XXVI
The great Uprising had come. The world stood utterly aghast at the spectacle of the plain rustics throwing down the plough and shouldering the axe against their rightful lords and masters. The bravest warriors shrank affrighted before the poorly accoutred insurgents, for the terror of a new Idea was upon them. What was this strange force that was turning upside down the recognized laws of society? Behind the rusty, cracked weapons of the mob stalked the spectre of a coming Democracy. No wonder that the most hardened warriors quailed at the thought of fighting an intangible foe. No wonder that the most skilful captains lost their heads and stood agape.
Ah, where was that orderly assembly of which Annys had so fondly dreamed? That assembly of fifty thousand strong gathering together from all parts of the realm to appear in all loyalty and obedience before their King?
In the close he paced up and down in feverish excitement. The moment toward which for so long his eyes had been strained had at last arrived. Without him the people were assembling and marching on to seek the King and have their wrongs redressed. Without him—yes, and without his restraining touch. What he had dreaded, then, had happened—the wild beast which had slumbered for so long within the breasts of the rustics was now awake and growling forth its rage. The forces of greed and revenge, of hatred and envy, were unloosed upon society, and no one apparently had the power to chain them again.
"Behold, we are honest men"—he had dreamed they would say—"working and travailing from dawn to sunset, and with but little in our stomachs and less on our backs. Thus do we labor, valued at less than our master's sheep, and hardly as much as his swine. Yet, nevertheless, are we men created in the divine image of God, as Holy Writ tells us, men even like unto you, O King, alike born and buried and taken up into immortality or cast down into the pit of hell. We are judged, not by the extent of our possessions by the Great Judge of the Universe, but by that which lieth in our hearts. We want, O King, to be free men. We ask that there be no further serfs in all England. Let all work be free and willing and it will be the better for us all—for our masters as well as for us."
Was there no one in all the broad land to restrain the people from violence and tell them that they were ruining their own cause? No one? A voice whispered within him that there had been one, but he had deserted the cause and withdrawn himself into a monastery, and was more concerned with the doings of the Past, alack! than the moulding of the Future.
Yet surely he could not be the only one. He shrank from realizing to the full the consequences of his own action. And Richard! Hot-headed, misguided Richard at the head! It was terrible!
He must know the worst. Perhaps the accounts had been exaggerated. Perhaps there was yet worse to come. In any case, as chronicler, it was his duty to discover by what means the news had been brought. He inquired of a brother, and learned that the news had been brought from the Bury by a messenger who had lingered and insisted upon having audience with the chronicler.