Annys nodded approvingly. There was something rarely winning in this young man.
"Hast heard of the new law which the Commons have passed?" asked Thomas Pye the wagon-maker of young Meryl.
"Let them pass their laws at Westminster," exclaimed one man, passionately, "and let's see how well they can cultivate their lands with parchment rolls."
"What have they done now?" asked Meryl.
"They have declared that 'carters, ploughmen, plough drivers, shepherds, swineherds, deyes, and other servants should be content with such liveries and wages as they received in the twentieth year of King Edward's reign.'"
"'Declared that we be content,'" mocked Tim the needle-maker. "Have they so, indeed!" Then rising, he addressed the others in a loud voice. "Fellows, the law hath declared that we be content. Why then so we must be—by Westminster law which can call the sky green if it take a notion—it must be so."
"Content then," broke in Ralph Rugge, with a laugh, "is but a matter of a drop of ink on the end of a quill."
"Next they will fill our empty stomachs with parchment sheets," uttered one fellow, in strong disgust, whereat a great laugh went up because the speaker, Richard Bole, was known for a great glutton.
"But that is not all," said the first speaker. "They will not that one should depart from one part of the country to another to serve, or reside elsewhere, or under pretence of going to a pilgrimage, without a letter patent, specifying cause of his departure and time of his return, granted at discretion of the justice of the peace."