“I have heard them that served yonder in the war with France, who say the Prince hath a sin or two of 's own to answer for,” said Jack Straw. “Who shall rest secure o' heaven's bliss?”
“Were I so honest a sinner as he that is gone, e'en punishment and stripes were a taste o' blessing!” Langland exclaimed, and bent his head in his hands.
The rustic had stared at one then another of these men, and now he opened his great mouth, and the words came forth clumsily:—
“I be grieved full sore for this death, and for the King's sake that is an old man. Natheless, 't was no prince led the wildered folk in the Vision.”
“Oh, Piers!” said Langland; and suddenly he laughed, and still with eyes bent upon this rude, shock-headed, and slow creature, he laughed, and laughed again, merrily, without malice, like a child.
But Wat Tyler leapt to his feet and paced the room back and forth:—
“'T is a true word,” he cried. “He that delivereth the poor out of his misery shall taste that misery; he shall be one of those poor. Hath the Black Prince encountered cold and hunger as I have so encountered,—not for a siege's space, but to a life's end and with tied hands? Hath he oped his eyen into the world chained to a hand's-breadth o' soil? Nay, England was his heritage, and he had leave to get France likewise, if he might. Can the overlord rede the heart of the villein that feedeth him? The Black Prince hath died disappointed of his kingdom”—
“And thou wilt die disappointed of thine,” said Langland, gravely intent upon him.
“Nay, but I live in disappointment daily,—and Jack Straw, and this honest fellow, and”—
“Who may the honest fellow be?” queried Jack Straw.