“Ah, but how 't is sweet to hear again London speech!” sighed Calote, “and thy voice, my father!”
'T was told in the tavern as how Calote was come back, and Dame Emma must needs run across to welcome the maid. After, she sent in of her pudding-ale, the best, that sold for fourpence the gallon, for that Calote's health might be drunk. She was a kindly soul, Dame Emma, a friend to villeins and poor labourers.
Calote sat on her father's knee, and ate and drank, and laughed for joy of home-coming. But presently, when Wat Tyler besought her for news, and Jack Straw smiled and said: “Didst mark our Essex men, how ready they be, like an arrow that 's nocked to the string and waits but the touch to let fly?” with other like boasting,—she grew grave, she fell silent; and Jack and Wat, become aware of their own voices, fell silent likewise; the one, a frown betwixt his heavy brows, the other, his eyes half shut, the white lashes drooping,—his lips drawn tight. Will Langland, with his faint prophetic smile, but eyes all pity, waited, watching his daughter.
“'T will fail,” she said at last, very quiet; but her father felt her heart knock against his arm. “'T will fail, because the spring and soul of it is hate, not love. Go yonder into Essex and Suffolk, where I have been but now, and hear what fate men have in store for the Lord Chief Justice! Go into Bury Saint Edmunds and mark the eyes of the townsfolk when they take the prior's name upon their lips! Give God thanks, Wat Tyler, that thou art not mayor o' Northampton!”
“These men are tyrants,” cried Wat; “they have oppressed the people.”
“What is to be a tyrant, Wat? To hold the people in the hollow of his hand?—What dost thou hope to be one day? I mind me in Salisbury thou didst assure me, 'Time shall be when these rustics shall follow me with a single will,—as one man; and then shall we arise.'”
Jack Straw turned on his comrade a chilly smile, but said no word. Wat swore and shuffled his feet.
“'T will fail,” Calote began anew. “The poor is afeared to fight; do but flash a sword in 's eye, he 'll shake. All they that make up our Great Society be not honest folk, a-many is outlawed men, cut-purses, murderers, wasters; all such is coward in their heart.”
“Here 's what comes o' setting women to men's business, thou fool!” Wat snarled upon Jack Straw, but Jack paid him no heed; instead he crossed one leg over other, leaned his clasped hands on his knee, and set his narrowed eyes upon the maid.
“And this is all to mean, no doubt,” said he coldly, “that thou art sick o' poor folk and their ways, and hankering after palace fare. Ah, well, who shall blame a pretty wench!” He shrugged his shoulders and uncrossed his legs, leaning forward on his elbows to speak the more soft. “I heard tell, a year past, that a certain young squire, Stephen Fitzwarine by name, was no longer about the King's person; 't was said he had gone to Italy on a mission with Master Chaucer. But Master Chaucer 's returned; I saw him yestere'en a-looking out of window in his house above the Ald Gate. Haply, t' other 's to be found in Westminster. Natheless, they do say these Italian wenches be like hotsauce, do turn a man's stomach from sober victual.”