The low-roofed tavern at Bury Saint Edmunds was a favorite place for the men to gather together at the close of their day's work. It was a place of good cheer, not alone because there was ale in plenty—none of your cheap, thin, penny ale either, such as is brewed for the day-laborer's dole, but good strong ale of the best and brownest brew—nor alone from the sense of comradeship that reigned, but also because there was warmth and comfort within, while without it was dark with usually a high northeast wind racing about one's ears, if one but ventured forth. And, moreover, there was light here, while at home one would have to go straightway to bed; for artificial light, even of the home-made candles of rushes dipped in grease, was entirely too expensive a luxury to be wasted. Here at the tavern, although the flaring rushlights, stuck high up over the oak wainscoting, gave a rather uncertain light; yet it was easy to distinguish one's neighbors, and it was as good as one could expect outside of the church. The church was the one place where hundreds of candles at a time, of purest wax, blazed with a superb indifference to cost. There was also some illumination from the glowing logs which burned in the centre of the floor, sending a slender pillar of smoke up to the hole in the roof which served as a vent. When the door of the tavern was opened, the wind drove the smoke about the room into every crack and cranny, but none coughed or complained of the smarting of the eyes, for this was a discomfort to which they were well accustomed.

One night there were seated about the long oaken table that ran the length of the room, a goodly number of men. Those at one end of the table kept their voices low and discussed and planned matters of grave import, while from some roisterers at the other end of the table came frequent bold oaths and hoarse cries of "Pass the ale" and "Who holds the bowl?"

Among the serious ones was a great, powerfully built fellow whom they called Ralph Rugge, and on whom they looked as the leader of the men of the Bury. And there were Tim the needle-maker, Thomas Pye the wagon-maker, Jack the smith, and Robert Annys just arrived. There were one or two others, noticeable among them all a youthful giant called Richard Meryl, towards whose frank, handsome face the poor priest's eyes constantly wandered.

After Annys had taken the edge off his hunger, doing full justice to the food that was placed before him on a neatly scraped trencher of hard oak, Rugge turned to him and said, "Hast any news from John Ball?"

"I bear with me a letter from him," was the reply.

"What, from gaol?"

"Yea, from Maidstone gaol hath he sent it by trusty messengers."

A look of interest ran from man to man, and they edged their stools closer about him. Annys read the letter to them with many misgivings, for he felt that it but fed their angry passions, and that it was like a spark to a pile of dried fagots.

"That's God's truth, God's truth!" came from all sides, enthusiastically.

"May the fires of hell burn me if they'll not be saying next that they did come from Adam and Eve, but that we came from some baser stock," exclaimed young Meryl with a bitter laugh.

"I tell you," added another, "until we show our lords that we are worth to them as much as their cattle, we shall not receive the same care and fodder."

"Dost hanker after hay?" called out a wit.

"Well," answered the other, abashed at the laugh that followed, "they are precious anxious to keep their cattle sleek and fat, and they might cast a thought on their men to keep their paunches fairly well lined."

"Ay! the cattle must have the fat of the land, but the men may go hungry," growled Thomas Pye.

"May go hungry, forsooth! I have not known a day for many a month that I have had my fill," said Tim the needle-maker, wistfully.

"We'll show them, we'll show them," cried an evil-looking fellow with a leer of hatred. "Their cattle cannot burn their palaces over their heads."

"There'll be no liberty in this land until every palace lies smoking on the ground," agreed another.

"They won't be so glad of their fine wines when they see us pouring them down our throats," exclaimed one.

"Nor of their jewelled goblets when they see them at our lips," continued another in the same strain.

Annys groaned, for he had dreaded just such an outburst. He was about to command that this wild talk cease instantly when Rugge, whose patience had also given way, leaned close to the last speaker, and rammed a formidable-looking fist into his face, crying, "Look, Adam Clymme, the man who speaks like that is a traitor to the Cause, and a worse traitor than any abbot or clerk."

The man jerked back his head. "What d'ye mean?" he asked sullenly.

"Just what I said. Our cause is just, we want to be free men, we want to live as decent men should; but that does not mean that we covet the rich man's jewels and wines. We will be looked upon as thieves and murderers, not honest men asking for our rights."

The fellow flushed and muttered angrily, but several raised their voices and cried, "He's right, Ralph Rugge's right!" Annys looked gratefully at Rugge, who continued warmly: "They'll be glad enough to call us thieves. We'll take their gold and jewels and fine linens and burn them in great bonfires all throughout the land to show we don't approve of such gewgaws. No one must say we are rising because we are greedy for these things for ourselves. I warn ye, wherever I am in command, I shall strike dead the first man that steals, if it be only so much as a bit of silver."

"Good! Good!" spoke up young Meryl with ringing voice. "For no cause was ever won by thieves and robbers; we be honest men who seek what is ours by right." His face shone with enthusiasm as he spoke.

"Ay! but it is by the sweat of our brows and the stoop of our backs that the rich have these things," protested Jack the smith.

But Annys now spoke.

"My friends," he said, "ye all know of that great and noble poet Will Langland whose hero is Piers Ploughman."

"Ay, marry! we all know Will Langland."

"Let me tell you what he saith of envy, and we shall see that the counsel of Ralph Rugge is wise and just:—

"Then, when Repentance bids him be sorry,—

"'I am sori,' quod Envy, 'I never am other than sori.'

"Think of that terrible picture, when ye are tempted to envy the fortune of others, 'I am never other than sori.' Do not let envy take up its dwelling-place in your hearts. Read Holy Writ, rather, and consider that such as have riches and joy on this earth have received their reward, but that ours is for all eternity."

When he had done speaking the young man on whom the poor priest's eyes had been fixed in a kind of special appeal leaned across the table, and holding out a strong sinewy hand, said:—

"I am Richard Meryl, and I fear I have been among the envious ones; but by the Mother of Christ thou dost speak well, and I shall do my best to hearken unto thee.

"And yet," he added, with an engaging smile, as Annys wrung his hand heartily, "and yet it is hard to be other than sorry while Covetousness and Greed rule the land and crush us poor folk like corn beneath the stone."

"Ay!" returned Annys, "I would have ye none other than sorry for that—but sorry to some purpose. What good will it do to rise up and rule the land for a day? Shall we not rather by patience and fortitude hold what we gain for unborn generations, so that our children's children need not fight the great fight over again, but may start where we leave off?"

"That my children's children have full bellies easeth not the wind in mine," grumbled Jack the smith.

But Meryl spoke up hotly:—

"He who works only for to-day will starve to-morrow."

And Annys felt that he had won a helpful friend.

"When dost think the whole country will be ready?" asked Rugge of Annys.

"Plenty yet to do, plenty to do," was the reply. "There are counties where they await but the word, but there are others where they are none too ready to loose hand from the plough."

"Ay, those are the counties where the plough yet yields a living somewhat better than a dog's."

"Yea, there are places in the land where the Black Death but took away enough mouths to fill those that remain. There the men have a cold heart and an unready ear, and it is hard enough to beat into them a sense of fellowship for those who are suffering and a-hungering afar off. It is slow work getting from east to west and from south to north, yet the good work prospers surely. Steadily the people are coming to right knowledge. More and more Holy Writ is being placed into their hands, and it taketh but small wit to see there is something awry with a world which matcheth so ill with its Word."

"Ay!" cried one lustily, "did the world go by the Book, there would be no woe and unruth."

"Yes," spoke up Richard Meryl, "but the world goes not by the law of Holy Writ, but by the law of Westminster, and therein lieth all the unrest. Did they not seek to put man's law above God's law, there would be no rebellion."

Annys nodded approvingly. There was something rarely winning in this young man.

"Hast heard of the new law which the Commons have passed?" asked Thomas Pye the wagon-maker of young Meryl.

"Let them pass their laws at Westminster," exclaimed one man, passionately, "and let's see how well they can cultivate their lands with parchment rolls."

"What have they done now?" asked Meryl.

"They have declared that 'carters, ploughmen, plough drivers, shepherds, swineherds, deyes, and other servants should be content with such liveries and wages as they received in the twentieth year of King Edward's reign.'"

"'Declared that we be content,'" mocked Tim the needle-maker. "Have they so, indeed!" Then rising, he addressed the others in a loud voice. "Fellows, the law hath declared that we be content. Why then so we must be—by Westminster law which can call the sky green if it take a notion—it must be so."

"Content then," broke in Ralph Rugge, with a laugh, "is but a matter of a drop of ink on the end of a quill."

"Next they will fill our empty stomachs with parchment sheets," uttered one fellow, in strong disgust, whereat a great laugh went up because the speaker, Richard Bole, was known for a great glutton.

"But that is not all," said the first speaker. "They will not that one should depart from one part of the country to another to serve, or reside elsewhere, or under pretence of going to a pilgrimage, without a letter patent, specifying cause of his departure and time of his return, granted at discretion of the justice of the peace."

"Yea," continued Ralph Rugge, taking the words out of the other's mouth, "and if such a runaway be caught, he will be imprisoned for fifteen days and branded on the forehead with the letter F; and any one found harboring him would be liable to a fine of ten pounds."

"Curse their insolence!" muttered one whose face was flushed with liquor and whose hands trembled with something other than indignation. "Curse their insolence! Next they will seek to plant us in the soil with a spade chained to our arms!"

"Yea, it is hard," spoke up Annys, with a sigh; "it is a bondage worse than that of the Hebrews in Egypt; yet remain steadfast and patient, and all must come right in the end."

At the other end of the table the men grew more and more under the influence of the flowing ale.

A strong voice now rang out from the lower end of the table:—

joined in another voice.

By the time the last line was reached the whole room took it up, and the walls shook with the song:—

At the close of the song, Rugge looked about him, and singled out from a dark corner, where he had been quietly looking on, a shy lad in the garb of a minstrel, who, hugging his rebec under his arm, shambled awkwardly up to his leader.

"Hither, my brave boy," cried Rugge, presenting him to Annys; "this is Jack Nicol, a better friend to the Cause than those who swing a broad axe or train an arrow against those who live only by labor of tongue. This youth never opens his lips but he risks a broken pate, and indeed he is very like to find himself clapped into gaol for his bold songs which do stir the people up to ask for their freedom."

"Good!" cried Annys, clapping the boy upon his back; "we shall know each other better before long, for I shall have need of thee."

"I am ready," replied the boy, yet rubbing his head somewhat ruefully on the spot where the sheriff's stick had been all too familiar with it.

"Yea, these minstrels do wot well how to reach the heart of the people," said Rugge, "and a good stirring rime can do more in a moment than much preaching can do in many months."

"A rime, a rime, give us one now," they called to the minstrel.

"Yea, a rime, a rime, a geste!" ran through the room.

The boy hung back for an instant, and then, putting his rebec tenderly to his chin, launched forth upon the song that of all others stirred the blood the quickest, the song so dear to the people that scarce any gathering would disperse until the rafters rang with its well-conned words:—

The roisterers looked up and left their hands from the tankards, the nodding heads first stiffened and then kept time to the rhythm, the sodden faces brightened, while the young minstrel, in a peculiarly sweet voice, sang on of Robyn's men asking for orders before they should set out through the green woods:—

Whereupon the good chief instructs his loyal followers, and closes with the admonition which went a great ways to account for his peculiar popularity with the people:—

Each verse met with its full measure of praise, and certainly none was more heartily applauded than the last, which commended to mercy the soul of the brave Robyn:—

"Help, help, save me, hide me for the love of Christ!" All looked up startled as this cry came from outside, and at the same time the door was flung open and there was blown into the room, with the gusty wind, a man who, after casting a swift, appealing glance at the faces about the table, sank exhausted to the floor. Even without the sudden cry for help, the wild appearance of the fellow would have been sufficient to startle them. He was dressed as a pilgrim, and the long gown was rent here and there, as if torn in some struggle. The pilgrim's staff, although still tightly grasped by one hand, was broken off short, the vernicle had been wrenched from his cap by violent hands, and now hung by a thread, swaying and bobbing with every move of his head. The fellow's cheeks were hollow, his sunken temples throbbed tumultuously, his lips were dry and pallid, his eyes were wild, his hair and beard matted and unkempt.

Here was before them one of the very pretended pilgrims of whom they had spoken. Doubtless the sheriffs had seen through his disguise, and were even then hot upon his heels.

The fellow had sunk at the feet of Tim the needle-maker. He opened his eyes feebly, and murmured one more "Help me!"

"Ten pounds fine for the harboring of such," muttered Tim, as he took to his heels and closed the door behind him.

Others became alarmed.

"Ten pounds! 'tis more than I possess in the whole world!"

"Ten pounds! Mother Mary!"

Annys rose indignantly. "Cowards!" he hissed. "Is this your boasted fellowship? Is this the way ye succor your brother?"

But, before he had done, Richard Meryl had quickly risen, lifted the fallen man, and guided him through the door. He knew a hiding-place where all such refugees were welcomed for the sake of one who had died in the same desperate attempt to win a decent living.