Meanwhile, the tax was a-gathering. But whether 't was true, what the people said, that a-many had died since the last census,—or whether the census was ill-taken, or whether the blame was to the tax-gatherer;—and the people declared this also, that he stole from the King's coffers to fill his own pouch;—whether for one cause or other, 't is certain the money came not in, and there was fret and stir in the King's Council. And about this time, which was the month of March, Will Langland and his daughter Calote had word that they should go to the palace at Westminster to stand before the King.
In the great chamber where the King would come to hear his minstrels, there were two gentlemen, and at the threshold of the door two squatting pages that played at hazard with dice. These, when they saw that Calote and her father were common folk, did them no courtesy, but they stared idly on Calote, and thrust forth a toe to trip the page that showed the way; which, when he had avoided, he said to Long Will:—
“Ye are betimes. The King is shut in the Council Chamber, and the Queen-Mother is gone with her ladies to hear Vespers in the Chapel. 'T is in this place ye shall attend.”
So he left them, and as he went out at the door he kicked the dice to right and left across the room; then took to his heels hastily.
One of the gentlemen stood within the splay of a window looking forth; and if he were a merchant or a scholar 't were no easy matter to tell. He wore a long gown of fine cloth, furred, and a collar of gold about his throat, and a long gold chain, and his hair laid very soft and curling on his shoulders; he had a countenance sober and comely; his eye was not dull, nor mirthful neither. He looked aside indifferent at Long Will and the maid, and again out of window. Presently he took from his girdle a parchment and began to con it. Then Calote turned her to the other gentleman and met his eyes fixed upon her, and immediately he gave her a look that glanced forth friendly-wise, merry and shy, as 't were a finger that beckoned. Anon he had bent his head and was scribbling very fast in a tablet against his knee. This gentleman was not so tall as that other; neither was he slender and slim, but wide in his waist, full-girded. His short gown was gray, and the penner stuck awry upon his breast, black were his hosen, and his shoes gray, but scarlet on their edges. His forked beard was already grizzled, howbeit he was not an old man;—not so old as Will Langland, haply, nor so care worn; but beneath the cap that he wore in the fashion of Italy with the tail of it wound about his neck, the hair above his ears was likewise grizzled.
Long Will had drawn a stool within a niche and was set down to his copying; and Calote stood near him for a little, but the pictured tale on the tapestries drew her away that she must needs leave her place to see, and she walked down the room and up again, marvelling. And when she was come nigh to where the little round gray man sat a-scribbling; nevertheless he was not so busy but he was 'ware of her and looked up sidewise with a smile. Then, on a sudden, he had taken the long rope of her hair, and he shook it gently and laughed.
"Her yellow hair was braided in a tresse,
Behind her back, a yarde long I guesse,"
quoth he; and anon, “Saint Mary,—'t is a good line! I 'll write it down.” Whereupon he did, and Calote ran back to her father, rosy-flushed, yet nowise frighted—for this was a friendly wight.
“Who 's yon, father?” she asked. “The gray one; hath so merry and all-seeing eyen?”
Long Will looked up, a-gathering slow his wits: