This is a lad of metal! shouted another of the labourers. He dares to give tongue to what all men think. Are we not all from Adams loins, all with flesh and blood, and with the same mouth that must needs have food and drink? Where all this difference, then, between the ermine cloak and the leathern tunic, if what they cover is the same?
Aye, Jenkin, said another, our foeman is under the stole and the vestment as much as under the helmet and plate of proof. We have as much to fear from the tonsure as from the hauberk. Strike at the noble and the priest shrieks, strike at the priest and the noble lays his hand upon glaive[41]. They are twin thieves who live upon our labour.
It would take a clever man to live upon thy labour, Hugh, remarked one of the foresters, seeing that the half of thy time is spent in swilling mead at the Pied Merlin.
Better that than stealing the deer that thou art placed to guard, like some folk I know.
If you dare open that swines mouth against me, shouted the woodman, Ill crop your ears for you before the hangman has the doing of it, thou long-jawed lackbrain.
Nay, gentles, gentles! cried Dame Eliza, in a singsong, heedless voice, which showed that such bickerings were nightly things among her guests. No brawling or brabbling, gentles! Take heed to the good name of the house.
Besides, if it comes to the cropping of ears, there are other folk who may say their say, quoth the third labourer. We are all freemen, and I trow that a yeomans cudgel is as good as a foresters knife. By St. Anselm! it would be an evil day if we had to bend to our masters servants as well as to our masters.
No man is my master save the king, the woodman answered. Who is there, save a false traitor, who would refuse to serve the English king?
I know not about the English king, said the man Jenkin. What sort of English king is it who cannot lay his tongue to a word of English? You mind last year when he came down to Malwood, with his inner marshal and his outer marshal, his justiciar, his seneschal, and his four-and-twenty guardsmen. One noontide I was by Franklin Swintons gate, when up he rides with a yeoman-pricker at his heels. Ouvre[42], he cried, ouvre, or some such word, making sign for me to open the gate; and then Merci[43], as though he were afeared of me. And you talk of an English king!
I do not marvel at it, cried the Cambrig scholar, speaking in the high drawling voice which was common among his class. It is not a tongue for men of sweet birth and delicate upbringing. It is a foul, snorting, snarling manner of speech. For myself, I swear by the learned Polycarp that I have most ease with Hebrew, and after that perchance with Arabian.
I will not hear a word said against old King Ned, cried Hordle John in a voice like a bull. What if he is fond of a bright eye and a saucy face? I know one of his subjects who could match him at that. If he cannot speak like an Englishman, I trow that he can fight like an Englishman; and he was hammering at the gates of Paris while alehouse topers were grutching and grumbling at home.
This loud speech, coming from a man of so formidable an appearance, somewhat daunted the disloyal party, and they fell into a sullen silence, which enabled Alleyne to hear something of the talk which was going on in the farther corner between the physician, the tooth-drawer, and the gleeman.
A raw rat, the man of drugs was saying, that is what it is ever my use to order for the plague a raw rat with its paunch cut open.
Might it not be broiled, most learned sir? asked the tooth-drawer. A raw rat sounds a most sorry and cheerless dish.
Not to be eaten, cried the physician, in high disdain. Why should any man eat such a thing?
Why, indeed? asked the gleeman, taking a long drain at his tankard.
It is to be placed on the sore or swelling. For the rat, mark you, being a foul-living creature, hath a natural drawing or affinity for all foul things, so that the noxious humours pass from the man into the unclean beast.
Would that cure the Black Death, master? asked Jenkin.
Aye, truly would it, my fair son.
Then I am right glad that there were none who knew of it. The Black Death is the best friend that ever the common folk had in England.
How that then? asked Hordle John.
Why, friend, it is easy to see that you have not worked with your hands, or you would not need to ask. When half the folk in the country were dead it was then that the other half could pick and choose who they would work for, and for what wage. That is why I say that the murrain was the best friend that the borel folk ever had.
True, Jenkin, said another workman; but it is not all good that is brought by it either. We well know that through it corn land has been turned into pasture, so that flocks of sheep with perchance a single shepherd wander now where once a hundred men had work and wage.
There is no great harm in that, remarked the tooth-drawer, for the sheep give many folk their living. There is not only the herd, but the shearer and brander, and then the dresser, the curer, the dyer, the fuller, the webster, the merchant, and a score of others.
If it come to that, said one of the foresters, the tough meat of them will wear folks teeth out, and there is a trade for the man who can draw them.
A general laugh followed this sally at the dentists expense, in the midst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon his knee, and began to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings.
Elbow room for Floyting Will! cried the woodmen. Twang us a merry lilt.
Aye, aye, the Lasses of Lancaster, one suggested.
Or St. Simeon and the Devil.
Or the Jest of Hendy Tobias.
To all these suggestions the jongleur[44] made no response, but sat with his eye fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, as one who calls words to his mind. Then, with a sudden sweep across the strings, he broke out into a song so gross and so foul that ere he had finished a verse the pure-minded lad sprang to his feet with the blood tingling in his face.
How can you sing such things? he cried. You, too, an old man who should be an example to others.
The wayfarers all gazed in the utmost astonishment at the interruption.
By the holy Dicon of Hampole! our silent clerk has found his tongue, said one of the woodmen. What is amiss with the song then? How has it offended your babyship?
A milder and better mannered song hath never been heard within these walls, cried another. What sort of talk is this for a public inn?
Shall it be a litany, my good clerk? shouted a third; or would a hymn be good enough to serve?
The jongleur had put down his harp in high dudgeon. Am I to be preached to by a child? he cried, staring across at Alleyne with an inflamed and angry countenance. Is a hairless infant to raise his tongue against me, when I have sung in every fair from Tweed to Trent, and have twice been named aloud by the High Court of the Minstrels at Beverley? I shall sing no more to-night.
Nay, but you will so, said one of the labourers. Hi! Dame Eliza, bring a stoup of your best to Will to clear his throat. Go forward with thy song, and if our girl-faced clerk does not love it he can take to the road and go whence he came.