Long Will Part 3

"Stand off,--stand off, a four-foot s.p.a.ce from h.e.l.l Mouth!" cried Beelzebub, coming to earth unexpected; "there be sparks! I 'll not answer for 't if ay one take fire."

"Look ye, look ye!" roared Sathanas, thrusting up his head, "here's some thieving fellow hath filched my tail while I was to Ma.s.s. 'T is a poor jest. Now, by St. Christopher, I swear I say no word o' my part if the tail lack."

There went up a laugh from the company, and one cried: "Give the dumb beast his tail that he may speak!" And, on a sudden, flew over the heads of the people a something red, in shape like an eel, and fell upon Sathanas' head, whereat he grunted and withdrew head and tail together.

And now h.e.l.l Mouth opened and spat fire, and after tumbled forth a rout of devils, big and little, that pranced and mowed, the while the people laughed and cast them back jest for jest. Was one brawny fiend, a blacksmith by trade, that came to the edge of the stage and, looking backward, with chin uppermost, through his squatted legs, set his fingers in the corners of his mouth and his eyes, and did so make of himself a monster that a little maid which stood in the forefront of the mult.i.tude must needs shriek and start, so that her kerchief fell awry.

Saith a yeoman, blinking on her ruffled hair: "I cannot see for the sun in my eyen," and laid his great hand on her fair head that perforce she must turn her face would she or no.

"By St. Jame!" cried the man, thereupon; "here's no ba'rn, but a maid, with a mouth ripe for kissing!" And so bent to taste her lips. But she cried out and struggled to be free, and swift, a gloved hand thrust the yeoman's face aside, and a voice that had a twist of French in it rated him so that he shrank backward glowering.

The blacksmith, meanwhile, being set right side forward, stood nodding a genial horned approval:

"An I had not been so be-twisted, I had given him a crack!" he said, and, turning rueful, added: "Dost not know me, child? I be Hobbe Smith that dwell two doors below thee. I did but mean to make thee merry."

And the maid gave him a pale smile.

"If thou stand o' this side, out of the press, still mayst thou see,"

said he of the gloved hand.

"I came not so close to see the devils," answered the maid, blus.h.i.+ng, "but for that cometh after;" and she followed him apart.

Then come Mercy and Truth across the middle stage, and are met together, and Peace and Rightwisnesse, that kissed the one the other, prating sweetly of Christ risen from the dead. And the devils are begun to make moan, and they have locked h.e.l.l Mouth with a great key and laid a bar across. And said this squire that stood beside the maid:--

"By 'r Lady!--who writ this is no common patcher o' miracles, but a true poet!"

"'T is my father," quoth she.

And he: "Nay, then, I knew thee for a poem. Is thy name Guenevere?

Such eyes had Guenevere,--such hair."

"I am Will Langland's daughter; I am Calote," she said.

There had lately come two men through the crowd. By their aspect they were not Londoners, yet they seemed acquainted well enough with what they saw. Now one of these, a black-browed fellow with thin, tight lips, large nose, and sallow visage, spoke to the squire, saying:--

"All poets of England do not pipe for John o' Gaunt. This one hath chose to make music for the ears of common folk."

"Natheless 't is tuned to ears more delicate," the squire made answer, looking always on the maiden; and then, "Calote, thou sayst? 'T is Nicolette in little, is 't not?" And presently after, "Nicolette had a squire.--I would I were thy squire."

But Calote had turned her to the Miracle, and the youth saw only a flus.h.i.+ng cheek.

"'T is a long while that Mercy and Truth are not met together in England, Jack," said the countryman to his fellow, sourly.

"Yea, Wat," the other answered; "and afore Peace cometh War."

"And afore Rightwisnesse"--said he of the black brows, and paused, and looked about him meaningly, and cast his arms to right and left. And now the Miracle was done, and Christ had narrowed h.e.l.l, and sat on high with the Trinity.

CHAPTER II

The Rose of Love

The bell of Paul's had rung the Angelus an hour past. The gabled shadows of the houses crossed the street slantwise, and betwixt them long pale fingers of evening suns.h.i.+ne brightened the cobbles. Pigeons from the corn market waddled hither and thither in search of dribbled grain,--unreasoning pigeons, these, for of a Sunday no manna fell on Cornhill. The ale-stake above the tavern door rustled in a whisper; 't was a fresh-broken branch, green and in full leaf, set out for this same feast of the Trinity. Calote had caught the withered bough when it fell, and made off with it under the alewife's very nose.

"Little roberd!" Dame Emma cried, "'t would have cooked a hungry man his dinner."

"And shall!" quoth Calote; whereat the alewife burst out a-laughing and swore she 'd switch her with the new stake. And Calote, like an ant at the end of a long straw, tugged her prize indoors.

The dinner was cooked and eaten by now, and a bit of a supper as well.

The long June day was done. Dame Emma came to her tavern door and stood beneath the ale-stake, looking out across to her neighbor's cot, where a yellow-haired maid sat in the window.

"I saw thee in Paul's churchyard, Calote," Dame Emma called cheerily; and she smiled a sly smile.

"Yea," said Calote, "methinks all the world was there;" but her colour came.

"He is of the household of the Earl of March; even a kinsman by 's bearing," renewed Dame Emma.

"I rede not the riddle," Calote answered her; but Dame Emma laughed.

Then down the middle of the way, to left and right of the runnel ditch, rode three hors.e.m.e.n of sober visage; and though they rode a slow pace, they took no heed of Dame Emma where she stood and cried out:--

"A taste for naught! Come dine! White wine of Oseye! Good ale!"

They held their heads in a knot, speaking soft, and went their slow way down the street.

"They be 'potecaries," said Calote. "Now the plague is on again we see many such. He of the taffeta-lined gown, with scarlet, is Doctor of Phisick, is 't not so?"

"'T is physician to the Black Prince. Must needs eat at king's table, forsooth!" And Dame Emma flounced her skirts in a huff and turned her indoors.

The shadows faded along with the suns.h.i.+ne. The little maid sat long in the deep window, agaze on the street. Gray were her eyes, dark-lashed, beneath straight brows, pencilled delicately. Slim and small she was, all eyes and golden hair,--the hair that flies out at a breath of wind like rays of light, and is naught of a burden though it fall as far as a maid's knees. A tress flew out of window now, like to a belated sunbeam. The smoke from the tavern turned to rose as it left the chimney mouth. The pink cloud wreathed upward and melted, and wreathed again.

"Oh, father, come and see the tavern-smoke! It groweth out o'

chimney-pot like a flower. I mind me of the rose o' love in the Romaunt. 'T is of a pale colour."

At the far end of the room, in a doorway, his head thrust outward to catch the light, there sat a man with a shaven crown, and thick reddish locks that waved thereabout. His eyes--the long, gray, shadow-filled eyes of Calote--were bent upon a parchment. He wrote, and as his hand moved, his lips moved likewise, in a kind of rhythm, as if he chaunted beneath his breath. A second roll of parchment, close-written, lay beside him on a three-legged stool, and ever and anon he turned to this and read,--then back to the copy,--or perchance he sat a short s.p.a.ce with head uplifted and eyes fixed in a dream, his lips ever moving, but the busy hand arrested in mid-air. So sitting, he spoke not at once to his daughter; but, after a s.p.a.ce, as one on a hill-top will answer him who questions from below, all unaware of the moments that have pa.s.sed 'twixt question and reply, he said:--

"The rose of love is a red rose; neither doth it flower in a tavern."

And his voice was of a low, deep, singing sort.

"A red rose," murmured Calote; "yea,--a red rose. The rose of love."

Then Calote left the window and went down the dim room. Her feet were bare; they made no noise on the earthen floor.

"Twilight is speeding, father," said she. "Thou hast writ since supper,--a long while that. Thou hast not spoke two words to thy Calote since afore Ma.s.s, and 't is a feast day. Us poor can't feast of victual,--tell me a tale. The tale o' the Rose, and how the lover hath y-kissed it, and that foul Jezebel hight Jealousy hath got Fair-Welcome prisoned in a tower,--a grim place,--the while Evil Tongue trumpeteth on the battlement."

The dreamer rested his eyes on his daughter's face a tranquil moment, then drew her to his knee and smiled and stroked her hair.