Long Will

by Florence Converse

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Believers

  Out of a lonely land of moor and fen and scattered shepherds, Calotecame down into the stir and bustle of the eastern counties. Almost,she had come to believe there were no men in England, but two orthree; so, for a little, her heart was lifted up when she saw thevillages set so close as to join hands and kiss; when she saw thehigh road and the lanes alive with wayfarers; when she saw men in everyfield,--idle men for the most part. Yet was her joy soon turned toterror.

  If the folk of the north were slow to kindle and loth to learn, 't wasnot so with them of Norfolk and Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. These menwere John Ball's men, and Wat Tyler's, and Jack Straw's. Already theyhad their lesson by heart. Nevertheless, to Calote's thinking, theyhad not learned it aright.

  "Ah, woe! better the sloth and dulness of west and north than thisquick hate," she sighed to the peddler. "There 's murder in thesehearts."

  And this was true.

  One day, when she was preaching Piers Ploughman to a great crowd, andhow he set straight the kingdom and gave each man work to do and badethe wasters go hungry,--and all that company of an hundred and moremen and women stood about, chaunting the words of the Vision till theroar of it might be heard half a mile,--there came by a man-of-law ona hackney, was seen of those that stood at the edge of the throng. Heset spurs to his horse, but to no purpose; all that rout was upon him.They beat him, and tore his clothes into ribands. His ink-horn theyemptied on his head, and made of his saddle-bags and parchments a verystinking bonfire. And all the while they shrieked: "Thou wilt write usin bondage, wilt thou?"--"We be slaves, be we, bound to thesoil?"--"Slit 's lying tongue!"--"Pluck out 's eyes!"

  After a little while they left him half dead, and Calote wiped hisbloody face, and the peddler caught his horse and set him on it. Thencame the sheriff and his men that way and set Calote and the peddlerin the stocks, for that they had gathered the people together and madea tumult. But the people hewed the stocks to splinters so soon as thesheriff's back was turned.

  Another day, by the side of a pond, they came upon a rabble thatducked a monk of Bury, and but that Calote sounded her horn and sodrew the mischievous folk to listen to her message, the unhappy monkhad surely come to his death.

  Once, when a certain lord was away from his manor, Calote was by whenthe lord's people burned his ricks. This was in the night, and all thevilleins made a ring about the fire and danced, and sang:--

  "'When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?'"

  Neither did the bailiff dare come forth of the house to check them,for that they said they would cast him into the fire. And so theywould.

  The leader of all these Norfolk and Suffolk men was one John Wrawe,and when he heard Calote was come into the country he went to meet herand made much of her, and took her to this town and that, to blow herhorn and speak her message. Old women that had seen the plague of '49came out of their cots to kiss her hand and call her to deliver them.Young mothers held their babes before her face and bade her free them.Here and there, a knight that was for the people, but not yet openly,took her into his house, as Sir Thomas Cornerd, and Richard Talmachede Bently, and Sir Roger Bacon, and she heard how well ordered wasthis plot.

  "'T will be the signal when Parliament votes the new poll-tax," theysaid.

  For that there must soon be another poll-tax all England was verysure.

  "Let us home," said Calote. "Let us home and find Wat. They must notrise so soon. They are not ready; and 't is Wat can stop it; noneother. To rise for vengeance' sake, and hate, and to pay agrudge,--ah, what a foul wrong is this!"

  'T was an autumn evening when Calote and the peddler, footsore,sun-browned, in tatters, came through the Ald Gate into London. A-manymen stood about in groups up and down the street, as men will stand ina marketplace to chaffer and wrangle and gossip; yet these stoodsilent. The street was a-flutter with much speaking, but no one spoke;the air pricked. Now and again a man looked out of himself with awaiting gaze and the face of a sleep-walker. There was slow shiftingof feet, sluggish moving to one side to let folk pass.

  "How changed is London in two year!" Calote half whispered to hercompanion.

  "He-here they are ready," said the peddler. "Th-they do but wait."

  Presently they met Hobbe Smith, and he, when he saw Calote, grinnedand capered, and cried out, "Ho, mistress!" very joyously. And then,"News?" Whereupon other heads were turned to look.

  "I am come from Yorkshire, down the east coast," said Calote. "AtNorwich we have many friends. At Bury Saint Edmunds let the monks lookto 't. At Cambridge and Saint Albans they wait the word."

  "All this is known," answered Hobbe, and turned to walk with them.

  "Tell me of my father," said Calote. "Is he well?"

  "Yea, well. I cannot make out thy father; he 's a riddle. No man oughtto be more rejoiced than he, of"--Hobbe left his sentence hanging andbegan a new one: "Yet he pulleth a long face."

  "And my mother 's well?"

  "Ay, Kitte 's well."

  "And thou, Hobbe?"

  He laughed and grew red. "I 'm married, mistress. Thou wert so longaway. There 's a little Hobbe."

  Then Calote laughed likewise, and seeing her mother down the street attheir door, she began to run.

  Kitte kissed her, and crushed her close, and at the last said:--

  "How will thy father be rejoiced to know thee safe!" Then, "Who 'sthis?" quoth she; and there stood the peddler, waiting.

  "'T is an honest man hath holpen me in many a sore strait, mother;cannot speak plain."

  "So!" said Kitte, and continued to look at him over her daughter'shead thoughtfully.

  "G-give you good-even, m-mistress!" said the peddler.

  "Good-even, friend!" said Kitte, and added in a voice assured andquiet: "I know thy face."

  "H-haply," he answered, and albeit he knew that he was found out hedid not turn away his eyes from hers.

  "Come in, and sup," said she; "Will 's late;" and she laid her armabout the peddler's shoulder, and kissed his cheek.

  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 Emmamust needs run across to welcome the maid. After, she sent in of herpudding-ale, the best, that sold for fourpence the gallon, for thatCalote's health might be drunk. She was a kindly soul, Dame Emma, afriend to villeins and poor labourers.

  Calote sat on her father's knee, and ate and drank, and laughed forjoy of home-coming. But presently, when Wat Tyler besought her fornews, and Jack Straw smiled and said: "Didst mark our Essex men, howready they be, like an arrow that 's nocked to the string and waitsbut 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, theother, his eyes half shut, the white lashes drooping,--his lips drawntight. Will Langland, with his faint prophetic smile, but eyes allpity, waited, watching his daughter.

  "'T will fail," she said at last, very quiet; but her father felt herheart knock against his arm. "'T will fail, because the spring andsoul of it is hate, not love. Go yonder into Essex and Suffolk, whereI have been but now, and hear what fate men have in store for the LordChief Justice! Go into Bury Saint Edmunds and mark the eyes of thetownsfolk when they take the prior's name upon their lips! Give Godthanks, 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 hishand?--What dost thou hope to be one day? I mind me in Salisbury thoudidst assure me, 'Time shall be when these rustics shall follow mewith a single will,--as one man; and then shall we arise.'"

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

  "'T will fail," Calote began anew. "The poor is afeared to fight; dobut flash a sword in 's eye, he 'll shake. All they that make up ourGreat 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 hecrossed one leg over other, leaned his clasped hands on his knee, andset his narrowed eyes upon the maid.

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

  To prove Calote and vent his own spleen Jack Straw said this; but hereckoned without the peddler, who immediately rose up and cracked himwith his fist betwixt his insolent white-lashed eyes so that he fellover 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 thymanners!"

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

  "Thou 'lt touch no hair on 's head," Wat answered roughly. "Go killCalote 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: "Thouknowest well that I am not aweary of mine own folk, nor never shallbe. Yet, 't were pity if I might wander in England, up and down, twoyear, and come home no wiser than afore. The people is not ready torise up. Each man striveth after his own gain, his own vengeance,--'tis mockery to call it fellowship."

  "Thou hast not journeyed in Kent; thou hast not heard John Ball," saidWat, "else wouldst thou never say 't is hate is the soul and spring ofthis uprising. What have the Kentish men to gain, of freedom, but hereand there the name of 't? They 're freest men in England, no foolsneither. 'T is for their brothers' sake they 'll rise; for Essex'sake, where Christen men are sold to be slaves. Small wonder men areslow to learn love in Essex. Come down to Canterbury, come down intothe Weald,--I 'll show thee fellowship that is no mockery."

  "Then let 's be patient, Wat! Let 's wait till other shires be so wiseand 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 trowthere hath been little wisdom, but loving a-plenty,--in corners withstray 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 istoo 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 inso many shires where I came to preach love thou wert afore me andpreached hate. Two year is but short space to learn all England toforget to hate, to bind all England in fellowship of love, so that ifa 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 willnot fail. Do not I know my London? Is not Kent sure, and Essex, andthe 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 preachfreedom only and forget private wrong. So we 'll be less like tofail."

  "There 's talk of another poll-tax," Wat answered gloomily. "NoParliament will dare pass 't in London; but I make no doubt they 'llsit 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 saiddoggedly, and sat in brooding fashion grinding his heel upon theearthen 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 hoarsely. "They shall not rise yet," and strodeto the door.

  Jack Straw laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "In the beginning I was a sorry wight," he answered. "Small wonder sheknew me not. But of late I have had no money to mend my thatch." Hetapped his rusty pate and laughed. "Moreover, the brown stain hathworn off my face and hands; what 's left is sun only and wind. Neitherhave I been at such pains to pluck out mine eyebrows this pastmonth,"--he laughed again and his stammer caught him,--"f-f-forRichard's sake, and the court's. Three days since we slept in the fensabout 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 browand his breast. "Good-night, my son," said she.