“Well, I’ll warrant that our burgesses, Master Dennis and Master Small, will speak their minds against any wicked waste,” persisted the cobbler. “’Tis time the king were checked.”
“And who has given you burgesses to speak for you, ay, and passed laws putting the ay and the nay into your own hands?” broke in Stephen Bassett indignantly. “I have been out of England for many a long year, but I mind the time, my masters, if you have forgotten, when the parliament was called, not to vote whether or no the money should be raised, but to raise it. Few laws had you in old days, and little voice in them!”
“He speaks the truth,” said a grave franklin standing by.
“When, since the days of Alfred, has there been an English king like our King Edward?” added Dick-o’-the-Hill.
“One that ever keeps his word.”
“And makes laws for the poor.”
“I say that none speak against him except traitors and false loons,” said the baker, squaring up towards the cobbler in a threatening manner.
“Nay, my masters, I meant no harm,” urged the cobbler, alarmed. “The saints forbid that I should say a word against King Edward! Doubtless, we shall pay our twelfth, such of us as can—and be as much better as we are like to be.”
He added these words under his breath, but Stephen Bassett caught them.
“Ay,” he said, “so long as we are saved from sinking into a nation of curs such as thee.”