"Pah!--Have I a finger in this pie or no?" growled Wat. "I say 't will not fail. Do not I know my London? Is not Kent sure, and Essex, and the eastern counties? These men are mine! Whatsoever else they hate, yet do they love me! They 'll do my bidding, I promise thee."
"I 'd liefer they did Christ's bidding," said Calote. "Hark ye, Wat, give me another two year, and do thou and Jack meanwhile preach freedom only and forget private wrong. So we 'll be less like to fail."
"There 's talk of another poll-tax," Wat answered gloomily. "No Parliament will dare pass 't in London; but I make no doubt they 'll sit elsewhere.--The people will not endure another poll-tax."
"Yet thou hast said the people love thee,--thou 'lt dare swear they 'll do thy bidding. An idle boast?"
The blood came slow into his swarthy face. "'T will not fail," he said doggedly, and sat in brooding fashion grinding his heel upon the earthen floor.
"When doth Parliament sit?" Calote asked him.
He got up, overthrowing the heavy oaken bench he had sat upon, and, "So be it!" he cried hoarsely. "They shall not rise yet," and strode to the door.
"Thou white rat!" said Wat, with his hand on the latch; "dost think they 'll follow thee? Do but essay them!"
"Nay," leered Jack, "I 'm for fellowship, brother! I 'll wait my turn till thou hast stretched thy tether;" and went with him out on Cornhill.
Langland thrust the bolt of the door presently, and bade the peddler lie by the fire, if he would. So they all went to bed. But after a little while, Kitte came down the stair again. She had a rough blanket on her arm.
"'T is not so soft as thou hast slept on i' the King's Palace of Westminster," said she, "but 't will keep thee from the chill o' the floor."
"Ah, good mother," smiled the peddler, "'t is two year I have not slept on a blanket."
"So long?" she queried--"And the maid so blind!"
"In the beginning I was a sorry wight," he answered. "Small wonder she knew me not. But of late I have had no money to mend my thatch." He tapped his rusty pate and laughed. "Moreover, the brown stain hath worn off my face and hands; what 's left is sun only and wind. Neither have I been at such pains to pluck out mine eyebrows this past month,"--he laughed again and his stammer caught him,--"f-f-for Richard's sake, and the court's. Three days since we slept in the fens about Lincoln. When I awoke she sat staring on me:--"