“I have no mind to come to court,” the dreamer answered. “I have no mind to learn the manner of the French. There be a many souls in England that know not such light songs. It is for them I sing,—for the poor folk in cots. Think you that a poet may sing only for kings?”
“Nay, I trow he singeth neither for kings, nor for any manner wight, but for his own soul's health,‘ quoth the child right solemnly; ’and yet, 't were well for him if he have the good will of a king. My rhymes will not match an my belly be empty. But tell on thy tale. I like thine old fashion of singing.”
And he listened the while the poet told of a high tower called Truth, and an evil place to the north, where the devil dwelleth,—and a great plain between. And here foregathered all kind of people that ever were in this world,—pardoners, and merchants, and knights, and friars, and cooks crying “Hot pies—hot!”—and fine ladies. And all these listened to Repentance that preached them a sermon.
The child laughed out aloud. “Thy men are puppets, O poet!” he cried. “Where is the breath of life in them? Didst never see a man, that thou canst make him so like to a wooden doll? The stone abbot down yonder, on his tomb in the Priory, is more alive than these. Hast seen the Miracle Play in Paul's Churchyard at Whitsuntide? There will be a crowd alive for thee. Hast never seen the 'prentices breaking each other his pate of a holiday in London streets? There be men! Thine are a string o' names my lord Bishop might be a-reading before the altar to shame their owners.”
“Men be but little more than names for me, young master. I dwell among the hills. I know the sheep, the birds I know,—and Brother Owyn in the Priory, that learned me to sing.”
Again the child laughed. “And wilt thou sing o' the bare hill-tops, and the sheep? Poets must sing of a fair launde where flowrets blossom,—of a green pleasaunce,—of my lady's garden. But here 's a waste! What wilt find for a song? And under, in the King's Forest, 't is a fearsome place at nightfall. Come thou to court, to London, brother. I 'll show thee the king's gardens. I 'll show thee men! I 'll teach thee the French manner.”
A lark ran up the sky a-caroling, and the child and the dreamer waited with their two heads thrown backward, watching. Then, when the bird was nested, the child leaped up and waved his little arms, his eyes shone, and “I 'll sing like to that one,” he cried; “I 'll soar very high, and sing, and sing, the world beneath me one ear to hearken. Let us be larks, brother!”
But the dreamer shook his head. “I am the cuckoo. I sing but two notes, and them over and over,” he answered mournfully.
The little lad caught up the fantasy and played with it betwixt his ripples of sweet laughter. “A brown bird, and it singeth hid,—two soft and lovely notes. Nay, come thou to London and turn nightingale.”
“Alas!” said the dreamer, and again, “Alas!”