Dickon, the woodman, sat by the wayside gnawing a crust and a scrap of mouldy bacon. There was no sound but the howl of a dog from some neighbouring farmstead, and he sat in sullen mood, his bill-hook beside him, brooding over his wrongs; for the world had gone contrary with him.
His wife was dead; she had died in childbed a month gone, leaving six hungry, naked brats on his shoulders; and now a worse thing had befallen him; his gold was gone—his gold to which he had no right, for ’twas blood-money, the food of his children, ay, and something beside; but Dickon loved that gold piece above all the world—above Heaven and his own soul—and it was gone.
A neighbour had surely done it; marked the hiding-place which he had deemed so safe, and made off with the prize; and i’ faith ’twas easy carrying. There was but one piece, and Dickon minded how he had changed his petty hoard to gold scarce a month back at the fair. Maybe it was Thomas the charcoal burner had served him this ill turn; or William Crookleg, the miller’s man; he was a sly, prying fellow, and there had been ill blood between them.
He was fain to seek the Monastery that lay the other side the forest, and crave justice of the Prior, but that the Prior might say ’twas ill-got gain and well rid of.
Dickon rose to his feet and shambled homewards; he was ragged, ill-fed, unkempt. The day’s work was done, and on the village green he found men and women, for the most part as ill-clad as himself, standing about in groups gossiping. The innkeeper lounged at the ale-house door, thin and peaked as his fellows; there was no good living for any man in those parts, by reason of the over-lord who sore oppressed them.
A little man, keen-eyed and restless, holding a lean and sorry horse by the bridle, was talking eagerly.
“Nay, ’tis true eno’, and three crows saw I this very day on the churchyard wall—it bodes ill to some of us.”
“Well, well,” said the innkeeper, “have it thine own way. Methinks the ill hath outrun the omen, for there will be naught for man or beast shortly—but fine pickings for thy three crows.”
The little man scowled at him: Dickon came up.
“What’s to do?” he said curtly.