"And that the lords shall give up their castles, and keep no retainers, and that all the lawyers shall be hanged!" said Turner.
"I tell you," said Leicester, "that when we are all kings, we can do what we like with the lords and the lawyers, and——"
"And I will tell you, John Leicester, that if it is my will which is to decide, we will have no king but one; and that one shall be Richard. And that all lawyers and escheators, shall lose their heads—aye, by St. Nicholas! and that before four days are gone, the laws shall proceed from my mouth!" interrupted the smith, rising from his stool and striking the table violently with his clenched fist.
While Turner was thus declaiming, a singular looking being, who sat directly opposite to him, had risen, and, evidently quite unmoved by the vehemence of the smith's manner, and equally regardless of the matter of his speech, only awaited until a pause should enable him to commence his own. The man was about five feet two in height, with thick lips and a short turned-up nose, black, bushy brows, overhanging a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a bald head, receding abruptly from the eyebrows, like those of the lower animals. The moment Turner ceased speaking, the man began, in a deep guttural voice—
"I was brought up there, Wat Tyler, and I can tell you of two places where it can be fired."
"What! Gloucester?"
"What! Sudley Castle?" asked Black Jack and Turner, at once.
"No—the city of London!"
"The city of London!" repeated Turner in a tone that implied little approval of the suggestion.
"Yes—the city of London, friend Tyler," said Thomas Sack, in that peculiar tone of confidence which says, I know what I say is the best that can be said.—"Yes, the City of London, friend Tyler; and when the city is fired, and the Londoners are running here and there, to save their houses and goods, what will hinder us from taking the Tower, and forcing the king to grant what we ask?"