The Believers
UT of a lonely land of moor and fen and scattered shepherds, Calote came down into the stir and bustle of the eastern counties. Almost, she had come to believe there were no men in England, but two or three; so, for a little, her heart was lifted up when she saw the villages set so close as to join hands and kiss; when she saw the high road and the lanes alive with wayfarers; when she saw men in every field,—idle men for the most part. Yet was her joy soon turned to terror.
If the folk of the north were slow to kindle and loth to learn, 't was not so with them of Norfolk and Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. These men were John Ball's men, and Wat Tyler's, and Jack Straw's. Already they had their lesson by heart. Nevertheless, to Calote's thinking, they had not learned it aright.
“Ah, woe! better the sloth and dulness of west and north than this quick hate,‘ she sighed to the peddler. ’There 's murder in these hearts.”
And this was true.
One day, when she was preaching Piers Ploughman to a great crowd, and how he set straight the kingdom and gave each man work to do and bade the wasters go hungry,—and all that company of an hundred and more men and women stood about, chaunting the words of the Vision till the roar of it might be heard half a mile,—there came by a man-of-law on a hackney, was seen of those that stood at the edge of the throng. He set 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 they emptied on his head, and made of his saddle-bags and parchments a very stinking bonfire. And all the while they shrieked: “Thou wilt write us in bondage, wilt thou?”—“We be slaves, be we, bound to the soil?”—“Slit 's lying tongue!”—“Pluck out 's eyes!”
After a little while they left him half dead, and Calote wiped his bloody face, and the peddler caught his horse and set him on it. Then came the sheriff and his men that way and set Calote and the peddler in the stocks, for that they had gathered the people together and made a tumult. But the people hewed the stocks to splinters so soon as the sheriff's back was turned.
Another day, by the side of a pond, they came upon a rabble that ducked a monk of Bury, and but that Calote sounded her horn and so drew the mischievous folk to listen to her message, the unhappy monk had surely come to his death.
Once, when a certain lord was away from his manor, Calote was by when the lord's people burned his ricks. This was in the night, and all the villeins 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 they would.
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 her and made much of her, and took her to this town and that, to blow her horn and speak her message. Old women that had seen the plague of '49 came 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 Talmache de Bently, and Sir Roger Bacon, and she heard how well ordered was this plot.
“'T will be the signal when Parliament votes the new poll-tax,” they said.
For that there must soon be another poll-tax all England was very sure.
“Let us home,” said Calote. “Let us home and find Wat. They must not rise so soon. They are not ready; and 't is Wat can stop it; none other. To rise for vengeance' sake, and hate, and to pay a grudge,—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-many men stood about in groups up and down the street, as men will stand in a marketplace to chaffer and wrangle and gossip; yet these stood silent. 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 a waiting gaze and the face of a sleep-walker. There was slow shifting of feet, sluggish moving to one side to let folk pass.
“How changed is London in two year!” Calote half whispered to her companion.
“He-here they are ready,” said the peddler. “Th-they do but wait.”
Presently they met Hobbe Smith, and he, when he saw Calote, grinned and 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. “At Norwich we have many friends. At Bury Saint Edmunds let the monks look to '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 ought to be more rejoiced than he, of”—Hobbe left his sentence hanging and began 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 long away. There 's a little Hobbe.”
Then Calote laughed likewise, and seeing her mother down the street at their 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 's this?” 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's head thoughtfully.
“G-give you good-even, m-mistress!” said the peddler.
“Good-even, friend!” said Kitte, and added in a voice assured and quiet: “I know thy face.”
“H-haply,” he answered, and albeit he knew that he was found out he did not turn away his eyes from hers.
“Come in, and sup,” said she; “Will 's late;” and she laid her arm about 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 Emma must needs run across to welcome the maid. After, she sent in of her pudding-ale, the best, that sold for fourpence the gallon, for that Calote's health might be drunk. She was a kindly soul, Dame Emma, a friend to villeins and poor labourers.
Calote sat on her father's knee, and ate and drank, and laughed for joy of home-coming. But presently, when Wat Tyler besought her for news, and Jack Straw smiled and said: “Didst mark our Essex men, how ready they be, like an arrow that 's nocked to the string and waits but 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, the other, his eyes half shut, the white lashes drooping,—his lips drawn tight. Will Langland, with his faint prophetic smile, but eyes all pity, waited, watching his daughter.
“'T will fail,” she said at last, very quiet; but her father felt her heart knock against his arm. “'T will fail, because the spring and soul of it is hate, not love. Go yonder into Essex and Suffolk, where I have been but now, and hear what fate men have in store for the Lord Chief Justice! Go into Bury Saint Edmunds and mark the eyes of the townsfolk when they take the prior's name upon their lips! Give God thanks, 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 his hand?—What dost thou hope to be one day? I mind me in Salisbury thou didst assure me, 'Time shall be when these rustics shall follow me with a single will,—as one man; and then shall we arise.'”
Jack Straw turned on his comrade a chilly smile, but said no word. Wat swore and shuffled his feet.
“'T will fail,” Calote began anew. “The poor is afeared to fight; do but flash a sword in 's eye, he 'll shake. All they that make up our Great 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 he crossed one leg over other, leaned his clasped hands on his knee, and set his narrowed eyes upon the maid.
“And this is all to mean, no doubt,” said he coldly, “that thou art sick o' poor folk and their ways, and hankering after palace fare. Ah, well, who shall blame a pretty wench!” He shrugged his shoulders and uncrossed his legs, leaning forward on his elbows to speak the more soft. “I heard tell, a year past, that a certain young squire, Stephen Fitzwarine by name, was no longer about the King's person; 't was said he had gone to Italy on a mission with Master Chaucer. But Master Chaucer 's returned; I saw him yestere'en a-looking out of window in his house above the Ald Gate. Haply, t' other 's to be found in Westminster. Natheless, they do say these Italian wenches be like hotsauce, do turn a man's stomach from sober victual.”
To prove Calote and vent his own spleen Jack Straw said this; but he reckoned without the peddler, who immediately rose up and cracked him with his fist betwixt his insolent white-lashed eyes so that he fell over 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 thy manners!”
“I 'll kill him,—I 'll beat out 's brains,” muttered Jack Straw, and scrambled shakily to his knees.
“Thou 'lt touch no hair on 's head,” Wat answered roughly. “Go kill Calote 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: “Thou knowest well that I am not aweary of mine own folk, nor never shall be. Yet, 't were pity if I might wander in England, up and down, two year, and come home no wiser than afore. The people is not ready to rise up. Each man striveth after his own gain, his own vengeance,—'t is mockery to call it fellowship.”
“Thou hast not journeyed in Kent; thou hast not heard John Ball,” said Wat, “else wouldst thou never say 't is hate is the soul and spring of this uprising. What have the Kentish men to gain, of freedom, but here and there the name of 't? They 're freest men in England, no fools neither. 'T is for their brothers' sake they 'll rise; for Essex' sake, where Christen men are sold to be slaves. Small wonder men are slow to learn love in Essex. Come down to Canterbury, come down into the Weald,—I 'll show thee fellowship that is no mockery.”
“Then let 's be patient, Wat! Let 's wait till other shires be so wise and 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 trow there hath been little wisdom, but loving a-plenty,—in corners with stray 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 is too 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 in so many shires where I came to preach love thou wert afore me and preached hate. Two year is but short space to learn all England to forget to hate, to bind all England in fellowship of love, so that if a 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 will not fail. Do not I know my London? Is not Kent sure, and Essex, and the 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 preach freedom only and forget private wrong. So we 'll be less like to fail.”
“There 's talk of another poll-tax,” Wat answered gloomily. “No Parliament will dare pass 't in London; but I make no doubt they 'll sit 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 said doggedly, and sat in brooding fashion grinding his heel upon the earthen 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 strode to the door.
Jack Straw laughed.
“Thou white rat!” said Wat, with his hand on the latch; “dost think they 'll follow thee? Do but essay them!”
“Nay,” leered Jack, “I 'm for fellowship, brother! I 'll wait my turn till thou hast stretched thy tether;” and went with him out on Cornhill.
Langland thrust the bolt of the door presently, and bade the peddler lie by the fire, if he would. So they all went to bed. But after a little while, Kitte came down the stair again. She had a rough blanket on her arm.
“'T is not so soft as thou hast slept on i' the King's Palace of Westminster,‘ said she, ’but 't will keep thee from the chill o' the floor.”
“Ah, good mother,” smiled the peddler, “'t is two year I have not slept on a blanket.”
“So long?” she queried—“And the maid so blind!”
“In the beginning I was a sorry wight,” he answered. “Small wonder she knew me not. But of late I have had no money to mend my thatch.” He tapped his rusty pate and laughed. “Moreover, the brown stain hath worn off my face and hands; what 's left is sun only and wind. Neither have I been at such pains to pluck out mine eyebrows this past month,”—he laughed again and his stammer caught him,—“f-f-for Richard's sake, and the court's. Three days since we slept in the fens about 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 brow and his breast. “Good-night, my son,” said she.