"Stephen!" said the galleyman, from below.
"Good heavens! I must go. Bless you, Margaret!—bless you! I will see you again soon! May God keep ye both!" Gently laying down the still sleeping babe, he tore himself from the arms of his weeping wife, and rushed down the stairs.
Holgrave had never much reason to boast of the gift of speech, more especially when his feelings were in any wise affected. Even the galleyman was not as eloquent now as upon former occasions, and the two issued forth, and walked on for about five minutes, without exchanging a word. Wells, at length, stopped at a house in the vicinity of St. Bartholomew's Priory, with a heavy, gothic, stone arch, inclosing an iron studded door, and the windows of the first, and still more the second, story projecting so as to cast a strong shadow over the casement of the ground-floor. Wells tapped twice with the hilt of his dagger at the oaken door, which was softly opened, and he and Holgrave entered.
A low, stone passage conducted them into a spacious wainscotted room well lighted, and so full of company that it was not possible, at a glance, to guess at their number; and here, at the head of a long, narrow table, was Black Jack standing erect on the seat which he should have occupied in a different manner, and, with his eyes dancing, and his nose and cheeks glowing, haranguing the crowd in style of familiar eloquence.
"What, my old friend! what do you do here?" said the galleyman aloud, but evidently speaking to himself.
"Why," replied Holgrave, imagining the exclamation addressed to him, "I suppose he has left the Essex men to try what can be done among the bondmen!"
"But what has he to do with the Essex men or the bondmen?" asked the galleyman.
"Why, do you not know that that is Jack Straw, the Essex captain?"
"He Jack Straw!" cried Wells, with such a look as if his eyes rested on a spectre. "Have I not heard John Ball say that he wished Wat Tyler were like Jack Straw?"
"Yes; father John thinks better of him than of any who leads: but to tell you the truth," added Holgrave, in a whisper, "though he can read and write, and is as father John says, a prudent man—I don't like him."