Long Will Part 51

"I 'll bide here!" Will answered, and lifting up his voice, "Is enough blood shed in this rising. I say ye shall not murder these harmless strangers."

"Ho, ho!" roared Jack, "poet looketh to the n.o.blesse for a son-in-law, and we do know English cloth is not fine enough for the court."

There went up a howl of rage from weavers in the throng. They would have rushed into the street and over Will, but Wat set his back against the press, and also there was another man, pot-bellied, grizzled, withstood them.

"Serfs,--villeins!" cried Will, "ye are not fit to be free! The King hath rent your bonds in sunder, and how do ye repay him?"

"We be men of London, never villeins!" roared the half of that mob.

"Natheless, ye are in bonds to Satan your master, and ye do his work!"

Langland answered them, his face flushed.

"Who hath stirred us up this twenty year?" shouted a voice in the crowd. "Thou, Will Langland! Thou, false traitor! Wilt desert thy fellows?--Coward!--Limb o' Satan, thou, if we be Devil's men."

Then there were many voices:--

"His daughter hath married a lord!"

"Curse him for a renegade!"

"Out o' the way!"

"On, on!--the Flemings!"

Will budged no inch,--his arms were spread wide.

"I say ye do defeat your own end by this slaughter. To-day ye have the victory, freedom, and pardon. Disperse! What will ye more? Hath not the King given all was asked?"

"All thou didst ask!" said a voice.

His face flamed red. "Ingrate cowards!" he cried,--and then on a sudden his wrath was spent. He dropped his arms, his voice was level: "The cause is lost!" he said. "Love is a long way off, and truth."

Not many heard him, for that the clamour was risen anew; the foremost men lurched forward, thrust upon by those behind. Wat, crying "On, brothers!" flung Will aside, and the pot-bellied man also laid hold on the poet and drew him close within a doorway,--none too soon, for the mob was let loose, and rushing down the street as 't were a torrent.

Presently houses began to be burst open, and men flung out of window.

Will sat bowed together on the doorstone.

"A sight not to be soon forgot," said the grizzled one, breathing quick.

Will lifted his head. "Thou, Master Chaucer!" he said.

"Ay, brother,--well met!"

"No friend of Gaunt is safe in London streets."

"Who is safe?" asked Chaucer. "No friend of the people, neither."

Langland groaned and clasped his head in his hands.

"'T was said thou hadst made peace," said Chaucer. "Methought 't was ended, this rioting."

"Peace!" cried Long Will. "There shall be no peace so long as men strive to be king. When they have forgot to add glory unto themselves, when they are content to serve their brothers,--then cometh peace."

"Take heart, brother," said Dan Chaucer. "Here be two men that do not desire a kingdom,--thou, and I. To be singers is enough,--and this is to serve men."

"Singers!" Will groaned. "Singers!--Oh!--See what a song hath wrought!"

Then said Master Chaucer, cheerily, "'T is somewhat to die for a song's sake. I have not yet stirred men so deep."

"I am I, and thou art thou," Will answered him.

CHAPTER VII

Reaction

Simon Sudbury's head hung grinning above London Bridge, and young Richard lay at his length, face downward, on the stone floor of his chamber in the Garde Robe, sobbing sick. None dared enter, not his mother, nor Stephen, nor Mayor Walworth, nor Salisbury. Hushed and fearful they waited behind the arras at the door, hearkening to the boy how he wept and cursed and rent his garments. Now 't was the people he railed upon, for that they had so burdened him with bloodguiltiness in recompense of all his benefits:--

"I 'll torture them!" he cried, gnashing his teeth.

"Ingrates--Hounds!--Christ hear me!--I will avenge thy servant,--I will avenge old Simon!"

Now 't was Sudbury he cursed for a fool:--

"Is this to serve a king?--To set his soul in peril of h.e.l.l?--Not on my head the Archbishop's blood, O G.o.d, not on my head! I 'm innocent!

How should I know he 'd be tamely taken? Fool that he was!--Weak fool!"

And so he wept, blaspheming Christ, and beating with his hands upon the stones.

"I loved them,--I loved them, good Jesu!--I gave them liberty,--and they have betrayed me. Curse them! They shall be bound with new bonds. I 'll have a bath of their blood,--I 'll drink it!--My people,--mine!--and I loved them! Christ, I was betrayed; 't was not of mine own will Sudbury was slain. I swear it,--O G.o.d, hear mine oath!--Poor fool Simon! Pity!--pity!--How might I guess? Ah, Emperor of Heaven, all-wise, I am so little while a king! Pity!"

At the last he lay so still they thought he swooned, and the squire came in a-tiptoe.

"Etienne," said Richard then, lying all on heap, "bring hither a scourge,--a knotted scourge. And bar the door."

And when the scourge was brought, and the door barred, and the Queen-Mother weeping without, Richard got to his knees, shaking, sodden, and tore his shirt off his back.

"Lay on!" he said. "The people have set their sins on my shoulders; the Archbishop hath laden me with his trespa.s.s. Lay on the scourge!"

Etienne lifted his arm as he would strike, then lowered it.

"Sire," said he, "leave scourging till this business is ended. Is not yet time. Thou must be leader of this people. Already thou hast set them free from their lords and them that held them in bonds; now must they be set free from their own fellows that would make them slaves,--from Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. If thou overturn these, the people is in the hollow of thy hand."

"Then will I chastise!" snarled the boy. "They shall feel the rod.

They have slain a good man and a priest,--the man that stood next the King in this realm of England. These dogs have slain an archbishop,--and shall I alone suffer for it? Ah!"--He cast up his right hand in menace and sobs shook him. "I loved them,--I loved my people, and thus do they requite me! Will scourgings in my body or in their own wipe off this blot of holy blood wherewith they 've stained my soul?"