IX
RICHARD’S SILVER PENNY
HOW RICHARD SOLD A WEB OF RUSSET AND MADE THE BEST OF A BAD BARGAIN
Richard was going to market. He was rather a small boy to be going on that errand, especially as he carried on his shoulder a bundle nearly as big as he was. But his mother, with whom he lived in a little, whitewashed timber-and-plaster hut at the edge of the common, was too ill to go, and the Cloth Fair was not likely to wait until she was well again.
The boy could hardly remember his father. Sebastian Garland was a sailor, and had gone away so long ago that there was little hope that he would ever come back. Ever since Richard could remember they had lived as they did now, mainly by his mother’s weaving. They had a few sheep which were pastured on the common, and one of the neighbors helped them with the washing and shearing. The wool had to be combed and sorted and washed in long and tedious ways before it was ready to spin, and before it was woven it was dyed in colors that Dame Garland made from plants she found in the woods and fields. She had been a Highland Scotch girl, and could weave tyrtaine, as the people in the towns called the plaids. None of the English people knew anything about the different tartans that belonged to the Scottish clans, but a woman who could weave those could make woolen cloth of a very pretty variety of patterns. She worked as a dyer, too, when she could find any one who would pay for the work, and sometimes she did weaving for a farm-wife who had more than her maids could do.
Richard knew every step of the work, from sheep-fleece to loom, and wherever a boy could help, he had been useful. He had gone to get elder bark, which, with iron filings, would dye black; he had seen oak bark used to dye yellow, and he knew that madder root was used for red, and woad for blue. His mother could not afford to buy the turmeric, indigo, kermes, and other dyestuffs brought from far countries or grown in gardens. She had to depend on whatever could be got for nothing. The bright rich colors which dyers used in dyeing wool for the London market were not for her. Yellow, brown, some kinds of green, black, gray and dull red she could make of common plants, mosses and the bark of trees. The more costly dyestuffs were made from plants which did not grow wild in England, or from minerals.
Richard was thinking about all this as he trudged along the lane, and thinking also that it would be much easier for them to get a living if it were not for the rules of the Weavers’ Guild. This association was one of the most important of the English guilds of the twelfth century, and had a charter, or protecting permit, from the King, which gave them special rights and privileges. He had also established the Cloth Fair at Smithfield in London, the greatest of all the cloth-markets that were so called. If any man did the guild “any unright or dis-ease” there was a fine of ten pounds, which would mean then more than fifty dollars would to-day. Later he protected the weavers still further by ordaining that the Portgrave should burn any cloth which had Spanish wool mixed with the English, and the weavers themselves allowed no work by candle-light. This helped to keep up the standard of the weaving, and to prevent dishonest dealers from lowering the price by selling inferior cloth. As early as 1100 Thomas Cole, the rich cloth worker of Reading, whose wains crowded the highway to London, had secured a charter from Henry I., this King’s grandfather, and the measure of the King’s own arm had been taken for the standard ell-measure throughout the kingdom.
Richard knew all this, because, having no one else to talk to, his mother had talked much with him; and the laws of Scotland and England differed in so many ways that she had had to find out exactly what she might and might not do. In some of the towns the weavers’ guilds had made a rule that no one within ten miles who did not belong to the guild or did not own sheep should make dyed cloth. This was profitable to the weavers in the association, but it was rather hard on those who were outside, and not every one was allowed to belong. The English weavers were especially jealous of foreigners, and some of their rules had been made to discourage Flemish and Florentine workmen and traders from getting a foothold in the market.
Richard had been born in England, and when he was old enough to earn a living, he intended to repay his mother for all her hard and lonely work for him. As an apprentice to the craft he could grow up in it and belong to the Weavers’ Guild himself some day, but he thought that if there were any way to manage it he would rather be a trader. He felt rather excited now as he hurried to reach the village before the bell should ring for the opening of the market.
King’s Barton was not a very big town, but on market days it seemed very busy. There was an irregular square in the middle of the town, with a cross of stone in the center, and the ringing of this bell gave notice for the opening and closing of the market. It was not always the same sort of market. Once a week the farmers brought in their cattle and sheep. On another day poultry was sold. In the season, there were corn markets and grass markets, for the crops of wheat and hay; and in every English town, markets were held at certain times for whatever was produced in the neighborhood. Everybody knew when these days came, and merchants from the larger cities came then to buy or sell—on other days they would have found the place half asleep. In so small a town there was not trade enough to support a shop for the sale of clothing, jewelry and foreign wares; but a traveling merchant could do very well on market days.
When Richard came into the square the bell had just begun to ring, and the booths were already set up and occupied. His mother had told him to look for Master Elsing, a man to whom she had sometimes sold her cloth, but he was not there. In his stall was a new man. There was some trade between London and the Hanse, or German cities, and sometimes they sent men into the country to buy at the fairs and markets and keep an eye on trade. Master Elsing had been one of these, and he had always given a fair price. The new man smiled at the boy with his big roll of cloth, and said, “What have you there, my fine lad?”