“Yea, do well,” her father answered. “But now tell me, dost believe Jack Straw and Wat seek Truth,—or their own glory?”
“How can I tell?” she asked. “But for myself, I do know that I seek Truth. To gain mine own glory, were 't not easy to go another way about? May not I wear jewelled raiment and be called Madame? But I will not. And Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, they believe that they are seekers of Truth.”
“Thou wilt not trust thy little body in the hand of Jack Straw, my daughter; and yet wilt thou give up all this thine England into his clutch?”
“'T is the King shall rule England,” she faltered.
“And who shall rule the King?”
“Is 't not true, that the ploughman shall counsel the King? There be honest ploughmen.”
“Peter of Devon is an honest man,” assented Langland; “he cannot read nor write, almost he cannot speak. Wilt thou give over the kingdom into his keeping?”
“Wilt not thou?” she said; and her father made no answer.
Suddenly she arose and stood before him, and laid her two hands on his shoulders as he sat on the doorstone.
“'T is well enough to say, 'Wait!' 'T is well enough to say, 'Not this ploughman,—Not this King,—Not thou,—Nor I.' 'T is well enough to say, 'Not to-day!' But a man might do so forever, and all the world go to wreck.”