"We are thy master, now, Sir Bailiff, and the masters of all England
from this night on."
"Serfs and villeins ye be, and serfs and villeins ye remain," called a
strong, contemptuous voice from the doorway.
They paused, and saw de Leaufort standing coolly before them. His arms
were folded on his breast. He had not taken the trouble to arm himself.
Surely a noble of the realm need not quail before his own villeins. He
also held feudalism a law of the universe.
"Begone, madmen," he commanded. "Disperse to your homes! Ye must be all
out of your senses; the scourge and the whip shall bring them back to
you, I promise you. Not many shall see his feet for many days to come."
Then, as he caught sight of the bailiff's head stuck on the lance,
he started back in amazement at their daring. Before he could speak
again, a dozen fellows pushed him roughly from the door and made their
way into the house. "Stay," he cried hoarsely; but no one paid the
slightest attention to him, save that one or two, in passing, plucked
at his beard, and one clapped his hand familiarly on his shoulders, and
called him "Brother." "For," he said, "from to-night we all shall be
brothers throughout the land, and not masters and slaves."
The Baron passed one hand across his brow as if he, too, were taking
leave of his senses. Was it some terrible nightmare? He had been
warned that the people were rising, he had expected some setting forth
of grievances, and perhaps some slight show of force; but insolence
like this was past all belief.
As he stood hesitating, there approached John Kyrkeby to him, who stuck
a huge clenched fist into his face and said surlily: "Look you, Baron
de Leaufort, the time for such as you has come. The land has groaned
long enough under the sway of barons and earls. Mark me, there are some
here who will not rest till your blood soak this ground. I think myself
they have gone far enough, yet keep a civil tongue within your head, or
it will roll on the earth as that other did. Have a care, or I cannot
protect you."
"Thou protect me, indeed!" cried de Leaufort, drawing himself up
proudly. "I am well used to hold my back up to thee to be measured for
the cloth, but I shall never demean myself by holding it to thee for
protection. Indeed! wilt protect me with thy shears?"
The man gave a hoarse laugh. "Ay! it tastes strangely on the tongue,
does it not? Yet, mark me, the signs of my trade will be remembered
and thought somewhat of long after yours will be forgotten; for, of a
truth, the time is come when men must earn their bread, as Holy Writ
saith, by the sweat of their brow, or go breadless."
The Baron made an impatient gesture and turned to enter the house.
"Here," cried the tailor, "bind him! it will do no harm to keep him
from mischief."
Twenty men rushed upon de Leaufort to do their leader's bidding. His
eyes darted fire. "Touch me not," he cried, "caitiffs! I suffer no such
indignity at your hands. Kill me, and ye will find that I can die as a
brave soldier, but I cannot owe my life to dogs."
An arrow let fly grazed his cheek and drew blood.
"Bring me the man that shot that," shouted Kyrkeby; "another arrow, and
it will stick from his own hulk."
While they were securing the Baron, who was obliged to submit, dozens
of fellows came rushing from the house as if shot out of a catapult,
tumbling over one another, carrying jewelled goblets and precious
vases, casks of wine, suits of mail, and oaken chests.
Some set upon the chests and ripped them open with axes, and allowed
the contents to scatter on the ground; others burst open casks of
wine, and what was not soaked into the earth speedily went to make the
mob the wilder.
"To the fire, to the fire, in with them," they shouted.
Some obeyed. Others first decked themselves out in the fineries and
strutted up and down and cut queer capers, curious as children to know
how it would feel to have a long tail dragging behind them as they
walked. One fellow was seen to slip a jewelled goblet into his tunic.
He was instantly jerked from his feet, and at a nod from their leader
was thrown bodily on to the flames, the jewelled goblet aimed after
him. The fellow screamed in agony, and some seemed taken aback, but the
multitude approved, and cried out:--
"Thus do we serve all thieves."
"We are honest men, not thieves; we shall cast the jewels and the
gewgaws on the flames, but it must not be said that we burn down manors
only to rob their contents," cried Simon the smith.
The Baron stood on one side, his arms bound to his side, one moment
cursing under his breath, and the next assuming a stolid indifference
as he watched one after another of his possessions thrown on the
bonfire, and disappear in a pillar of flame. Suddenly some fellows
created a new diversion by making a cross-piece of two lances, and
rigging it up with a huge pile of fineries which had been dragged from
one of the chests. This they dressed in a surcoat of tyretain furred
with the skins of many martens, throwing over it a long mantle of
velvet, lined with ermine, and surmounting the whole with a magnificent
scarlet hat with a large white plume nodding from it, and a great clasp
of gold in the very front. Then, standing at a distance from this
effigy, the men gleefully riddled it with arrows. Tiring of this sport,
some one snatched a burning brand from the fire and flung it, showering
sparks in every direction, upon the roof of the Manor House. Instantly
more brands were thrown on by other willing hands, and the house was
soon roaring so fiercely that the men had to give way before it.
"Fellows, this is the man who has undone by force our lovely Rose
Westel, the handsomest maid in Cambridgeshire."
A strange light came into de Leaufort's eyes. Could this be, after all,
but a woman's revenge?
A hoarse shout arose from a hundred throats.
"Throw him back into his own house."
"It will give him a warm enough welcome."
"Off with his head."
"We will bear it with us to Blackheath and set it up there that all
may know who are the masters of England."
The Baron closed his eyes and calmly awaited the fatal stroke which he
knew could not be long delayed.
It came; but notwithstanding its perfect aim, it did not strike de
Leaufort, but sent a jet of hot blood from the white kerchief of a
woman who had rushed from the darkness to fling her arms about him.
He bent over her with a hoarse cry, tugging at his bonds until one from
pity severed them with a stroke of his knife.
"Rose, Rose, you here?"
She opened her eyes and smiled. Death bore a radiant visage, seeing
that her lover's arms were about her, his breath was on her cheeks, her
life was for his. A tall, slender figure sprang to her side, pressed a
crucifix against her stiffening lips, and all was over.
Murmuring the prayer for the dead, the figure kneeled in solemn
contemplation of the lovely face, and then suddenly drew itself up and
turned its burning eyes upon the throng. A shiver ran through them all.
It was their old leader, Robert Annys.
For an instant he looked on them in silence. In his face, grief
and pity, and anger and indignation, all struggled for mastery. As
his gaze wandered to the rich stuffs, trampled and soiled on the
ground, the shattered, gaping chests, the twisted pieces of silver
and gilt, and finally the lance with the grewsome head surveying
the smoking and blackened ruins of the Manor House, at last the
indignation--passionate, intense--conquered.
"How came ye so to shame our Cause?" The words burst from him at white
heat.
"What is this before me?" he asked; "a gathering of thieves and robbers
and murderers, or of true men--workers who are throwing down their
tools that their brethren may also have bread between their teeth? Are
we men in whose bosoms burns the desire to sweep off the face of the
earth all unruth and injustice and wrong? or are we, as some men say of
us, but varlets whose envy and greed make us lust for the ease of the
gentles? Are we seeking to build up or to destroy? Answer me that! I
tell you, fellow-men, we dare not come before the King with our hands
dripping with blood and the land laid waste by our torches. And how
dare we come before God with a prayer for justice on our lips, but only
envy and murder in our hearts?"
The men stood in awed silence, looking up at Annys, who seemed to tower
above them in his righteous indignation--Robert Annys, beloved of all,
who had put himself again at their head as by a miracle.
The beautifully modulated voice swept on, the voice with the old
familiar ring in it, the voice that once had wielded such power over
them. Impassioned it continued, and yet with the overtone of a great
pity and tenderness now vibrating through it.
"O my fellows, I would have died to spare you this. Right gladly would
I now lay down this poor life if thereby I could know that ye shall
live henceforth as free men. But to be free men, we must first deserve
to be free. Is this the kind of men we seek to prove ourselves? Is
this the best we wish the others to think of us? O my brothers, no
enemy could have so completely undone you, as ye yourselves have done.
Know you not that men may call you the scum of the earth and all vile
names, but there is no power on earth that can make you so, save just
yourselves? O my brothers, remember this. Cease, cease trailing our
sacred Cause in the dust. Arise and follow me to the King, and come
before him with head erect and look him in the eyes as man to man.
Let him see that we be no hang-dog murderers, but that the Great
Uprising had its birth in Truth and Righteousness. It lies in our hands
whether it go down to unborn generations as a God-given Uprising of
the people against unjust tyrants, or a hellish insurrection of rapine
and incendiarism and bloodshed. If this is true,--and who can gainsay
it?--who are your worst enemies, unless it be yourselves? See to it,
lest, in thinking to conquer others, ye but fall before your baser
selves."
Not one spoke. Had one so much as shrugged a shoulder, it must have
been heard.
The speaker watched the upturned faces, and slowly it came over him
that no longer did he look upon the faces of murderers. As he had
spoken, the hot passions of greed and envy and hatred and revenge
passed from out their hearts, and now he knew that in their place he
had planted faith and hope and patience.
If he could have but faced all those souls who were marching on to
Blackheath that night! Surely, some pages of English history had read
differently!
But his strength, miraculously kept up to this point, now failed him.
As he sank back into the arms of a sturdy fellow who had waited by his
side, seeing that he swayed from weakness, he closed his eyes wearily
and sighed gently as if at peace. For he was supremely happy, since in
the end he had come back to those that loved him, and had been suffered
to do them service.