"O my fellows, I would have died to spare you this. Right gladly would I now lay down this poor life if thereby I could know that ye shall live henceforth as free men. But to be free men, we must first deserve to be free. Is this the kind of men we seek to prove ourselves? Is this the best we wish the others to think of us? O my brothers, no enemy could have so completely undone you, as ye yourselves have done. Know you not that men may call you the scum of the earth and all vile names, but there is no power on earth that can make you so, save just yourselves? O my brothers, remember this. Cease, cease trailing our sacred Cause in the dust. Arise and follow me to the King, and come before him with head erect and look him in the eyes as man to man. Let him see that we be no hang-dog murderers, but that the Great Uprising had its birth in Truth and Righteousness. It lies in our hands whether it go down to unborn generations as a God-given Uprising of the people against unjust tyrants, or a hellish insurrection of rapine and incendiarism and bloodshed. If this is true,—and who can gainsay it?—who are your worst enemies, unless it be yourselves? See to it, lest, in thinking to conquer others, ye but fall before your baser selves."
Not one spoke. Had one so much as shrugged a shoulder, it must have been heard.
The speaker watched the upturned faces, and slowly it came over him that no longer did he look upon the faces of murderers. As he had spoken, the hot passions of greed and envy and hatred and revenge passed from out their hearts, and now he knew that in their place he had planted faith and hope and patience.
If he could have but faced all those souls who were marching on to Blackheath that night! Surely, some pages of English history had read differently!
But his strength, miraculously kept up to this point, now failed him. As he sank back into the arms of a sturdy fellow who had waited by his side, seeing that he swayed from weakness, he closed his eyes wearily and sighed gently as if at peace. For he was supremely happy, since in the end he had come back to those that loved him, and had been suffered to do them service.
XXXIII
One year later, the sun that flashed from Ely's towers flashed from the points of a thousand spears, from as many burnished helmets and glittering coats of mail, from the polished wood of hundreds of crossbows, from the resplendent surfaces of emblazoned shields, and from shining battle-axes, swinging against the glossy haunches of war-horses. It lit up splendid sword belts of rose, azure, and vermilion, tabards superb with armorial bearings, tunics and surcoats gamboised and interlaced with silks of yellow, blue, and flame color; it illumined waving pennons and guidons, and the more stately banners with their oft-repeated device of St. George and the dragon, or the golden keys of St. Peter.
There at the head of his troops rode the proud figure of the fighting Bishop, Spencer of Norwich, his closely wrought suit of mail and helmet of finest blue steel rings, his surcoat of blue velvet, his gorget of the same, draped from the helmet. Blue flashed against blue, the clever handiwork of man and the illimitable cerulean of the sky.