“Descend, brother, descend. See here, something warm for the belly.”
John Ball started, and stared at those around him as though he had been wakened out of a deep sleep. Big Blanche wriggled across on her knees, and held out the mead bottle. He took it mechanically, and nodded to her with an air of vacant benignity.
“Drink, brother.”
Jack Straw was still using the holly twig, and the swashbuckler grew facetious.
“Take my dagger, Jack. We are getting ready to be great lords and gentles all by the cleaning of our nails!”
John Ball’s eyes fixed themselves on his neighbour’s hands. He began to speak in a slow and inward voice.
“Our brother cleanseth his nails. It is a symbol, surely. All the world shall have clean fingers.”
“And no pickings! My cock, father, I must pick up something on the point of my sword!”
The priest of Kent looked up and around at the black boughs and tops of the hollies. His face was the white face of a saint in an altar picture of the passions. His neighbours were so many allegorical figures—Cunning, Ambition, Lust, Bombast—and yet mere men with strong teeth and muscular hands and eyes that looked hungry. This dreamer of Kent whose mouth could fill with fire had a soul whose simplicity made these shrewd and carnal men marvel.
“Has Isoult of the Rose returned?”