“That does not affright me.”
“Because you know it not,” said the other, impatiently. “Here you sit in a drone’s hive and hear the winds blow outside, and have no fear. With a plank for your wall you would tell a different tale.”
“I have tried the plank,” said Bassett, with a smile. “Though, as you say, Master Shipman, we know not other’s lives till we try them, and maybe you, if you lived here, would think more kindly of what you call a drone’s hive.”
“The Church and the Pope swallow up all a poor man’s savings,” said the sailor, less gruffly. “’Tis nothing but fresh taxes, and these Lombard usurers are every whit as bad as the Jews. I would the king could make as clean a sweep of them. To make money without working for it is a sin and a shame.”
“The king does what he can.”
“Ay, does he,” said the other, heartily. “He is the poor man’s friend.”
“Truly.”
The sailor looked at him. “Why, then,” he said, “if thou lovest King Edward—”
“No question of that.”
“E’en come along with us. I am but taking down some bales of cloth and of silk, and as thou mindest not a rough life, and I have a fancy for thy boy, we may perchance rub along together.”