In Blackbottom Gill five figures were grouped before a fire in the thick of the gloom of the hollies. The fire had been built in a recess grubbed out of the side of a bank, and a screen of boughs built round it, so that its light should not be seen. And since it was night the smoke did not concern them. They smothered the fire before dawn.
Father Merlin sat on a wallet stuffed with grass, his grey cowl over his head, the girdle of his grey habit unbuttoned. He had taken off his sandals and was stretching out his brown feet to the fire. Over against him, on a pile of dead bracken, sat Guy the Stallion, a handsome, tawdry, swashing sworder with a red head and fiery eyes and a fierce little peaked beard. At the other end of the half circle a lean man with a swarthy, gloating face was cleaning his nails with a holly twig, and men called him Jack Straw. In the centre sat John Ball, the mad priest of Kent, staring at the fire, bemused, lips moving silently, eyes seeing visions. Half lying on a sheep-skin and poking the fire with a charred stick, Big Blanche, the singing-woman, listened to Jack Straw and Guy the Stallion disputing over some point of policy.
The soldier spoke in fierce, characteristic jerks, as though he were making cuts with a sword.
“Let them begin with a little killing. I know a trick or two to make men’s blood boil. Let them warm to it, and in a month there will be no gentles left in the land to trouble us. I am a man of the sword, and what I know of war is as much as Du Guesclin or Knowles could carry.”
Jack Straw, the East Anglian, thrust out a contemptuous lip.
“Keep your sword in its scabbard. One word from Brother John here is worth a thousand such swords.”
“Bah, wait till the work begins. Look at him! Will he keep the hinds from blood and wine?”
Father Merlin showed his big teeth, his harsh face gaunt and long in the shadows. The swashbuckler amused him and piqued the laughter of a subtle scorn.
“Let no man quarrel with the soul of St. Francis,” said he. “What say we but that the meek shall inherit the earth?”
They turned their eyes by some common instinct upon Father John, staring raptly at the fire, his lips moving silently, his face strangely radiant. His spirit was away in some fantastic earthly heaven while his body remained among the black hollies of the forest. Even red-headed Guy was sobered by a something that was above and beyond his lustful vigour and his bombast.