Long Will Part 18

"It is time the people arose!" answered Calote. "Ah, how helpless am I, and thou, and the little King! How helpless is this country of England, where men slay each other before G.o.d's altar!"

"'T is John of Gaunt's doing," said Stephen. "'T was concerning a Spanish hostage that was in the hands of this knight and another, and the King's Council said they would take the hostage, for that they might claim the ransom; but the knights hid him and would not say where he was hid."

"O Covetise!" sobbed Calote. "Of what avail that my father called thee to repent in his Vision! All prophecies is lies. 'T is a wicked world, without love. All men hate one another, and I would I were dead."

"Nay, nay!" Stephen protested. "I love!--I 'll prove my love!"

"Thou canst not. Thou art bound to the King,--and the King is in durance to the covetous n.o.bles. King and people is in the same straits, browbeat both alike."

But here they were 'ware of a man that watched them, and when he came nigh 't was Jack Straw.

"So, mistress! Wert thou in the church?" he asked.

"'T is a friend of my father's," said Calote to Stephen. "I will go into the city with him. Fare thee well!"

"I 'll go also," Stephen made answer; but she would not have it so.

"Thy place is with the King," she said. "Go learn him of this new sin; how men defile churches in his name!"

And to Jack Straw, on the homeward way, she would say nothing but:--

"Prate to me not of thy plot, and thy Rising! I 've no faith in thee, nor any man. The people is afraid to rise; all 's words. O me, alas!

'T is now a year, and am I gone on pilgrimage to rouse the people? Do not the great lords slay and steal as they have ever done? Do not the people starve? Ye are afeared to rise up; afeared of the Duke and his retainers. Poor men are cowards."

"I would have sent thee forth six months agone," said Jack Straw, soothing her; "but Wat would not. Patience, mistress!"

And a month after, Jack Straw came to Calote and told her the time was nigh.

"The Parliament meets in Gloucester next month," he said; "for that the quarrel 'twixt the King and the monks of Westminster is not yet healed, and the church is not re-consecrate since the sacrilege.--Now the people will see the King as he goeth on his progress to Gloucester, and this is well. They will see his face and know him in many shires and hundreds. Their hearts will be warmed to him. Do thou follow and get thy token from him, and they 'll believe thee the more readily that thou art seen about Gloucester and those villages in that same time. But have a care not to speak thy message till Parliament is dissolved and the knights returned home; only do thou be seen here and there."

"When do I go?" asked Calote, trembling.

"I have a friend, a peddler and his wife, that go about in a little cart. They 'll be like to follow in the tail of the King's retinue, for the better protection. Meanwhile, an thou 'rt wise, thou wilt not mingle lightly with the King's household; but with the peasants in the villages 't is another matter."

"Yea, I know," she answered.

"That gay sprig--that squire"--began Jack Straw.

"Hold thy peace!" said Calote. "But for him, how had I come at the King?"

And Jack Straw shut his lips and gulped down his jealousy, but it left a bitter smart in his throat.

CHAPTER XIII

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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 G.o.d will?"

"Nay, I 'll not believe that G.o.d 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 b.l.o.o.d.y, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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," a.s.sented 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."