"'If we have no cats over us, sure all the rats will eat one another!'
"Now, what good will ever come of violence and bloodshed? Oh, surely, ye are of little faith, for if ye believed in the justice of your Cause ye would be satisfied to stand before the kind King with no weapons in your hands save just rightwiseness. Ye would not put your trust in burning and sacking and pillaging. Oh, shame, shame upon you!"
There were some that seemed impressed by the girl's words, but Peter shrugged his shoulders roughly. "Bah! spoken like thy soft-hearted poor priest, Robert Annys. He was forever bidding us wait. Wait! and for what?" he blazed out furiously—"for another poll-tax to be wrung from the poor while the rich hide their treasure between the folds of the Justices' gowns? Wait? for what? For more laws to be passed making it a crime to seek honest labor? for more raping of our women? Nay, let thy Robert Annys face me, and I shall tell him we have waited too long already."
Her head drooped. Ah, if he would but face them!
"Where is Robert Annys? Why is he not here to help us?" queried one, impatiently. Matilda trembled and swayed as if she would fall, and the shadows darkened under her glowing eyes. Meryl watched her closely.
"Why does he not come back to us?" repeated the voice. "Where does he tarry so long?"
It would never do to let these wild men suspect the truth. She nerved herself to answer.
"Did ye not yourselves send him on a dangerous mission into Kent?" she asked. There was something unfamiliar in her voice that puzzled Meryl.
"It is long since time that he returned," muttered the fellow, and Matilda broke out with a sudden impatience: "Mayhap he is risking his life even now for us while ye stand idly talking. Learn to obey, bide ye in patience, for it lacks not many days before the word will be spoken and then ye may go forth as honest men."
Then Meryl approached her and drew her aside, and, as she recognized him, she fell sobbing into his arms.