"They do say 'Aves' in plenty, for all the good they do us," grumbled one. But no one else ventured to solve the riddle.
"Why, it is 'Give and it shall be given unto you,'" the old man said, chuckling in his high, cracked treble.
The crowd laughed heartily.
"Ay! 'and moch they take, and give but small,'" sang out an impish lad, who had jumped on the back of a comrade and was pummelling him lustily.
"Aiee! Aiee!" cried the under one.
A wrathy butcher jerked the fellow off the other's back and smacked him soundly for his pains. "Off with you! One would think a mountebank was coming instead of John Ball!"
There were others who felt as he did. Beneath all the fun there flowed an undercurrent of earnestness, and many there were who spoke no word, but gazed grimly before them, seemingly lost in thought.
Suddenly some one started a song to while away the time:—
"Earth out of earth is wonderfully wrought."
Others immediately joined in:—