“Chéri,” then smiled the King, and laid his hand on Etienne's shoulder, “my head aches. Let us to my chamber and thou shalt sing me a little song, and I 'll sleep. We have not spoke of Calote these three weeks. Come, tell me a tale and be merry. To-morrow we 'll ride up to the forest at Malvern, and hunt there the next day; the prior yonder is a courteous gentleman, writes in French, and prays me partake of his hospitality. After All Hallows we 'll come back and hear the end of these great matters. I 'll pray mine uncle; I 'll fret and fume. I 'll go, will he nil be. Come let 's say a prayer in church beside my great-grandfather's tomb. Give you good-day, good fellows,” he said to the workmen, and went away hanging upon his squire's arm.
“There 's a king!” said one of the stone-cutters. “His father's own son!”
“Sayst thou so?” grumbled another. “Didst mark how he would stop the mouth o' Parliament when he 's a man?”
“Pish!—'t was a jest turned in weariness,” a third made excuse; “a child's jest. For mine own part, I 'm none so fond o' Parliament with its throngings, and setting a town topsy-turvy, and forever getting under a man's feet when he 's at his stone work peaceable.”
“They say his mother's done her best to spoil him. I 've heard tell she was a light woman.”
“Natheless, I 'd liever have him than another. He has a merry smile. I could have took him o' my knee and kissed him and rubbed his sleepy foot,—but I minded me he was a king.”
“And well for thee.”
“Now I wonder,” said the workman who had lifted his head at mention of Calote,—“now I wonder what the young squire meant by those words he said? There 's a maid biding in my cot; her name 's Calote. She can sing the Vision concerning Piers Ploughman better than any teller o' tales ever I heard. 'T was her own father writ it. One Jack Straw sent her my way. She goeth afoot to Malvern to-day, to give her father's greeting to a monk at the Priory.”
“Jack Straw? Him that spake of the people's wrongs and these evil taxings, at Tavern in January past?”
“Yea.”