himself
was a big, broad, yellow-headed man, might have had any maid in Devon
to keep his house for him an he had chose; but of this he was not
aware.
"Didst ever essay to curl thy hair?" he continued; "'t would soften
thy countenance."
The peddler smiled as at a memory: "Yea," he said, "I 've d-done so
full oft."
They were journeying along the edge of the cliff, and the sun was low;
on the sea there was one little ship.
"Will Langland married a wife,--and he a kind of priest," the parson
said suddenly.
"Ye-yet 't was not well do-done," the peddler retorted swift, "for all
J-John W-Wyclif coun-coun-counseleth."
As he talked, his eyes were on the sea and the little ship; but the
parson was looking down to the foot of a jutting headland beyond,
where a playful wight--was 't a man or a maid?--skipped among the
rocks, and ran into the water and out again.
"Nay, I 'm not so sure 't was ill done," he disputed absently; "we be
made like other men."
The peddler stood still and shaded his eyes with his hand: "Wh-what
for a ship is yonder?" he asked. "Methinks 't is sailing in. Is there
ha-harbour?"
The parson likewise shaded his eyes, then he said: "Below, there 's a
brook flows into the sea, and a kind of rough beach, where--where the
maid is playing."
"What maid?" But now the peddler saw, and though she was no bigger
than a brown lark, seen so far, he knew what maid it was, and so did
the parson.
"Is that a French ship?" asked the peddler, and never a stammer on his
tongue; but the parson was too troubled to be aware of this.
"I fear me,--I fear me!" he answered.
"And now I 'm very sure she 's coming in," the peddler cried, and
flung down his pack and stripped off his hood. "Do thou make the best
of thy way to the manor-house, Sir Priest,--yet I fear me the knight
's away,--and I 'll down to the maid. What way 's the nearest way?"
"Not so," the parson answered. "Thou canst not come to her afore they
land, by the way round; and thou canst not go over the cliff; but I
can, for I 've climbed these slippery walls up and down since I was
six year old." His blue eyes sparkled like that blue sea below; he was
tucking up his gown about his waist.
"To warn the knight and bring aid to thy parish is thy devoir; 't is
mine to succour the maid," quoth the peddler very hot. His eyes were
blue likewise, and eerie in the midst of his brown visage.
So they looked each into the heart of the other, angrily; and all the
while that French ship was coming in. Then the young parson drooped
his head, and "Not for mine own sake, but the maid's, let me go over
the cliff, brother," he said. "Think on the maid! If they find her
alone on the shore, or if they take her fleeing up to the village, of
what avail were my love then, or thine?"
The peddler put his two hands to his mouth and called out, trying to
make the maid hear him. But the wind drove his voice backward over the
land; and the ship came on with the wind. Then the peddler groaned
and, with never a look nor a word for the priest, he set off to run to
where the manor-house was distant two good miles. When the priest
looked over the cliff, the maid was already running up the coombe to
the mill that stood in the brook's way. Nevertheless, he began to go
down the cliff.
So soon as Calote saw that little ship, she knew what was to happen;
for the villagers on the coast had told her many tales of how the
French were like to come any day and burn and pillage; and how the men
of Cornwall had been so harassed that they had demanded fighting men
to be sent down to protect them and their coast; and the Commons
desired that those lords who had estates by the sea should dwell upon
them to succour their people.
Calote stood a moment looking out. This was a little ship, and but
one; might not these villagers overcome a few French and take them
prisoners? Here would be a tale to tell! Immediately she sped up the
coombe to the mill, and:--
"The French are coming," quoth she breathless. "Bar thy door!"
"And so be burnt like a swallow in a great-house chimney," said the
miller. "Not I," and calling to his wife and his man, and snatching up
his youngest, he made ready to go with Calote.
"But I 'll bring succour," she protested. "Wilt thou leave all the
good corn to pillage?"
"Yea, I will," answered the miller. "The murderers shall sooner have
my corn than my company."
"'T is not thy corn, 't is thy neighbours'," Calote admonished, but he
had no ears for her; and she, to save her breath for running, stilled
her speech, and left him.
The sunlight struck level athwart the tree-trunks and along the
wood-road that led twixt the mill and the village.
"'T is now about the going down of the sun," she thought, as she
hurried on. "They will be gathered at the cross, Peter, and the
parson, and the peddler, and all those others, awaiting till I come to
tell a tale and learn them of the Brotherhood."
She stood still for breath, and heard a cry.
"They have caught the miller afore he 's gone. Now they 'll be busy
with the pillage of the mill, for a little."
She started on, and stopped irresolute.
"When they come to the cross at sunset, they have their hoes, their
axes, and hammers with them; some of them will be shooting at the
butts with arrows for pastime at the end of the day."
She put the horn to her lips and blew a long blast.
"There will not be so many men in that ship. Better that ours should
come forth to meet them, driving them backward into the sea."
She blew another blast, and another.
"Better the affray should be here than in the village among the women
and children."
She ran on again, but not so fast. Again she blew the horn. And now in
the distance she heard the village folk coming down the coombe.
"They 'll think I 'm calling them to hear tales by the sea,--or that
some mishap is befallen me."
She heard them laughing as they came, and presently three or four
appeared among the trees, and more, and more, some forty of old men
and young, and little lads. Behind were women.
"The French!" she cried; and at that word the foremost men stood
still.
"We 'll fling them back into the sea, that dare to set foot in
England! We 'll"--
Something in their faces made her falter.
"'T is but only one little ship," she added hastily. "We are so many
we can--Brothers--brothers!"
For they were moving backward; already those behind had turned tail
and run.
"I say we 're two to one," she shouted desperately. "Come down and
drive them back! Peter, Peter, speak to them!"
"Best come away while there 's time, mistress," answered
Peter. "I must to the good wife and the children, and take them to the
manor for safety."
"I 'm a ditcher, and no soldier," said another. "Let them as know how
fight!"
"The French is no plain flesh and blood, but wizards," grumbled a
third.
And always they went backward.
"Cowards!" said the maid. "Is this the way ye 'll take the kingdom out
o' the grasp o' the nobles, and are too fearsome to run upon a handful
of French?"
"Smoke! Look ye!" cried a man. "They 've set the mill afire. They 'll
be on us! They 'll be on us!"
Whereupon panic seized them, and they all turned about and fled; and
Calote ran after, calling "Cowards!" and "Shame!" and "Is 't so ye 'd
serve the King?" and "Slaves! Oh, coward slaves!" till she had no
breath to speak nor run, and so dropped down sobbing by the road and
let them go.
After a breathing space, she began to hear voices behind; and she got
to her feet and hurried on to the village.
'T was now the French that came up the coombe, and as they came they
sang. They had the parson with them. The miller and his children they
had slain and cast into the fire; but 't was against conscience to
kill parsons. The miller's wife went blubbering betwixt two knights,
that quarrelled together very playful concerning her.
In the village every house was empty--every cottage door was wide.
"They 'll rouse their lord, I heard a horn," said the leader of the
band. "Burn, pillage,--in haste,--then back to the ship! We are too
few to stay in safety, but we 'll fill our bellies and the ship's."
Then at the other end of the street he saw a maid running through the
dusk; her hair was all unbound, and flew behind her like a golden
banner.
They came up with her at the cross, and closed about her in a ring,
forgetful of haste in their wonder at her loveliness. The leader was a
gallant gentleman, he doffed his bonnet and unlaced his helm, and
dropped upon one knee, saying sweet words; and although Calote and the
parson were but little versed in the French tongue, they knew right
well what this was to mean.
Then the knight rose up off his knee and went and set his finger
beneath Calote's chin, and lifted up her face, and stooped his own.
And presently the knight and the parson lay both at their lengths on
the grass. The knight was stunned only, already he opened his eyes,
but the parson had three thrusts of a sword through his body, and he
would die.
Out of the stillness that followed this deed there grew a faint sound
of horses' hoofs; but the men who stood around heard nothing of this.
'T is not well done to slay a priest, even a priest of the English,
whose pope is not the pope of the French.
The knight lifted himself upon his elbow and stared as he were mazed.
Calote was kneeling by the side of the parson. And on a sudden there
rode up horsemen, and the French turned about in confusion to fight
and to flee. In the midst of this battle Calote knelt at the parson's
head, as she had been in a hushed chamber, and presently she was 'ware
that the peddler came to kneel at the other side.
"How did this hap?" said the peddler, and he had to call out loud,
because of the noise of clashing steel, and the groans, and the cries
of battle,--"A Courtney, a Courtney!" for these were retainers of the
Earl of Devon.
"The French knight"--sobbed Calote.
And now the parson opened his eyes:--
"'Conformen Kings to peace,'" said he, very faint. He was babbling out
of the Vision. Calote bent her ear to his lips.
"'And to be conqueror called, that cometh of special grace,'" he said
and smiled. After a bit there came blood to his lips, but he sat up
joyously:--
"'And now I see where a soul cometh hitherward sailing,
With glory and with great light, God it is, I wot.'"
And so he fell backward dead.
There were other dead men lying all about. The few French that were
not slain were fleeing to their ship, and the English after them
pell-mell, hacking and hewing. The peddler lifted Calote off her knees
and led her away. They walked wearily many miles, stumbling through
the summer darkness. When the dawn came, the peddler made a bed of
moss and leaves for Calote, but she would not lie in it. She sat
a-sighing, with her head in her hand.
"S-s-sleep, mistress!" said the peddler, "a-and forget!"
"I 'll never forget that they are cowards!--cowards!" she cried
passionately. "Is 't these shall save the kingdom to the King?"
"''W-'ware thee from w-wanhope, w-would thee betray,'" said the
peddler, speaking out of the Vision. "Th-these men be not w-warriors,
but tillers of the soil; peaceable folk. They have been ca-cared
for and fought for all their l-life long. Not cowards, but
un-un-accustomed. We met them as we rode; they came to c-call the lord
of the manor to s-succour them. Peter was sore distressed f-for thee."
"Natheless, they ran away," she said. "They were afeared."
"N-not the parson," declared the peddler. "He was n-no coward. I did
never know a b-better man; and he was one of them. The ki-kingdom 's
not to be taken this year. P-patience!"
"Thou art no coward neither," she assented, a little comforted. "And
thou also art one of them."
But to this the peddler made no reply.
CHAPTER VI
The Adventure in Cheshire
In late September Calote and the peddler, having got as far north as
the ancient city of Chester, fell in with a company of bold outlaws
that dwelt in a wood some way without the city walls. Six of these men
were villeins that had run from their land; three more had been
soldiers beyond the sea and were now loth to lend their great limbs to
any peaceful labours; the tenth man was a beggar by trade, yet for
some cause best known to himself he would not beg in Chester; and
there was yet another, a young lad who had slain his lord's bailiff.
He had taken sanctuary and after abjured the realm, so that he was
under oath to get him out of England by the nearest way; yet he
lingered. Two women were also with this company: the one was
light-o'-love to the youngest soldier of the three; the other was
sister to the lad that had murdered the bailiff,--they two were
orphaned.
After the peddler had come out of Devon, leaving his hood and pack on
the cliff, he bought him a new pack in Bristol; but by now well-nigh
all his gewgaws were sold, and he purposed to buy other at the October
Fair in Chester. Meanwhile, he waited without the town, saving the
cost of bed and board, and keeping his eyes and ears open to serve
Calote.
These outlaws were no cowards, except it might be the young murderer,
who screeched in his sleep of nights and woke up staring, in a cold
sweat. They were a merry band; their food was berries and herbs and
the small game that ran in the woods. Now and again they ventured on
the high road and plundered solitary market-women or a farmer's boy.
In winter and spring they dared even set upon a merchant or franklin;
but at fair-time the merchants, coming to display their wares at
Chester, travelled in so great companies for safety, that 't was but
foolhardiness to attack them. So it fell that about the time Calote
and the peddler came among them these robbers, were in a mood of
discontent more than ordinary, having not so much as a groat wherewith
to bless themselves. An Calote's tales had not charmed them when first
they caught the couple a-wandering in the wood, no doubt it had gone
hard with the peddler. But when they heard how he sang to his lute,
and he said he had not peddled for many a day and 't was a poor trade,
they looked no further than his pack; the bits of ribbon that were
left in it the soldier gave to his wench.
"One eats all that one sells," quoth the peddler; but when they saw
how he did eat that night, they roared and said 't was plain he had
sold little of late.
They were wondrous kind to Calote; they crowned her with a garland of
green, and gave her of their best. Her tales of the Brotherhood, the
Great Society, they heard with passion and impatience. They were for
setting out to London without pause. The Vision went to their heads
like strong drink, so that they cursed and beat upon the earth, and
anon fell on each other's necks with kisses, in a kind of frenzy.
"Ye 'll be no more outlaws," quoth Calote, "but makers of laws. Ye 'll
be your own bailiffs on your own lands."
The poor lad that had killed the bailiff cast himself on his face, at
this, and wept, and his little sister also. And all those others did
what they might to comfort him, with:--
"Ho, man! leave off tears; 't was bravely done!" and "Never grieve for
a black heart!" and "A pox o' bailiffs!"
The horn they handled greedily, counting the linked jewels in the
chain and the pearls that were set about the image of the white hart.
Calote kept it in a little bag that she had made of a bit of blanket
the peddler gave her. This she wore by a string about her middle, and
drew forth the horn willingly when they called for it. She was not
aware how they coveted it, nor wherefore; but the peddler knew. He
heard them when they sat about the fire of nights, after the women
were gone to sleep. He listened the while they wrangled of the pearls.
One said there were thirty, another swore by Saint Christopher there
were but five and twenty.
"S-seven and twenty," quoth the peddler; "I-I-I counted."
They turned and looked on him. There were three awake, the beggar, a
villein, and the youngest soldier. They called the villein Symme
Tipuppe, and the soldier Nicholas Bendebowe; the beggar was only
Haukyn.
Quoth Haukyn to the peddler: "Art thou kin to the maid?"
"N-nay," said the peddler, "we met by the r-road."
"Tell me," said Symme, leaning forward. "Thou 'rt a kind of merchant,
is the horn silver, or some baser metal?"
"T-t-true silver," answered the peddler, and Nicholas Bendebowe,
looking on Symme, set his thumb to his nose and wagged his fingers,
with "Said I not so? I saw jewels in France, yea, and handled them."
"'T would bring a pretty penny if 't were sold?" Symme questioned.
"N-no doubt," the peddler made reply.
For a little while they sat silent, and the soldier laid a fresh bough
on the blaze, for that the night was crisp and all these fellows were
ragged and brier-torn.
Then said Haukyn the beggar, gloomily: "After to-morrow is the
beginning of the Fair."
"Small joy to such as we be," snapped Nicholas Bendebowe.
"M-methought 't was the charité of Chester Fair th-that all men might
gather there whether outlaw or-or-or runaway villein, and no one
should l-l-lay hands on them while the Fair endured," the peddler
queried.
"Yea, 't is so," assented Symme. "But what boots it me that I may go
within Chester wall, if I must go empty-handed? The Rows are lined
with spies that hale a man to the court of pie powder if he but stroke
with his finger the furred edge of a hood that 's to sell. 'T were
against reason to think a man will keep his hands off in midst of
plenty."
"B-but Haukyn 's a b-beggar only, he may ply his trade," said the
peddler.
"Haukyn does not ply his trade in Chester," the beggar answered for
himself. "If he cannot go in to buy like 's betters, he 's safest
without."
"Twenty-seven pearls," mused Nicholas; and Symme and Haukyn sighed.
The peddler looked across the blaze of the fire to where Calote lay, a
little way off at the foot of a tree, asleep. On the ground beside her
was the bag with the horn in it, and the string went round her slim
body.
After a bit the soldier snored; the beggar twitched awake and in a
trice was off again, this time sound; the villein turned his back to
the fire and drew up his legs, and presently the peddler heard him
grinding his teeth, and knew that he too was asleep.
Throughout the next day the peddler was never far from Calote; thrice
the villein had the horn out of her bag and fondled it, and the beggar
came and looked over his shoulder. The soldier's wench hung the chain
about her own neck one while, and saith she to her love:--
"Deck me in this wise!"
"By Our Lady o' Walsingham, that will I," he swore, "when Calote and
us common folk have put down the noblesse, and all men share alike."
Again that night those three talked of the Fair after others slept,
and the peddler sat beside them listening. On a sudden Symme Tipuppe
turned to him and said:--
"If the horn were to sell, what would it fetch?"
"A g-goodly sum," the peddler answered cautiously.
"Yea, but what 's that, a pound?"
"A pound, sayst thou?" the soldier scoffed. "If 't bring not five
times a pound, rend out my guts."
"H-haply 't might," said the peddler.
"With the chain?" queried Haukyn.
"With the chain?" Symme echoed, his eyes on the peddler.
"N-nay, but alone."
"Twenty for the chain, eh, peddler?" said Nicholas.
"N-nearer ten."
Then there was a very long stillness, till at last Symme said:--
"Fifteen pound!"
"If the King loveth us," grumbled the beggar, "he 'll never grudge
fifteen pound. Hath not the maid said the King 's our friend?"
"Ho, fellows! 'T is our horn as well as the King's," Nicholas
blustered in a whisper. "Doth not the maid say we 'll share with him?"
"'T is the maid's," said Symme, glancing aside uneasily at the
peddler. "The King gave it to the maid."
"Not so, 't is the King's!" persisted Nicholas. "'T is hers for a
token only. Heh, peddler?"
"'T-'t is t-true, 't is the K-King's," the peddler agreed.
Symme sighed as he were freed of a burden; the beggar moved more close
to the peddler; Nicholas shook the peddler by the hand,--"A sober,
sensible fellow, thou," he said.
"The King would give her another token an she lost this one," the
beggar whined in his peevish way. "And though he 's King, he 's Earl
o' Chester likewise; he 'd be kind to his own men, if they sold the
horn for hunger."
The soldier loosened his knife in his girdle with one hand, the other
he laid on the peddler's shoulder.
"Wilt thou be one with us in this adventure, brother?" he asked.
Symme also drew his knife, and Haukyn laid his fingers up about the
back of the peddler's throat.
"G-gladly, brothers," said the peddler.
"Fifteen pound!" murmured Symme. "Fifteen pound!"
Then the young murderer began to moan and cry in his sleep, and, for a
little, all were astir to soothe him; but when the place was quiet
Symme said:--
"Who 'll sell it? Haukyn can go to the Fair."
"'T is no safe token for a beggar to bear," quoth Haukyn; "hold me
excused. Men know me in Chester."
"Peddler can go to the Fair," said Nicholas; "he 's no outlawed man."
"True!" agreed Symme. "And peddler knows to chaffer. Fifteen pound,
peddler."
"Or more," said Haukyn.
"Who will take the horn from the maid?" asked Nicholas.
"I," Haukyn answered him. "I found an old cow's horn yester morn;
methought 't might prove a treasure. I 'll slip out one and slip in t'
other."
They chuckled.
"When she knoweth her loss, what then?" asked Symme.
"I 'll woo her prettily," said Nicholas, "till she forget."
"We 'll all go to Fair with the peddler," Haukyn declared.
But now the peddler answered: "Nay, n-not so! If I go, I go alone.
W-were I seen in your c-company, I 'd never sell it. M-my tabard is
whole, m-my hosen are clean, m-my pack beareth me witness I 'm a
peddler. Ye are ragged. I-I 'll swear on the horn afore I go that I
'll bring b-back the gold."
So they gave consent unwillingly, and composed them to a nap.
When the peddler set out to Chester next morning, he had the horn in
his pack. Symme, Nicholas, and Haukyn came to the edge of the wood
with him and watched him out of sight. Before he went into the city,
he stopped in the jousting-field outside the eastern wall; here were
the showmen and minstrels, the dancers and jongleurs, and cheap-jacks
of all kind. Among these the peddler wandered musing, till he came to
pause before a man that sold black stuff in a bottle, "to make gray
hair black." The peddler had a coin or two in his hand, and he bought
a bottle of this stuff and stowed it in his pack; but he took out the
horn and hid it under his tabard. At the gate he showed his pack
empty, with only the bottle in it, and was let pass without toll,--for
all who brought in wares to sell must pay toll to the Fair. Within the
city he bought a new hood, for he had had none since he came out of
Devon, and Calote told him once the sun burned his hair, it grew
rusty. He lingered above an hour among the Rows; but he bought no
trinkets to fill his pack, neither did he enter any goldsmith's shop
to chaffer for the horn. About noon he came out and walked by the Dee
till he happed on a quiet, lonely place, screened by the bushes. Here,
sitting down, he first rubbed his head well with the black dye, and
let it dry in the sun the while he took out from some safe place
within his tabard a pouch or bag, very full and heavy. When he undid
the mouth of the bag and tipped it up, there plumped out gold and
silver coin in a heap,--and he put his hand over it and looked about
warily before he set to counting. But there was no one nigh, so
presently he had made of one pile florins, and of another muttons, and
three rose nobles of another; and the silver he separated likewise,
into groats and pence. In the end he found that he had what he knew
was there when he set a price upon the chain and the horn,--fifteen
pound, odd pence. That the chain was of more value he guessed, but
this was all he had,--a goodly sum for a peddler; 't were marvel if he
had come by so much in trade. He was loth to part with all, yet he had
not dared to offer less, for that the soldier was a shrewd rogue.
He swept all into the pouch and tucked the pouch within his breast; he
dropped the horn into the point of his hood and slipped the hood over
his head, the point wagging behind; he set his empty pack afloat on
the river Dee, for now he had no money to buy trinkets. Except three
groat, he was penniless. He laughed, as his thoughts had been new
thoughts and amazing.
Meanwhile, in the brown dry woodland there was strife and a discovery.
Quoth the sister of the young lad that had slain the bailiff:--
"Let 's see the horn, Calote; I 've not laid eyes on 't this day."
"Let be!" said Symme rudely. "How do ye pester the maid! ye 'll wear
away the silver with fingering."
"Nay, but I 'll show it gladly," Calote protested. "'T is small
courtesy I may show for kindness," and she drew forth the old cow's
horn.
"Saint Jame!" cried a villein, not Symme, but another.
"Saint Mary!" gasped Calote, pale as a pellet.
"'T is stolen, mistress!" said Nicholas Bendebowe.
"Stolen!" cried out those others all at once, with loud bluster; "Who
stole 't?"--"Not I!"--"Nor I!"--"Nor I!"--"Will any dare say I stole
it?"
"Where 's peddler?" asked the beggar.
They looked on one another. The soldier winked.
"Nay"--Calote cried; "he 's kind!"
"Poor wench!" said Haukyn. "Hearken! I saw him go to thee where thou
wert asleep, at dawn; he knelt beside thee. When I came nigh he
turned, and thrust a bright something in 's tabard."
"Ah, woe, harrow!" said she.
"Now 't is plain why he 's gone so early to the Fair," quoth Nicholas,
a-shaking his head.
"He 's never gone to the Fair," said the beggar craftily. "Trust him,
he 'll show his face here no more. He 'll take horn to Lancashire or
York. He 'll be afeared to sell it in Chester with the maid so nigh."
Calote was looking from one to another, distressful. When she spoke,
her voice was very low.
"I 'll go after him," she said. "I 'll follow, and find him, or the
horn. Oh, cruel, cruel! Good-day, sweet friends; my heart is heavy
within me."
Some of them, the women and the other villeins, and the murderer, went
with her to put her on the high road, making loud lament; but Symme
and Haukyn and the soldier looked on one another with a wink and a
nod, and turned their faces to Chester.
"Best let her go," said Nicholas. "'T will save the peddler a lie and
me the wooing o' two maids side by side."
"A pretty maid," murmured Symme. "'T made mine eyes water to see her
sorrow."
The beggar said nothing till he saw the peddler coming up the road;
then he laughed and grumbled out:--
"So, he 's honest,--more fool!"
The peddler came on smiling, and they caught him about the neck and
looked covetous in his eyes, and thrust their fingers in his breast
and his girdle, with:--
"Hast sold it?"
"Ha, ha, good cheap?"
"Fifteen pound?"
He pushed them away, and "Let 's sit," he said, "wh-where 's shade.
Th-the sun 's hot as s-summer to-day."
So they sat down under a half-naked tree, and when he had taken the
pouch out of his tabard, he undid the mouth and let flow out the gold
and silver stream.
They sat and stared.
After a little the beggar thrust a dirty hand into the pile and let
the moneys slip between his fingers. Symme began to cry for joy, and
the soldier to laugh.
"Fifteen pound!" blubbered Symme.
"We 'll give each his share, and then to Chester," cried Nicholas,
shoving the beggar's greedy hand aside. "Come, count!"
"W-what for a t-tale have ye to t-tell the maid of her horn?" asked
the peddler, scanning them each in turn.
"Ho, ho!" laughed Nicholas, "'t is already told. Hearken, brother! 'T
is a merry gest; thou art saved a sad hour;--and I 'll keep mine old
love. I 'm a constant man."
Symme dried his eyes and snickered.
"The white-faced sister o' the lad must needs see the horn," Nicholas
continued. "Symme here would have hindered; but no, Calote put her
hand in the bag and plucked out--ha, ha!"
They laughed, all three, and the peddler knit his brows.
"What next?" quoth he.
"'T was plain the horn was stolen, but who cared lay claim to be a
thief?" went on Nicholas. "Thou wert away,--we fixed the theft o'
thee."
"I thank ye of your courtesy," said the peddler.
"Nay, naught 's to fear," Symme assured him; "she 's gone."
"Gone!" cried the peddler, leaping to his feet.
"Yea, to find thee and punish."
"Which way,--not by Chester?"
"Nay, trust to us; we set her o' the wrong track. She went eastward
and north on the highway."
But ere Symme had said the last word, the peddler was off; and those
others sat agape. Then Symme's eye caught the glitter of the gold.
"Come back,--come back!" he bawled. "Wilt have thy share?"
But the beggar choked him and the soldier dealt him a knock in the
paunch. And whether the peddler heard or no, he did not turn back.
He took a short way through the wood and came out on the road not so
far behind Calote, and she, looking backward, saw him. In the first
moment she began to run away, but presently she bethought her how 't
was silly to flee from a thief she had set out to take; and because he
still came on at a good pace, she sat down on a stone to wait for him.
So, at last, he came up panting and wiping the sweat from his face.
"Oh, thou wicked, cruel wight!" she cried. "Thou false friend!--I
trusted thee. Alack!--I trusted thee!"
"L-l-lll-l- ww-w-," said the peddler, striving for his breath.
"Hast sold the horn?--hast sold it, thou roberd?" quoth she very
violently, wringing her hands.
"N-nay, nor stole it, neither," he answered at last; and he took off
his hood and shook the horn out of the point into her hand.
She stood in amaze.
"But 't was stole out o' my bag," she said.
"N-not by me," he made reply. "An I had chose, I might have s-stole it
many a time in a s-solitary place where were no eye to see me take it.
I m-might have s-sold it t-ten time over."
"Then who stole it?" she cried. "Was 't a jest? A sorry jest, God wot!
Nor no jest, neither, for they let me go on my way. Did they know?"
"L-let well alone, mistress!" said the peddler. "He-he-here 's the
horn."
"Nay, but I will be told," she persisted. "What 's this thou 'rt
keeping from me? I 'll go back to the wood and bid Symme Tipuppe rede
the riddle. He was a kindly man."
She turned away, but the peddler stayed her with his hand.
"He-hear then, an thou wilt," said he. "But I warn thee, go not
b-back."
So he told her the tale of how they coveted the horn, and how he made
shift to save it for her; and she listened with a still face. At the
end she dropped her head upon her arms and wept silently a long while.
"L-look up,--take heart!" said the peddler. "The ho-horn 's safe."
"But they are thieves and liars," she answered wearily. "What hope?"
"Thou hast eat st-stolen meat this fortnight," the peddler declared;
"yet didst thou m-make no ou-ou-outcry."
She lifted up her head and stared on him: "But this is not the same,"
she said. "That meat we did eat ought, by right, to be the meat of
every man, not lords' only."
"So said Haukyn o' the horn. ''T is King's, quotha; 'King will sell 't
for his people if they will ha-have it.'"
She was silent a little space; then she said: "But they took it away
by stealth. Ah, woe,--they did not ask me!--They stole it!--And I
brought them a message of love."
"Th-they had no money in their purse. They saw other men go by to the
Fair."
"'T was not as if 't were mine own," she protested; "but a token, that
I might be known to speak for the King. Ah, bitter--cruel!"
"Th-they said, 'The King can give her another,--he ha-hath a plenty.'"
"Natheless, they are thieves,--roberds,--liars! What hope? What hope?"
"Who made them so?" quoth the peddler.--"The same that m-made them
outlaws, and m-murderers;--I begin to s-see 't is the lords of
England! Th-these do I blame! Wi-wilt thou forsake thy brothers for
th-that they 're sinful? We be all sinful m-men. Come!--th-the
message!"
She got up from the roadside stone and dried her eyes, and walked with
him, but in a dreary silence. For many a mile they went on in this
fashion. At even they came to a farm-house, and Calote went in and
sang for her supper. The farmer's wife was alone, and she gave Calote
a bed gladly, but she drove out the peddler,--who was peddler no
longer,--for that she was afeared of his strange looks.
"But he 'll pay for 's bed," said Calote.
"N-nay, mistress," the peddler answered. "I 've n-no money but three
groat. Th-those must wait for a r-rainy day. 'T is fresh i' the
fields." So he went out of the house; and she, remembering why he had
no money, wept sorrowfully. Nevertheless, she did not know how great a
sum he had paid for the horn.
CHAPTER VII
The Adventure in Yorkshire
The second winter of this pilgrimage was a snowy one, and the North
Country was a lonely place. Among those thinly scattered villages
Calote and the peddler had fared very ill, but for the old-time virtue
of hospitality, and the joy of minstrelsy, wherein the northern folk
vaunted themselves. The winds that blew across the moors were cold and
keen; the sea, whensoever the pilgrims came to the sea, was gray. The
peddler's lute cracked; it gave them warmth for half an hour one
night, and then the wind scattered its ashes. Once, a shepherd saved
them from white death.
Yet, 't was not all silence and snow. There were friendly days and
nights by the tavern fire, when Calote sang of William and the
Werwolf, of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, of Launcelot, of
Aucassin and Nicolette. Or, haply, some shepherd, thawing before the
blaze, would let loose a roaring voice in one of Lawrence Minot's
songs; those songs of the battles of King Edward III., Halidon Hill,
and Berwick, and Neville's Cross. Anon, there would be told tales of
Earl Percy. And Calote, who had listened while Londoners scorned this
great man, for that he was second only to John of Gaunt in craft and
hateful wickedness, sat now with open mouth to hear him praised of his
own folk, who loved him; neither had they any wish to cast him down
from his place and rule by their own wits. For, except it were in
Newcastle, Calote found few who hearkened patiently to her tale of the
ploughman. So she turned southward, sick at heart; and spring awaking
found her on the Yorkshire wolds, very thin and weary and ragged; and
the peddler likewise. Here, where John of Gaunt was lord, they found
many to listen willingly to their message. Yet was Calote unsatisfied.
"'T is ever their own small grievance that maketh them rage," she
sighed. "The bailiff hath fined this one, or set that one in the
stocks, and so they 'll willingly join the Brotherhood to spite the
bailiff. No doubt there be certain bailiffs that do their devoir
faithful, and there be certain villeins that under these laws do
deserve the fine or the stocks. But if a man is friend to the bailiff,
and hath enough to eat, how slow is he to see that he 's a slave; how
slow is he to take keep if other men starve or no! Alas! Alack!"
"W-Wat Tyler 's one that hath enough to-to-to eat," said the peddler.
"Yea," she answered slowly; "but I fear me Wat doth not all for the
people's sake. He 's a proud man, Wat."
"J-J-Jack Straw?" quoth the peddler.
"Talk not to me of Jack Straw," she cried. "Would that I could trust
Jack Straw! He must not come at the King. Where 's a true man to lead
the people? Thou might'st, well, peddler,--but for thy stammering
tongue."
He sunk his chin on his breast and strode beside her, dogged, silent.
One day they came to a manor-house, very grim, and moated round about;
and as they stood on the edge of the moat, looking in, there rode by
three damsels with falcons on their wrists, and a page boy with them
who hollaed to let down the drawbridge. Now while as they waited, and
the bridge creaked, one of those damsels espied Calote, and marvelled
at the colour of her hair which blew about her face.
"Come hither, wench!" said this maiden, whose name was Eleyne. "Art
thou a jongleuse?"
"I can sing a many tales, madame," Calote answered.
"Ah, Saint Mary! bring her in!" cried another of the damsels; the
fairest this one, hight Godiyeva.
"Yonder fellow, hath he his wits?" asked the youngest of the three,
and she pointed at the peddler.
"His wits, yea, madame; but not his tongue," said Calote.
"Haply he 'll dance, or leap, or twirl swords on his finger tip?"
Godiyeva averred. "We 're so dull; hath been no minstrel nor jongleur,
nor bearward even, at our gate for nigh on three moons."
"Canst thou do any of these things?" Calote asked the peddler; but he
shook his head.
"Natheless, mesdames, he 's as hungry as I be. Prythee let him dine,"
she pleaded.
"Let him labour, forsooth," answered Eleyne. "A carl so sturdy, so
young, and a beggar? For shame!"
"I 'll gladly sing for two," Calote protested.
"N-nay, mistress, g-go in," said the peddler; "I-I-I 'll linger
hereabout."
So the three damsels and the page clattered over the drawbridge, which
was now let down, and Calote followed on her feet.
These three maids were daughters of a certain Sir Austin, the lord of
the manor, a fat, red old man, a glutton and a widower. Even now, he
stood in the hall a-fuming for his dinner, which the steward brought
in hot from the kitchen so soon as the ladies came through the door.
He rated them harshly for their tardiness, and they passed him by with
sullen, haughty faces, stepping to the dais; only the youngest clipped
him round the neck and set her lips to his with a loud smack and a
merry laugh, so that he was fain to smile at her, and stint his
grumbling.
Calote sat below the dais at the long board, betwixt a waiting-woman
and a friar; over against her sat the bailiff, and leered at her, and
would have fed her sweet morsels on the end of his dagger but she drew
backward; whereat they all laughed loud, and the bailiff turned purple
and ugly, and the friar twisted on the bench to have a long look at
her. This was the first time ever Calote had dined in a great house.
She could not but marvel at the strange dishes all spiced and covered
over with sauces. When she had drunk to the bottom of her cup of ale,
the friar filled it up again to the brim. When she would have eaten
her trencher bread, the waiting-woman, with a snort, jerked it from
her and tossed it into a basket where were other scraps of broken
food. After, when Sir Austin and his daughters had dipped their
fingers in water, and wiped them on a white linen towel, a page boy
came to Calote and bade her go sing her song. So she went and sat on
the dais step, and the youngest daughter, Custance, who sat now on her
father's knee a-munching sweets, leaned down smiling, and said she:--
"Whence art thou, not out o' the north, I trow, by thy tongue?"
"I live in London, fair lady," Calote made answer; and with that all
three cried out:--
"London! then haply thou hast a tale o' that poet, Dan Chaucer; he 's
in favour with the great Duke."
"Ay, mesdames; there 's one tale of his I know," said Calote, and
thereupon she told them of the Life of Saint Cecyle, and how she was
wedded to a young man, and an angel came down from heaven to twine
them with garlands of roses.
"Oh!" and "Ah!" said the damsels, smiling one on another; "a sweet
tale!"
And how the governor of the city cut off Cecyle's head, for that she
was a Christian. But she had a stubborn neck, would not break in three
blows o' the sword.
And "Oh!" and "Ah!" shrieked the damsels, clasping their white throats
with their soft fingers. "Tell on, tell on! A grisly tale!"
This was one of those jewels that Dan Chaucer after set in the chain
that he called the Canterbury Tales; nevertheless, at that time 't was
already cut in the rough, albeit not yet polished for the setting, and
Calote had heard it.
"Anon, anon!" cried Custance, when the tale was ended; and her father
being asleep, she slipped off his knee and sat down on the dais step
by the side of Calote, her chin in her hand.
"Nay, let them clear the hall," said Eleyne. "'T is late; I 've a gown
to mend. What say ye, if we keep the maid and hearken to but one tale
each day? So we 'll wile our tediousness."
So Calote stayed in the manor-house and slept of nights on a sheepskin
at the foot of Custance's bed.
The third day after her coming, Sir Austin held his court in the hall.
The bailiff was there and the reeve, and certain villeins that would
make complaint, or be complained against. And the peddler also was
there, set twixt the reeve and the bailiff. Sir Austin sat in his
great chair on the dais, and in the other end of the hall, against the
lancet windows, Eleyne, and Godiyeva, and Custance sat, sewing a seam.
Calote knelt at Custance's elbow, and they all four babbled soft of
Sir Gawaine, and drew their needles in and out, and lifted an eye now
and again to mark what was toward in the other end of the hall.
When first the peddler came in, he looked about him hastily, as one
seeking, but when he saw Calote, 't would seem as he sighed and stood
at his ease.
"Yon 's thy beggar, is 't not?" asked Custance of Calote.
And Calote answered her: "Yea, lady!" and henceforth was mindful of
him, and of the business.
There was one villein who craved leave to give his daughter in
marriage,--and he had brought the money to pay. There was another who
would be quit of his service of ploughing the lord's land, and he also
brought his pence and counted them out in his hand, and the lord took
them and gave him quittance for that time. In Yorkshire there were
many villeins might commute service thus, and welcome. There was
another had fought with his fellow in a tavern brawl, and both these
the lord sent to the stocks. There was a young shepherd come to ask
that he might have a lad with him to help him keep his flock; 't was a
great flock and strayed over the wolds.
"Hast thou such a lad, bailiff?" growled Sir Austin. There was gold in
wool,--'t were best keep it safe.
"Haply, Sir Austin," said the bailiff, and thrust forward the peddler.
"Here 's an idle fellow hath dawdled twixt the manor and the village
these three days. He will not go, he will not stay; knoweth not his
own mind. There 's enough idlers among them that make pretence to
labour, and shall I countenance sloth that 's avowed open?"
"I-I-I 'm a free man," said the peddler.
"A pox o' free men!" shouted Sir Austin. "No man is free to eat his
head off in idleness o' my land. Wilt begone?"
"I-I-I," stammered the peddler, looking on Calote, who had drawn nigh
the better to learn what was going forward.
"Wilt stay?" roared Sir Austin.
Again the peddler looked on Calote.
"'T is a kind man," said she, going up to the dais. "Hath done me much
service in my wanderings. 'S tongue 's slow."
Sir Austin smiled on her.
"A man plougheth not with his tongue, wench," said he. "Neither hath
he need of 's tongue to mind sheep, but if he whistle. Hark ye, rogue,
I 'll give thee another day to gather together thy slow wits;
thereafter thou 'lt labour, or get thee gone,--else I 'll make thee
free o' the stocks."
The villeins and other servitors were now lagging forth of the hall,
and mid the noise and stir the peddler said to Calote, hastily:--
"D-dost thou bide long i-in this place?"
"How can I tell?" she answered.
"Wh-when thou art ready to begone, thou 'lt find me sh-shepherding on
the wolds. Meanwhile, k-keep thy dagger loose in its sheath."
Then he left her and went to the edge of the dais.
"S-sir Knight, I-I 'll make shift to aid thy sh-shepherd," he said.
And presently he was gone out with the villeins.
Calote walked down the hall to the windows, pondering. She had kept
her dagger secret even from this peddler. How should he know? Yet, 't
were a simple thing, no doubt; her gown was ragged. But at night, when
she lay on the sheepskin a-turning over the day in her mind, she asked
herself why the peddler should stay for her.
"Alas,--wehl awey!" she sighed, and her face burned in the dark.
After a little she said again: "Wehl awey!"
The heather was not in blossom, but the breath of spring sweetened the
wolds. Diggon the shepherd gave his new man a sheepskin to warm him
in, and together they two kept the flock. Out in the lonely open the
peddler forsook his stammer as much as he might, for the nonce; yet
now and again 't would master him against his will, and so did all his
life after. If a man hold his unruly member halting two year, 't will
take revenge.
This Diggon, shepherd, was a gentle being, with a mind like to the
Yorkshire wolds, filled full of space, and sky and silence. Whiles,
likewise, was his mind purple-clad; then he 'd speak slow words
concerning God, and the creatures, and life. Last Christmas Eve he
heard the angels singing in heaven, he said. The night of Good Friday,
three weeks past, he had a vision of the Rood.--The peddler crossed
himself.--One day he lost a lamb, and when he had searched from noon
till sunset, and the sea mist was coming in, he met a man larger than
life, carried the young lamb in his arm.
When the peddler told him the tale of Piers Ploughman, he listened
with a great joy in his eyes.
"In that day," quoth he, "they 'll cease to ride the hunt across the
wolds and scatter the sheep."
When the peddler instructed him of the Fellowship that was joining
hand over all England, he rubbed his head, perplexed.
"We been brothers and Christen men ever," he said. "Here 's no new
thing."
Of new laws and new masters and freedom he took no keep.
"Am I not free?" he asked, and spread his arms out east and west, as
to gather in the moors.
"But all men are not so content as thou," said the peddler. "They are
ill-fed, they must work without stint. Wilt not thou join hand to help
them that suffer?"
"Yea, brother," Diggon answered him; "yea!" But then he knit his
brows, and, "If all we go up to London to reason with nobilité, who
'll take care o' the sheep?"
The peddler sat silent, abashed; till on a sudden Diggon threw his
head back and laughed, with "Who but the Good Shepherd!--Diggon 's a
fool!"
So the days passed, and the peddler waited for Calote. She, meanwhile,
was taken into favour at the manor-house. Old Sir Austin would chuck
her under chin and follow her with his watery eyes in a way that she
mistrusted. She wondered that the daughters observed naught; but they
paid little heed to their father. The youngest loved him as a spoiled
child will, for sake of gain; but the other two were peevish if he
spoke to them.
Godiyeva he had thwarted in a marriage with a lord's son, with whom he
was at feud, and she could not forget. In truth, he was so quarrelsome
that his neighbours shunned his company; and he, on his part, cast
gibes upon his daughters, for that they could not get them husbands.
"Is one comfort," said Eleyne on a day when he had baited them till
they wept for rage and shame. "Is one comfort; if no gentlemen will
come anigh this house, will no gentlewoman neither. They be all
afeared o' thee. If we must dwell here forlorn, we are spared a
step-dame. Is none would live thy cat and dog life."
"Sayst thou so? Sayst thou so, hussy?" roared the knight, and would
have struck her; but his eye lighted on Calote,--he let drop his hand.
"Sayst thou so?" he repeated more softly, and went out chuckling.
"Thou fool!" said Godiyeva to her sister. "What maggot hast thou put
in 's head?"
'T was the day next after this one that Calote chose to tell them the
tale of the Ploughman. She had been of three minds not to tell it at
all; but then she called herself a coward. Of Richard she had never
spoke, nor showed the horn, and she did not now. After supper she told
her tale, and she said by way of a beginning:--
"This is the last tale I have to tell, mesdames. To-morrow,--or 't
maybe the next day, for 't is a long tale,--I must give you thanks of
your courtesy, and begone."
"Ah, stay, and tell them all again!" cried Custance. "We 've not been
so merry since Godiyeva's lover flouted her."
"Peace!" said Eleyne, and Godiyeva's lovely face flamed red.
The old knight chuckled in the chimney corner. He did not snooze
to-night, as was his wont; he sat a-blinking on Calote, and sipping
his piment, slow. Calote crouched on a low stool, with her face to the
fire.
"In a summer season when soft was the sun"--she began, and at the
first she spoke hastily, and with a little quaver in her voice. She
knew not how they might take this tale.
They took it for a jape, a jest; they laughed. Lady Mede and her
sisours and summoners made them very merry. When Repentance called the
Seven Sins to confession, and the tale was told of Glutton in the
tavern, Sir Austin doubled him up with a loud guffaw and nigh fell
into the fire. When Piers Ploughman put up his head, the damsels
squealed for joy. When he, this same Piers, set the ladies of the
Vision to sew sacking, and the Knight to keep the land freed of foes,
Sir Austin's daughters held their sides, and rocked back and forth,
the while mirthful tears fell down their faces.
Then Calote lost her patience and forgot to be afraid. She stood up on
her feet and faced them with her head high:--
"Natheless, all this shall come to pass!" she cried. "This is a true
word. No Goliardeys, I, but a sober singer. 'T is the ploughman, the
poor man, shall lead all ye to truth. The rich shall give of their
wealth to the poor, in that day; no man shall go naked and hungry.
Fine ladies and maids like to me shall love one another."
Her voice broke, and she put out her hands to the three fair damsels
that sat on a bench and stared:--
"I pray you pardon, sweet my ladies, but this matter lieth close to my
heart."
They laughed kindly, and Eleyne said:--
"We 'll love thee for the sake of thy tales, wench, and forgive thee
this once that thou art froward."
"List, child," said Godiyeva; "the poor is not so greatly to be
pitied. I 'd liefer be a glee maiden, free to wander in all England,
welcome in every hall and cot,--I 'd liefer be a houseless wench, say
I, than--than this that I am." And Godiyeva arose, lifted her arms
wearily above her head, and paced down the hall into the shadows.
"If thou wert gowned in soft stuffs, and thy hair in a net and a
horned cap atop,"--Custance mused idly, looking Calote up and
down,--"methinks,--methinks,"--hereupon she clapped her hands and
leaped to her feet. "Whyfore no? Come, wench, I 've a gown in my chest
is too short for me. Here 's a merry sport. We 'll make thee a lady
for the nonce."
"Ay, do!" cried the knight; and presently slapped his leg, and laughed
as at a secret thought.
"Nay, lady," Calote protested; but Custance had her by the hand
dragging her from the room.
"Thou 'lt spoil the wench," said Eleyne; "is over bold now." And
Godiyeva curled her lip scornfully.
Sir Austin laughed yet more loud, and bade his youngest daughter make
haste. So Custance caught a lighted cresset from the wall, and hurried
Calote up the stair. And Calote, when she saw the azure gown broidered
with gold about the hem, and the pointed crimson shoes, and the high
cap of green and rose colour with its floating silken veil, made no
more protest; for she was young, and a woman.
When all was done, her tiring maid drew back in dumb amaze; then took
her hand and led her down to the hall.
At Calote's heart there was a fierce pain.
"Oh, Stephen!" she cried within herself; "oh, Stephen!" Yet what this
was that so hurt her she did not ask.
In the hall there was dead silence for the space of a minute. Then the
knight came out of his chimney corner a step:--
"God's bones!" quoth he in a half whisper; and Calote, looking in his
face, knew that she must go away from this house as soon as might be.
She set her hand to her breast and fingered the hilt of the dagger,
where she had thrust it unseen of Custance.
"A common peasant! 'T is amazing!" exclaimed Eleyne.
"I knew she was very fair," said Godiyeva quietly.
"Doth not my pearl net gleam against her gold hair?" cried Custance,
and swept a low curtsey before this new-made lady.
"To-night ye may thank Saint Mary your many wooers be not by, my
daughters," mocked them Sir Austin; and Godiyeva tossed her head.
"Tell me, wench," he continued, "'t would like thee well to be a
lady?"
Calote, her heart aching with the thought of Stephen, answered him
proudly:--
"I might be one, an I would."
But immediately she could have bit out her tongue, for the knight had
set his own meaning upon her words.
"So ho!" quoth he. "What a witch art thou! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Sir, you mistake," she said coldly. "I have been sought in honourable
marriage by a gentleman, but I would not."
"And if once sought, wherefore not again?--Wherefore not again?" he
asked with a cunning grin, wagging his head.
His three daughters had drawn close together at one side of the
hearth; there was anger, astonishment, and fear in their faces.
Suddenly the old man turned on them roughly:--
"Get ye gone!" he said. "Off!--To bed!--I 've a delicate business with
this--ha, ha--this lady."
"'T is shameful!" cried Godiyeva. "I 'll not budge,--a common wench, a
stroller."
"Oh, father, wilt thou so shame us?" moaned Eleyne.
"'T is but another jest, dear father; say 't is thy sport," Custance
pleaded.
But for answer he took up his riding-whip and laid it about their
shoulders so smartly that they fled from the hall shrieking and
cursing him.
A page thrust his head in at the door, but quickly drew it forth
again. An old woman that had been asleep in a corner got up and
hobbled out in haste. The dogs put tail between their legs and slunk
under the settle. Calote, in the firelight, waited. Her knees shook,
yet she was not afraid.
When he had cleared the hall the knight threw away his whip, came back
to the fire, took the remainder of his piment at one gulp, and hurled
the goblet to the far end of the hall.
"So, my lady; wilt have me on my knees, for the more honour?" said he;
and she let him grunt, and crack his old joints, for that she knew he
could not readily get up if he were once kneeling.
"Now, hearken!" he bade her. "Wilt dwell here and tame yon proud
damsels, and shame 'em? I 'm sick o' daughters; I 'd have a son to
lean on in mine age. Come,--I 'll marry thee honest. Thou shalt be the
envy of all York. Thou shalt wear silken gowns. Here 's a happy
life,--no sleeping under hedge nor in the open. So thou do my pleasure
I 'll never harm thee. The one that 's gone had never a harsh word
from me till the third daughter came, and that was past any man's
patience t' endure. By Holy Cuthbert, I swear thou art lovelier than
any court lady ever I saw,--and I 've been in Edward's court,--yea,
and in France likewise. Kiss me, wench!--By Saint Thomas, but I will
kiss thee whether or no!"
He stumbled and staggered to his feet and came at her with a lurch,
for his head was dizzy with wine and pleasure.
"Sir, I will not marry no knight,--nor lord of a manor,--unless he set
free all his villeins," she said, and slipped aside. "Neither will I
kiss any man for love, till we be promised together."
"Free my villeins, pardé," he cried. "Do I not take quit-rent of the
half of them even now? They be as good as freed."
"But I will have them altogether freed."
He sat down in the chimney corner and wiped his brow:--
"Pish! Here 's not a matter to be decided without law and lawyers. I
must think on 't. Come hither, my lady; give me good-night."
But when he saw that she moved away to the door, he sprang up heavily
and caught her about the middle.
"Sir," she panted, "methought 't was thy mood to shame thy daughters;
yet this shameth only me."
"True!" he said; "my daughters!"--and let her go. "But I 'll not be so
patient another night. We 'll have a priest on the morrow."
"First, free thy villeins!" she made answer, and slipped through the
door.
Above stairs she found the three damsels crouched on one bed, their
heads together. Godiyeva hurled a foul name upon her as she entered.
"Peace!" said she. "Your father hath consented to wait till the morrow
morn. Now, if ye are not minded to have a step-dame ruling here, make
haste to strip me of these fine clothes, and show me a way to depart
softly while 't is yet dark."
"Thou wilt go!" queried Godiyeva.
For answer, Calote took off the bright cap from her head and kicked
away the crimson shoes. Then distance set to work hastily to undo the
gown, and the dagger fell out and rattled to the floor. Godiyeva
carried it to the light, looked at it, and brought it back, but asked
no question.
"Why dost thou wear this bag under thy gown?" said Custance.
"For safety, madame," Calote replied, and thrust her arms into the
sleeves of her old russet.
Custance still held the bag, but no one dared ask further.
"I will take her down the other stair to the water-gate and put her in
the boat," said Godiyeva.
"God and Saint Mary bless thee!" whispered Eleyne, and would have
pressed silver into her hand, but Calote shook her head and smiled.
Custance kissed her.
At the water-gate there floated a little boat, and Godiyeva got into
this with her and sent it across the moat in three strong shoves of a
pole.
"Which way is the shepherd's way, where the flock is?" asked Calote.
"To southward of here," Godiyeva answered; and then, "I repent me of
that name I called thee."
"Dear lady," said Calote, "I 'll pray Christ Jesus and Mary his
mother, that they send thee happiness."
So she went away into the night, beneath the pale shine of a waning
moon, and Godiyeva crossed the moat, and climbed the stair.
"'T was a hunting horn she had in her bag," whispered Custance. "I
felt the form of it under the flannel. Dost believe she 's that chaste
fairy lady, Dian, the poets sing?"
"Nay, she 's a woman, like to us," said Godiyeva, and lay down on her
bed.
Out on the wolds Diggon and the peddler had built a fire to warm a
new-born lamb. The while they sat with their arms about their knees,
looking into the fire, they spoke of Christ's Passion, and death. Said
the peddler, out of the Vision:--
"'One like to the Samaritan and a little like to Piers the Plowman,
Barefoot on an asse's back, bootless, came riding,
Without spurs or spear, sprightly he looked,
As is the manner of a knight that cometh to be dubbed.
"This Jesus, of his noble birth, will joust in Piers' arms,
In his helm and his habergeon--_humana natura_;
In Piers Plowman's jacket this pricker shall ride."'"
"Poor men been greatly honoured, 't is true," said Diggon. "Behoves us
do best, that Christ be not shamed to ride in our armour. Natheless, I
find it hard to believe as how Sir Austin will clip me and kiss me and
call me brother. Sir Austin 's a proud man,--lord o' the manor,--and I
a silly shepherd. Christ knoweth us poor,--for that he came to earth a
poor man. He put our garb upon him. Till Sir Austin and his ilk do put
them in poor men's weeds and ploughman's weeds and shepherd's weeds,
how shall they know what 't is I suffer, or that rejoiceth me? Men
know that they live. Small blame to Sir Austin, or to the King."
"O Diggon,--my brother! This is a true word," cried the peddler. "Let
them don thy russet, and labour with thee, and starve with thee, and
they 'll love thee and give thee the kiss of a friend,--even as I
do,--O Diggon,--even as I do!" And the peddler cast his arms about the
shepherd, and kissed him on each cheek, and they two smiled happily
the one upon the other in the firelight.
Then the peddler took up the tale of how Christ Jesus was crucified,
and two thieves with him, and after, he began to speak of the
harrowing of hell, and of Mercy and Peace that kissed each other.
"'And there I saw surely
Out of the west coast a wench as me thought,
Came walking in the way--to--'"
said he, and when he had said it he felt Diggon's hand on his arm.
"She cometh," whispered Diggon.
And there, on the other side of the fire, stood a maiden.
"I go to Londonward," she said. "I came hither, for that I knew 't
would grieve thee if I set forth secretly. Natheless, is no need that
thou follow. I am not afeared of the night, nor no other thing."
"Wilt thou not w-wait for the day?" asked the peddler, rising up.
"If I wait, there shall be done me a great honour. The lord of the
manor purposeth to make me his wife."
"Saint Christopher!" cried the peddler, and turned in haste to the
shepherd: "Diggon, dear brother; fare thee well! This is m-my lady; I
must follow her."
"Hail, maiden!" said Diggon. "Art thou Mercy, or Truth, or Peace, or
Rightwisnesse?"
"None of these,--but handmaid to Truth," the peddler answered for her;
and when he had kissed Diggon he took Calote by the hand and led her
away. And Diggon was left by the fire with the new-born lamb.
"T-tell me!" the peddler questioned after a little.
So she told him all, and at the end of the tale she said:--
"Natheless, 't is not for his wooing that I 'm ashamed and weary; but
they laughed at the Vision. They laughed!--They thought 't was all a
jape. Wherefore should they fear the peasants,--the poor rude
men,--wherefore should any fear such simple folk? Who is 't knoweth
better than I how weak Piers Ploughman is? Were I a lady, with the
poor fawning about my heel,--and one sang that these should deliver
the land, I 'd laugh too. They 'll fail--Dost thou not know they 'll
fail? Ah, woe,--alas!"
"R-Roland of Roncesvalles, though he lost, yet did he win," said the
peddler. "Jesus Christ d-died on cross. Hearken to the Vision:--
'After sharp showers, quoth Peace, most glorious is the sun;
Is no weather warmer than after watery clouds.
Ne no love dearer, nor dearer friends,
Than after war and woe when Love and Peace be masters
Was never war in this world, nor wickedness so keen,
That Love, an him list, might not bring it to laughter,
And Peace through patience all perils stopped.'"
CHAPTER VIII
The Believers
Out of a lonely land of moor and fen and scattered shepherds, Calote
came down into the stir and bustle of the eastern counties. Almost,
she had come to believe there were no men in England, but two or
three; so, for a little, her heart was lifted up when she saw the
villages set so close as to join hands and kiss; when she saw the
high road and the lanes alive with wayfarers; when she saw men in every
field,--idle men for the most part. Yet was her joy soon turned to
terror.
If the folk of the north were slow to kindle and loth to learn, 't was
not so with them of Norfolk and Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. These men
were John Ball's men, and Wat Tyler's, and Jack Straw's. Already they
had their lesson by heart. Nevertheless, to Calote's thinking, they
had not learned it aright.
"Ah, woe! better the sloth and dulness of west and north than this
quick hate," she sighed to the peddler. "There 's murder in these
hearts."
And this was true.
One day, when she was preaching Piers Ploughman to a great crowd, and
how he set straight the kingdom and gave each man work to do and bade
the wasters go hungry,--and all that company of an hundred and more
men and women stood about, chaunting the words of the Vision till the
roar of it might be heard half a mile,--there came by a man-of-law on
a hackney, was seen of those that stood at the edge of the throng. He
set spurs to his horse, but to no purpose; all that rout was upon him.
They beat him, and tore his clothes into ribands. His ink-horn they
emptied on his head, and made of his saddle-bags and parchments a very
stinking bonfire. And all the while they shrieked: "Thou wilt write us
in bondage, wilt thou?"--"We be slaves, be we, bound to the
soil?"--"Slit 's lying tongue!"--"Pluck out 's eyes!"
After a little while they left him half dead, and Calote wiped his
bloody face, and the peddler caught his horse and set him on it. Then
came the sheriff and his men that way and set Calote and the peddler
in the stocks, for that they had gathered the people together and made
a tumult. But the people hewed the stocks to splinters so soon as the
sheriff's back was turned.
Another day, by the side of a pond, they came upon a rabble that
ducked a monk of Bury, and but that Calote sounded her horn and so
drew the mischievous folk to listen to her message, the unhappy monk
had surely come to his death.
Once, when a certain lord was away from his manor, Calote was by when
the lord's people burned his ricks. This was in the night, and all the
villeins made a ring about the fire and danced, and sang:--
"'When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?'"
Neither did the bailiff dare come forth of the house to check them,
for that they said they would cast him into the fire. And so they
would.
The leader of all these Norfolk and Suffolk men was one John Wrawe,
and when he heard Calote was come into the country he went to meet her
and made much of her, and took her to this town and that, to blow her
horn and speak her message. Old women that had seen the plague of '49
came out of their cots to kiss her hand and call her to deliver them.
Young mothers held their babes before her face and bade her free them.
Here and there, a knight that was for the people, but not yet openly,
took her into his house, as Sir Thomas Cornerd, and Richard Talmache
de Bently, and Sir Roger Bacon, and she heard how well ordered was
this plot.
"'T will be the signal when Parliament votes the new poll-tax," they
said.
For that there must soon be another poll-tax all England was very
sure.
"Let us home," said Calote. "Let us home and find Wat. They must not
rise so soon. They are not ready; and 't is Wat can stop it; none
other. To rise for vengeance' sake, and hate, and to pay a
grudge,--ah, what a foul wrong is this!"
'T was an autumn evening when Calote and the peddler, footsore,
sun-browned, in tatters, came through the Ald Gate into London. A-many
men stood about in groups up and down the street, as men will stand in
a marketplace to chaffer and wrangle and gossip; yet these stood
silent. The street was a-flutter with much speaking, but no one spoke;
the air pricked. Now and again a man looked out of himself with a
waiting gaze and the face of a sleep-walker. There was slow shifting
of feet, sluggish moving to one side to let folk pass.
"How changed is London in two year!" Calote half whispered to her
companion.
"He-here they are ready," said the peddler. "Th-they do but wait."
Presently they met Hobbe Smith, and he, when he saw Calote, grinned
and capered, and cried out, "Ho, mistress!" very joyously. And then,
"News?" Whereupon other heads were turned to look.
"I am come from Yorkshire, down the east coast," said Calote. "At
Norwich we have many friends. At Bury Saint Edmunds let the monks look
to 't. At Cambridge and Saint Albans they wait the word."
"All this is known," answered Hobbe, and turned to walk with them.
"Tell me of my father," said Calote. "Is he well?"
"Yea, well. I cannot make out thy father; he 's a riddle. No man ought
to be more rejoiced than he, of"--Hobbe left his sentence hanging and
began a new one: "Yet he pulleth a long face."
"And my mother 's well?"
"Ay, Kitte 's well."
"And thou, Hobbe?"