Long Will Part 49

"If I speak now, wilt thou be silent hereafter?" asked Jack. "Art thou leader--or"--

"Thou false hound!" said Wat.

"Where is Wat Tyler?--Where is John Ball?" cried the people; and the muttering began to be a roar. "Speak!--Speak!--To be free!--Speak!"

"Rather fall on those others and carry him off to our midst!" Wat exclaimed, fingering his knife and breathing quick.

John Ball caught his arm.

The throng swayed, and Richard's horse reared.

Then out of the press strode Will Langland, the maker of the Vision Concerning Piers Ploughman.

"Sire!" he said, and his voice was heard so far that the muttering and the swaying ceased,--"sire, we ask three gifts of thy grace; and the first gift is to be free men. No longer villeins and serfs, but free; no longer bound to the soil, but free to go and come, to marry our daughters to whom we will, to grind our corn at our own mill,--to be free! The High G.o.d, Emperor of heaven, when he set our father Adam upon this earth, who was this man's master?"

Richard turned his head to look on the Earl of Salisbury:--

"Thy will is our will, sire," said the old man.

And immediately the King stood up in his stirrups, and:--

"Yea,--we will set each other free," he cried. "Lo, I strike off your fetters, and I too am free!"

For a s.p.a.ce of a minute there was silence, awe; and then the cry, hoa.r.s.e, shaken twixt wonder and terror. Then silence came again, white-lipped, and there were a-many fainted in their brothers' arms.

And that was a long silence.

"Speak!" said Richard huskily to Long Will. "Here 's one grace granted,--name other two."

"That we may pay a rent henceforth for the land whereto we were bound aforetime. We are not thieves, neither would we be lollers,--we be honest men desirous to till the land. Four pence the acre is the rate we would pay."

"Ay, ay, four pence!" cried a score of men.

"'T is folly!" whispered Thomas of Woodstock and the Earl of Warwick angrily. "'T cannot be done! Fools!--So paltry price is ruinous!"

"Natheless, let it stand, my lords, and patience," said Salisbury. "A price may well be changed.--Now, 't is wise to grant all. If the people sees that we dissuade the King, hardly shall we escape alive.

G.o.d knows I be not afeared o' death, but I would serve the King the best way,--and 't is not by dying."

"Four pence the acre," said Richard; "this also do I grant."

"And the third grace, O King," said Long Will;--"the third is pardon!"

And he went down on his knees, and immediately all that mult.i.tude fell down, and some on their faces, crying, "Pardon!"--"Pardon for John Ball!--Pardon!--Pardon!--For Wat Tyler!--For all!--For all!"

"It shall be written that ye are pardoned," said Richard. "It shall be written that ye are free!"

And then they came leaping about him, weeping, singing, blessing; and he sat in their midst with tears rolling down his face.

"It shall be written!" they cried; "it shall be written!--Bring clerks!" And presently there were set down some thirty clerks, and Will Langland among them, a-scribbling. And so they were busied two hours and more in that place.

Stephen came and leaned on Will's shoulder, and, "Eh, well, my father, what th-think'st thou?" he asked, exultant.

Will stayed not his hand, but with head bent above the parchment he said: "Methinks Parliament will have somewhat to say of this matter.

Kings of England may not bind and loose at their own pleasure; though 't is the people that ask. Here 's a riddle."

"But thou?"--Stephen faltered.

"I spake for the people."--Then he turned to a ploughman, with, "Here, brother, is thy parchment. Keep it dry, and pray G.o.d it may serve thee in time of need. Where is Wat Tyler?"

"He went to the Tower an hour past; said he had business therein."

Now the King gave also of his own banners, to each county a banner, that the men when they returned to their villages might be known to be King's men on the highway, and no rioters. And a-many, so soon as they had their pardon and parchment of freedom, went back to their own home;--and this was what Salisbury desired. Nevertheless, the most part of the people abode where they were, and when the King set out to return to the city, they were with him, singing and shouting, and he in their midst. But when they were come to Aldgate and turned into the way that led to the Tower, there rode to meet them a soldier of the Tower, that said:--

"Sire, we have taken madame your mother to Barnard Castle Ward, and the Garde Robe, hard by Paul's Church. Will it please you go thither.

The Tower is taken and no longer safe."

"No longer safe?" laughed Richard. "How now!"

"Sire," said the soldier, "the people have slain the Archbishop of Canterbury, and set up his head on London Bridge."

CHAPTER VI

Free Men

"Symkin Royse," said Long Will; and Symkin came and took his papers and thrust them in his breast.

Long Will sat by the window of the cot on Cornhill, filling in the King's pardons and manumissions. Within the house there was a score and more of labourers and villeins awaiting their turn and making merry meanwhile. Without in the street men kissed and sang, and wept for joy, and danced. Beneath Dame Emma's ale-stake they sat drinking, with women on their knees. In the tavern also there were clerks writing.

"Adam Kempe," said Will; and, when Adam had folded his papers very small in the point of his hood, "Give thee G.o.d-speed o' thy homeward way, brother."

"Nay, not yet!" quoth the rustic. "All 's not ended. I bide the bidding o' Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. Is more work to do."

"What more?" asked Will, drawing forth a fresh pardon.

The man chuckled.

Presently came Kitte with black bread and beans and a mug of ale, which she set down in the window beside her husband.

"Eat," she said. "These have waited a lifetime to be free; let them wait now three minutes. Thou 'rt famished."

He smiled sadly. "Were they in verite free, I 'd gladly starve," he said; and Calote heard this, who ever stood near her father.

"The King's seal is affixed to every of these papers," said she. "What more?"

But Will had filled his mouth with beans, and chewed, the while he wrote.