"Ah, my men, have a care, have a care," broke in Annys, "lest they do say with reason that we are but ne'er-do-wells grasping for power. If envy and greed are thought to be prodding us on, our cause is as good as lost."
"Well, they have had their day long enough," grumbled the sturdy smith.
Wat the cobbler, ever ready to make the peace, now joined in. "Hast got big Ben and his men to join us?" he asked of the smith.
"Well," was the answer, "I left him swaying this way and that like a tree that yet needs the last stroke to fall."
"Let us look to it, then, that the last stroke be not put in by the other side," was the ready reply.
"Who will go to Kent and see that all is in readiness for the march on the gaol? There must be no half-hearted ones there."
"To go to Kent now is to clap one's head into the Archbishop's noose," replied a Kentish man. "Ball's boast that he would be set free by hundreds of men marching from afar hath made even the sheriffs look alive."
"I will go," said Annys, quietly.
"No russet priest may show his face near Canterbury."