Long Will Part 16

To-night there was a half-smile hovering on his thin, long lips.

Calote turned her eyes away from his, that sought her; but though 't was against her will, she listened.

"Will is in the right," said he; "Will is in the right ever. The King is leader of us English. He may ride across our sown fields when he goes a-hunting; he may send forth his provisor to take away our geese and our pigs, our sheep and other cattle, to feed his idle courtiers what time he maketh a progress through the realm; we 'll go hungry, but we 'll cry G.o.d save him, as he pa.s.seth by. 'T will be a many years afore common folk cease to honour the King. Here a man, there a man, with rage in his heart, will be found to follow Wat Tyler or Jack Straw; but England 'll never rise up as one man but at the bidding o'

the King."

Langland nodded and Wat Tyler ground his teeth.

"And 't is England as one man--the poor as one man--that must rise, if that 's done that must be done to make us free men.--Now, look you! we have the ear o' the King. 'T is a child,--a weakling, but what matter?--the name 's enough. Wherefore may we not one day bid the people to rise, in the name o' the King?"

Will Langland smiled, but he spoke no word, he waited on Jack Straw.

"In good time, we 'll send a messenger from s.h.i.+re to s.h.i.+re shall warn the people secretly of this thing. There 'll be certain knights and gentles, I ken, will cast in their lot with common folk, in the King's name. 'T is not only ploughmen and prentices see truth in John Ball's doctrine and Long Will's dream. We 'll send one shall convince them of verite."

"Must be a fair persuading messenger," quoth Long Will, mocking. "Is 't thou, or Wat, will undertake to convince the cotters of England that ye 're privy to the counsel o' the King? Who is 't we 'll send?"

Jack Straw, sitting on a long oaken chest with his head by the wall, thrust his fingers in his belt and spread his legs.

"Why,--Calote," said he.

The girl and her father got to their feet in the same moment; also they spoke in the same breath.

"Yea!" said Calote, very soft, as she were gasping.

"By Christ, not so!" cried Long Will, with a strong voice that quenched her little "yea" but not the light in her eyes, nor the tumult in her breast, where she held her two hands across.

The priest took a step toward the oaken chest, then, "Tus.h.!.+" he said, clenching his hands and stopping still. "Tus.h.!.+--thou hast no daughter.

I 'll forgive thee. Thou canst not know. An 't were Wat Tyler had spoke so foul counsel I 'd--I 'd--by the Cross o' Bromholme--I 'd"--

"Disport thee like Friar Tuck in the ballad, no doubt," smiled Jack Straw easily. "Calote, wilt go?"

"Yea, will I!" she answered.

"Who will believe a slip of a child?" Long Will asked scornfully, and turned his back and paced down the room. "Moreover, the King hath not given this counsel. Thou wilt not speak a lie, Calote?"

"Yet he shall give it," pursued Jack Straw. "Calote shall learn him 's lesson, and ask a token of him, whereby men may know that she is a true and secret messenger."

"Calote goeth not again to the palace," cried Langland harshly. "'T is no place for a peasant maid."

"Men will be persuaded if thou show the King's token; if thou speak to them, Calote; if thine eyes s.h.i.+ne, and thy voice ring like a little chapel bell," said Jack Straw, "'t will work more magic than three sermons o' John Ball."

"Thou cold-blooded snake, hast thou no bowels?" Long Will asked him, coming close. "Wilt send forth a tender maid to such dangers as thou knowest lie by the road? Nay, I 'll not believe 't!"

"Yet, there 's more danger at the palace, and that thyself knowest,--there 's a certain hot-blood squire"--he glanced upon Calote and turned his speech--"One other audience with the King will do 't: then away in villages and ploughmen's huts where she belongs. Mark you, I purpose not to send her forth to-night. 'T is not this year nor next that the men shall rise; 't will take time to go afoot or in a cart throughout the countryside. Then for our plan, to gather all poor men of England around about London town,--and the young King shall come forth to meet them, and they 'll hail him leader,--sweet pretty lad!--Here 's a Vision for thee, Will!"

"Is 't so, thou Judas?" quoth Wat. "Then where 's thy plot to kill the King and all n.o.bles,--and share every man equal?"

"Methought thou wert sworn mum?" said Jack Straw in his dry voice.

"'T is I shall have last word. She is my daughter," Langland said. So he took her by the hand and led her away, and his wife followed him.

But Jack Straw and Wat Tyler whispered together till dawn; and when Kitte came down to go to Ma.s.s, she found them lying on the floor asleep.

CHAPTER XI

Midsummer Eve

"And no word o' this matter to King or common man till thou 'rt bid,"

admonished Wat Tyler when he bade Calote good-by next day. "If thou keep faith, haply I 'll believe thou art not all blab."

"Likewise, leave thy father in peace," counselled Jack Straw. "Thou 'lt not be the first maid that slipped out when the door was on the latch: there be not many go on so honest errand."

"An thou wert my father, I might do so," answered Calote. "But thank G.o.d for that thou 'rt not!"

"Amen!" said Jack Straw with a grin.

Yet was there little need to warn Calote of her tongue at that time, for a many days were gone by, and months even, before she again saw Stephen or the King. And meanwhile John Wyclif came up to London, and his name was in every man's mouth. Some said his doctrine was heresies, and others believed on what they could understand, which was much or little according as they had wit. But whether they believed on Wyclif or no, there were few men at that day in England who spoke a good word for the Pope. And although the little King Richard was a pious child, and so continued till his life's end, and a right faithful violent persecutor of heretics, yet did he not scruple--or his counsellors did not for him--to require of John Wyclif to prove to the n.o.bles and commons of England--which they needed no proof, being convinced afore--that they ought not to send money and tribute to the Pope, when England was in sore straits for to meet her own taxes, and charity begins at home. And this was a scandal, because Wyclif was then under the Pope's ban; so it was sin for any man to crave his counsel. But of how he played prisoner in Oxford in the midst of his scholars that loved him; and how he came to Lambeth Palace and stood before Simon Sudbury the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Courtenay the Bishop of London, to make his defence; and how the Queen-Mother sent a message so that they feared to do him any hurt,--this Book needeth not to tell, save and to say that time pa.s.sed. And Will Langland copied his Vision and sang his Ma.s.ses for the dead, and Calote, his daughter, spun, and wove, and baked, and watched, and waited. Stephen came no more to hear Ma.s.s in St. Paul's, and the King was kept close.

"He will forget," she said to herself after a long while; "he will forget, and there will be none to learn him more, for Stephen will forget likewise. Why should Stephen remember? Why--should Stephen--remember? He hath forgot already, and 't is all come to naught."

Ofttimes she would go out of the Aldersgate into Smithfield and stand beneath the shadow of St. Bartholomew's wall, and wait, and remember how he had knelt and kissed the hem of her russet gown.

So the winter pa.s.sed, and the spring, and summer was come. And Calote lay in her bed on Midsummer Eve and heard the merrymakers singing in the street, and thought of other Junes: thought of the day the Black Prince died, and Stephen said he would he were her squire; of the day when she was sent for to the palace, and she sat on a cus.h.i.+on by Richard's side and told him of the poor.

"June is a fateful month for me," she said.

Then underneath her window a lute tinkled and a voice sang:--

"The birdies small Do singen all, The throstle chirpeth cheerly to his make, The lark hath leave to carol to the sun: I would I were that joly gentil one, Piping thy praise unchid!

I 'd wake, To climb my heav'n or ever day doth break.

But I 'm forbid.

"The birdies small Do singen all, The trilly nightingale doth tell the moon His love-longing, nor hush him all the night: I would I were that tuneful manner wight, Within a rose-tree hid!

So soon Thou wouldst be wis.h.i.+ng every night were June!

But I 'm forbid.

"The birdies small Do singen all, No throstle, I, nor nightingale, nor lark,-- Yet fain to twitter, fain to softly peep Of love; and needs must loathly silence keep: Ne never no bird did.

'T is dark; 'T is sleepy night,--I 'll whisper only, 'Hark!'

But I 'm forbid."

Calote lay still as a stone: only her hair moved where it veiled her lips. From the tavern across the way there came sounds of merriment and a banging of doors. The light from pa.s.sing torches flickered up among the shadows in the gabled ceiling of the little room. Then the footsteps died away. Calote sighed, and made as to rise; and again the lute tinkled. This second song was in the swinging measure that the common folk loved, a measure somewhat scorned in Richard's court; but the squire had good reason for the using of it He tw.a.n.ged his lute right loud and sang:--

"It fell upon Midsummer's Eve, When wee folk dance and dead folk wake, I wreathed me in a gay garland, All for my true love's sake.

"I donned my coat with sleeves wide, And fetysly forth I stole:-- But first I looked in my steel gla.s.s, And there I saw my soul.

"I blinked once, I blinked twice, I turned as white as milk: My soul he was in russet clad, And I was clad in silk.