They came upon the road where it made a turning away from the great gate of the palace, and here was a tall man pacing in the dusk.
But though the squire made as he were content, yet he sighed. Natheless, when he was come back to the round chamber, he found a white something on the floor, which was Calote's little kerchief. And this he put to his lips many times, and folded it, and thrust it inside his jerkin, on the left side.
Now Richard was not yet crowned before he--or they that put words in his mouth--had set free Peter de la Mare from Nottingham Castle. And for this there was great rejoicing. Peter came up to London as he had been Thomas à Becket returned out of exile. London gave him gifts; he was honoured of the city; merchants feasted him.
'T was on the night after the merry-making that Wat Tyler and Jack Straw came again to Cornhill, and they were not much elate. They said: "New brooms sweep clean;" and "Well eno' to watch the kitten at play, but 't will grow a cat;" and that this folk was a fool: 't saw no further than its own nose; let it laugh now, but presently there would be more taxing. And so on, of this man and that, in Kent and Sussex and Norfolk, that followed John Ball and would be ready--when the time was come.
Meanwhile Calote sat on her father's knee and listened. This secret that she had discovered to the King was no true plot at that time; nevertheless, it began to be one. Since the year of the first pestilence, which year was the two and twentieth in the reign of Edward III., and the third after the Black Prince gained the victory over the French at Crécy,--since this year, the common folk did not cease to murmur. And this was the beginning of their murmuring, because in that dire pestilence more than the half of all the people of England died, and the corn rotted in the field for lack of husbandry.
Now it was an old law in England that the villein, which was bound to the soil where he was born, must till the soil for his lord, giving him service in days' labour; and, in return therefor, the villein had leave to till certain acres for his own behoof. But this law was fallen into disuse in a many places afore the pestilence time, and if a villein would, he might discharge his service in a payment of money to his lord, and so be quit; and the lord's bailiff hired other labourers to till the manor. And this was a good way, for the villein got more time wherein to till his own land, or to ply his trade, and the lord's bailiff got better men,--they that laboured doing so of free-will for hire, and without compelling.