“Nay, Richard, 't is a mournful Vision,” the Queen began; “Master Chaucer will tell us a merrier tale. Let us have done with sad thoughts.”
“Madame, though I may not rule England but by the will of my Council, I pray you give me leave to be so far a king that I may choose mine own minstrels and mine own thoughts. Give you good day, friend; so, thou art Long Will,—well named.”
Langland was come by now to the dais and kneeled down; but presently he arose and stood a little way off in the midst of the hall, where was a space cleared. And all the court eyed him curiously; for many knew him, having seen him in London streets. So he began to tell the fable of the rats that would have belled the cat.
Calote went pale, then red. Stephen bit his lip. Up and down the hall men stirred with covert smiles and drooping eyes that glanced secretly at the King. There were not a-many folk in England, noble or peasant, but they had heard this fable. Nevertheless, now was the first time ever a minstrel had made bold to tell it at court. Richard's eyes laughed; he sat with his elbow on the arm of the chair, his chin in his hand, looking out upon his courtiers. Of these, Dan Chaucer only stared open on the singer, and he with a frown betwixt his brows, as he were knocking at memory's door.
“For a cat of a court came when him liked,”
said Will Langland,—
"And overleapt them lightly and caught them at his will,
And played with them perilously and pushed them about."
As it had been the Gospel at Mass, very solemn he said it and all that came after: as how these rats took counsel together to rid them of the cat, and in the end was found none so bold to hang the bell about the cat's neck.—And of all that company none laughed, excepting it were Dan Chaucer, and he silently, that his belly shook, and not at the tale neither, but to see this threadbare clerk making a mock of England afore the King's face. For all they knew well the cat was to mean old Edward; and for the kitten, he also was known.
Said Will:—
"'Where the cat is but a kitten the court is very miserable;'
Witness of holy writ who so can read
Ue terre ubi puer est rex: Salamon."