Long Will Part 5

"I believe thou art a true prophet," he made answer; "I have heard thy Visions; many read them and tell them again."

"Even so," retorted the lank priest; "I did not counsel thee to run."

"Nay, 't was mine own wit counselled me there," the man replied; "mine own wit, fed on the Statute o' Labourers."

"'T is famine fare," said Langland. "Calote, if there be aught in the cupboard, bring it hither.--And now, friend Peter, wherefore art thou come?"

"Lead us poor!" cried the man. "Arise, and strike down the unjust!"

"I am a prophet," said Langland. "I abide by my calling. Thou must go elsewhere for one shall do deeds. I only prophesy. 'T is safe; and I had ever a gift for song."

The man lifted an uncertain hand and scratched his rough head. So, for a moment, he stood irresolute. At last he said:--

"I am a dull fellow; but dost thou mock me?"

Then Langland came to him swiftly, pressing his hands on the bowed shoulders and saying:--

"Thou art my brother."

"'T is a word one understands," replied the man; "G.o.d and Mary bless thee!" and turned at the sound of a footstep. 'T was a woman came in with a bowl in her hands, and Calote followed her, bringing bread.

"This is thy wife Kitte," said the man, "and this is thy daughter Calote."

The poet smiled,--"Thou dost read, Peter?"

"Nay, I have a young son will be a parson one day. Thy Vision concerning the ploughman is meat and drink to him."

"To us, likewise," said Kitte. "There be days we taste little else; 't is a dish well spiced. Natheless, for this is Holy Trinite, we've fed on whey and bread; it maketh an excellent diversite. Wilt eat?"

As she pa.s.sed her husband he turned her face to the light, whereat she smiled on him,--and in her smile was yet another kind of love made manifest.

The man ate his bread and whey noisily the while his host leaned against the door-frame. Kitte withdrew into the inner room, and Calote sat in the window looking on the street. The moon rose and cast the poet's shadow thin along the floor. There was a murmur in the street.

"Father," called Calote, "there is some ill befallen. Men stand about by twos and threes, so late, and speak low. And now,--oh, father!--Dame Emma hath fell a-weeping and shut her tavern door. Here 's Wat!--Here 's Wat and another!"

Two men ran in from Cornhill, hurriedly. They were as shadows in the room until they came to the patch of moonlight, where shadow and substance fell apart.

"The Prince is dead in Kennington Palace," said the taller, darker man; "the Black Prince is dead!" And he struck the door-jamb with his clenched fist and burst forth into one loud, sharp cry. There was rage in the sound, disappointment, and grief.

"Art silent, thou chantry priest?" said the other man gloomily. "Here 's occasion to ply thy trade; but where 's thy glib prayer for the dead?"

"Who am I that I should pray for this soul?" cried Langland bitterly.

"Here 's the one brave man in all England--dead. Now is it time to pray for the living, Jack Straw; for my soul, and thine, and all these other poor, that be orphaned and bereaved o' their slender hope by this death. Oh, friend Peter, thou art run too late from Devon! The doer o' deeds, the friend o' ploughmen and labourers, he is dead."

"One told me he did not welcome death. He was fain to live," said Wat Tyler.

"Doth a good prince go willingly into heaven's bliss if he must leave a people perplexed,--a nest of enemies to trample his dreams?" asked the poet.

"I have heard them that served yonder in the war with France, who say the Prince hath a sin or two of 's own to answer for," said Jack Straw. "Who shall rest secure o' heaven's bliss?"

"Were I so honest a sinner as he that is gone, e'en punishment and stripes were a taste o' blessing!" Langland exclaimed, and bent his head in his hands.

The rustic had stared at one then another of these men, and now he opened his great mouth, and the words came forth clumsily:--

"I be grieved full sore for this death, and for the King's sake that is an old man. Natheless, 't was no prince led the wildered folk in the Vision."

"Oh, Piers!" said Langland; and suddenly he laughed, and still with eyes bent upon this rude, shock-headed, and slow creature, he laughed, and laughed again, merrily, without malice, like a child.

But Wat Tyler leapt to his feet and paced the room back and forth:--

"'T is a true word," he cried. "He that delivereth the poor out of his misery shall taste that misery; he shall be one of those poor. Hath the Black Prince encountered cold and hunger as I have so encountered,--not for a siege's s.p.a.ce, but to a life's end and with tied hands? Hath he oped his eyen into the world chained to a hand's-breadth o' soil? Nay, England was his heritage, and he had leave to get France likewise, if he might. Can the overlord rede the heart of the villein that feedeth him? The Black Prince hath died disappointed of his kingdom"--

"And thou wilt die disappointed of thine," said Langland, gravely intent upon him.

"Nay, but I live in disappointment daily,--and Jack Straw, and this honest fellow, and"--

"Who may the honest fellow be?" queried Jack Straw.

This Jack Straw had lint locks that glistened under the moon; the lashes of his eyes were white. His was a dry utterance.

"'T is a villein hath run from his hand's-breadth o' soil," answered Langland. "One of many."

"I plough, I reap, I ditch," said Peter; "somewhile I thatch. I am of Devon."

"They have a quaint device of thatching in Devon," quoth Jack Straw.

"Ay, they set a peak like to a c.o.xcomb above the gable. Art a Devon man?" asked Peter eagerly.

"Nay, but I be thatcher. I learned of a Devon man. 'T was the year next after the great pestilence. Like thee, he had run."

Wat Tyler had been pacing up and down, but now he stood before his host and asked uneasily, albeit his voice was bold and harsh:--

"Will, what's thy meaning,--that I shall die disappointed of my kingdom?"

"Ah, Wat, Wat!" said Langland, "and wilt thou lead the people? And wherefore?"

Jack Straw edged farther within the moonlight and peered into his comrade's dark and lowering countenance:--

"Now which o' they seven deadly sins doth he call to repent?" he drawled, and with a sudden change to sharp speech, keeping his eye ever upon Wat's face: "A day cometh when there shall be no king, nor no overlord, nor no rich merchant to buy food away from the people, and store it up, and sell it at a price. But every man shall be leader of his own soul, and every man king. There shall not be poverty nor richesse, but one shall share as another, and nothing shall be mine nor thine."

Peter rested his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, such fashion that his jaw hammered upward and downward; and the table, that had one leg a bit short, hammered likewise. Said he:--

"Christ came a poor man, poor men to comfort. He suffereth my sorrow.

I knew not there was question of any kingdom, but only Christ's. And if Christ is King, how then do ye say there will be no leader?"

Will Langland looked at the other two with a strange smile; but Wat turned to the ploughman and cried:--

"Yet if Christ delay His second coming, must another lead till he come. How else shall folk know His way?"