Long Will Part 35

They sat late that night. Wat and Jack Straw came in with Langland, and there was clipping and kissing and rattle of tongues.

"Ah, but how 't is sweet to hear again London speech!" sighed Calote, "and thy voice, my father!"

'T was told in the tavern as how Calote was come back, and Dame Emma must needs run across to welcome the maid. After, she sent in of her pudding-ale, the best, that sold for fourpence the gallon, for that Calote's health might be drunk. She was a kindly soul, Dame Emma, a friend to villeins and poor labourers.

Calote sat on her father's knee, and ate and drank, and laughed for joy of home-coming. But presently, when Wat Tyler besought her for news, and Jack Straw smiled and said: "Didst mark our Ess.e.x men, how ready they be, like an arrow that 's nocked to the string and waits but the touch to let fly?" with other like boasting,--she grew grave, she fell silent; and Jack and Wat, become aware of their own voices, fell silent likewise; the one, a frown betwixt his heavy brows, the other, his eyes half shut, the white lashes drooping,--his lips drawn tight. Will Langland, with his faint prophetic smile, but eyes all pity, waited, watching his daughter.

"'T will fail," she said at last, very quiet; but her father felt her heart knock against his arm. "'T will fail, because the spring and soul of it is hate, not love. Go yonder into Ess.e.x and Suffolk, where I have been but now, and hear what fate men have in store for the Lord Chief Justice! Go into Bury Saint Edmunds and mark the eyes of the townsfolk when they take the prior's name upon their lips! Give G.o.d thanks, Wat Tyler, that thou art not mayor o' Northampton!"

"These men are tyrants," cried Wat; "they have oppressed the people."

"What is to be a tyrant, Wat? To hold the people in the hollow of his hand?--What dost thou hope to be one day? I mind me in Salisbury thou didst a.s.sure me, 'Time shall be when these rustics shall follow me with a single will,--as one man; and then shall we arise.'"

Jack Straw turned on his comrade a chilly smile, but said no word. Wat swore and shuffled his feet.

"'T will fail," Calote began anew. "The poor is afeared to fight; do but flash a sword in 's eye, he 'll shake. All they that make up our Great Society be not honest folk, a-many is outlawed men, cut-purses, murderers, wasters; all such is coward in their heart."

"Here 's what comes o' setting women to men's business, thou fool!"

Wat snarled upon Jack Straw, but Jack paid him no heed; instead he crossed one leg over other, leaned his clasped hands on his knee, and set his narrowed eyes upon the maid.

"And this is all to mean, no doubt," said he coldly, "that thou art sick o' poor folk and their ways, and hankering after palace fare. Ah, well, who shall blame a pretty wench!" He shrugged his shoulders and uncrossed his legs, leaning forward on his elbows to speak the more soft. "I heard tell, a year past, that a certain young squire, Stephen Fitzwarine by name, was no longer about the King's person; 't was said he had gone to Italy on a mission with Master Chaucer. But Master Chaucer 's returned; I saw him yestere'en a-looking out of window in his house above the Ald Gate. Haply, t' other 's to be found in Westminster. Natheless, they do say these Italian wenches be like hotsauce, do turn a man's stomach from sober victual."

To prove Calote and vent his own spleen Jack Straw said this; but he reckoned without the peddler, who immediately rose up and cracked him with his fist betwixt his insolent white-lashed eyes so that he fell over backward on the floor and lay a-blinking.

"I thank thee, friend," said Langland.

"Thou 'rt well served, Jack," said Wat Tyler. "Get up and mind thy manners!"

"I 'll kill him,--I 'll beat out 's brains," muttered Jack Straw, and scrambled shakily to his knees.

"Thou 'lt touch no hair on 's head," Wat answered roughly. "Go kill Calote her cowards! this one 's an honest man, shall be kept."

"Sh-shall I hi-hit him again, mistress?" asked the peddler.

"Nay, prythee, nay!" cried Calote. And to Jack Straw she said: "Thou knowest well that I am not aweary of mine own folk, nor never shall be. Yet, 't were pity if I might wander in England, up and down, two year, and come home no wiser than afore. The people is not ready to rise up. Each man striveth after his own gain, his own vengeance,--'t is mockery to call it fellowship."

"Thou hast not journeyed in Kent; thou hast not heard John Ball," said Wat, "else wouldst thou never say 't is hate is the soul and spring of this uprising. What have the Kentish men to gain, of freedom, but here and there the name of 't? They 're freest men in England, no fools neither. 'T is for their brothers' sake they 'll rise; for Ess.e.x'

sake, where Christen men are sold to be slaves. Small wonder men are slow to learn love in Ess.e.x. Come down to Canterbury, come down into the Weald,--I 'll show thee fellowship that is no mockery."

"Then let 's be patient, Wat! Let 's wait till other shires be so wise and loving as Kent!"

"Wait, quotha!" sneered Jack Straw. "And what hast thou been about, this two year, that thou wert sent to learn them fellowship? I trow there hath been little wisdom, but loving a-plenty,--in corners with stray peddlers and packmen. 'Wait,' sayst 'ou? But I say 't is time!

Wherefore is not the people ready?"

Will Langland caught the peddler by the arm, and, "Jack," said he, "whiles I do more than mouth words. What though I repent after, 't is too late then, if thou art throttled."

"Nay, let me speak!" Calote importuned, thrusting aside her father.

"Wherefore is the people not ready, Jack Straw? Wherefore? For that in so many shires where I came to preach love thou wert afore me and preached hate. Two year is but short s.p.a.ce to learn all England to forget to hate, to bind all England in fellowship of love, so that if a man fight 't is for his brother's sake. When this uprising faileth, as 't will surely fail, do thou ask thine own soul where 's blame."

"Pah!--Have I a finger in this pie or no?" growled Wat. "I say 't will not fail. Do not I know my London? Is not Kent sure, and Ess.e.x, and the eastern counties? These men are mine! Whatsoever else they hate, yet do they love me! They 'll do my bidding, I promise thee."

"I 'd liefer they did Christ's bidding," said Calote. "Hark ye, Wat, give me another two year, and do thou and Jack meanwhile preach freedom only and forget private wrong. So we 'll be less like to fail."

"There 's talk of another poll-tax," Wat answered gloomily. "No Parliament will dare pa.s.s 't in London; but I make no doubt they 'll sit elsewhere.--The people will not endure another poll-tax."

"Yet thou hast said the people love thee,--thou 'lt dare swear they 'll do thy bidding. An idle boast?"

The blood came slow into his swarthy face. "'T will not fail," he said doggedly, and sat in brooding fashion grinding his heel upon the earthen floor.

"When doth Parliament sit?" Calote asked him.

He got up, overthrowing the heavy oaken bench he had sat upon, and, "So be it!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "They shall not rise yet," and strode to the door.

Jack Straw laughed.

"Thou white rat!" said Wat, with his hand on the latch; "dost think they 'll follow thee? Do but essay them!"

"Nay," leered Jack, "I 'm for fellowship, brother! I 'll wait my turn till thou hast stretched thy tether;" and went with him out on Cornhill.

Langland thrust the bolt of the door presently, and bade the peddler lie by the fire, if he would. So they all went to bed. But after a little while, Kitte came down the stair again. She had a rough blanket on her arm.

"'T is not so soft as thou hast slept on i' the King's Palace of Westminster," said she, "but 't will keep thee from the chill o' the floor."

"Ah, good mother," smiled the peddler, "'t is two year I have not slept on a blanket."

"So long?" she queried--"And the maid so blind!"

"In the beginning I was a sorry wight," he answered. "Small wonder she knew me not. But of late I have had no money to mend my thatch." He tapped his rusty pate and laughed. "Moreover, the brown stain hath worn off my face and hands; what 's left is sun only and wind. Neither have I been at such pains to pluck out mine eyebrows this past month,"--he laughed again and his stammer caught him,--"f-f-for Richard's sake, and the court's. Three days since we slept in the fens about Lincoln. When I awoke she sat staring on me:--"

"'Thou art so like--thou art so like,' she murmured, 'but no.'--Thou 'lt keep my secret, mother?"

"Oh, ay! I 'm a silent woman," she answered. "Thou hast not won her?"

"I have not wooed," he said.

She lifted her hand and made the sign of the cross betwixt his brow and his breast. "Good-night, my son," said she.

CHAPTER IX

The Adventure in Kent

Calote was in Kent what time word came that the Parliament of Northampton had pa.s.sed a new poll-tax. It happened on this wise: Wat Tyler went down into Kent to have speech of John Ball, who was not in prison at that time, albeit hunted by the Archbishop's men,--and he brought Calote with him. And in a little village midway twixt Canterbury and Maidstone the priest met them. They went into the tavern and the alewife set her best brew before them, and presently slipped out to seek her gossips.

"This is the maid," said Wat.