When the note reached Matilda, telling of his decision to become a Benedictine monk, and imploring her to forget him and to wed Richard Meryl, who was far worthier of her than he, her tears flowed, not at her own loss, for that she had long since schooled herself to bear, but at the people's loss in their leader.

Robert Annys, her Robert Annys, a Benedictine! Impossible! How often in the sweet days of their companionship had he railed bitterly against those so-called Christians that buried their noses in ponderous tomes of Meditations on the Future Life, while Satan grimly did his work on the life going on about him. How his impatience had flashed out against those that shut their eyes to Christ's true mission in the world, and continued in the even tenor of their way within the sheltered cloister, while without the cold north winds blew, and crops failed, and sheep died by the hundred, and gaunt men looked into each other's eyes and saw there, not hope and good-fellowship, but only hunger and despair and a thirst for vengeance. What answer would such have ready—he used to say—at the Tribunal of the Great Judge, when asked after the workers of the world? Would their answers differ any from that made by baron or bailiff, the same miserable palliation that trembled on the lips of guilty Cain?

Robert Annys, her Robert Annys, a Benedictine! He who had always translated religion into helpfulness, had he, then, after all, lowered his colors and aligned himself with the good but impotent dreamers of the earth? Now she regretted that her pride had let him go from her without one plea for Piers. That would not have been a plea for herself. And perhaps she could have saved him this defeat. Yet she comforted herself with the thought that it could not last. Some day—she hoped before he would take the vows of his order—some day, amid the peace and calm of the cloisters, the voice of the down-trodden people, his once-beloved, ever-beloved people, would reach him, and he would fling off the cowl, to place himself again at their head.

For indeed their need of him was great. As the time drew near for the march on to Blackheath, it was impossible to restrain their impatience. Everywhere slumbered fires that needed but a puff to burst into instant flame. Here it was a quarrel of long standing with an abbey for the right to grind one's own corn; there it was the insolence of a poll-tax collector; again it was a bailiff seeking a runaway serf: any pretext served to fan the smouldering embers. Matilda was too loyal a pupil of Robert Annys not to watch anxiously the constantly increasing outbursts of violence. She knew how much depended on the orderliness and self-control of those who were to demand their freedom of their King.

During these days she prayed much, and pored for long hours at a time over her Bible. Whatever unhappiness her love for Robert Annys had caused her, at least it had brought her the joy of reading for herself in the Wonderful Book. It was everything to her, her one beloved companion, for now she lived utterly alone. Her grandmother was no more. When Rose went from her, she became a helpless paralytic, only speaking a minute before her death, when she uttered some wild curses in which two generations of de Leauforts—uncle and nephew—were strangely blended. Meryl had not yet returned from his mission. Matilda lived in a blessed companionship with her Saviour, sharing in every act of His life, letting every precious word that had fallen from His lips sink deeply into her heart. It was a marvellous experience, which broadened and developed her receptive nature. She burned with a passionate desire to make His Presence real to those about her. She resolved to take up that part of Robert's work—the bringing of the Gospel to the people. There could be no greater service on earth, and there was comfort in the consciousness of continuing his work. She was sure the people needed no other guidance than the Bible in their hands. For what knew the untutored peasant girl of history, of the slow, painful steps by which Christianity was won for the world? of the contamination in the very forces that it conquered? She knew only the beautiful simplicity of Christ's mandates, and felt a growing horror for the intricacies of ritualistic worship. What knew she of Donations of Constantine, of the slow, steady growth of the temporal dominions of the Papacy? She filled her heart to overflowing with His words of peace and charity, and gazed with growing scorn at the bickerings and warfare waged by the Head of Holy Church.

She knew that in Rome there stood the Church of St. Peter's. It had twenty-nine steps leading up to its doors. When you go up or down, if you say a prayer, you shall have seven years' pardon for every step. Inside there are seven principal altars. At each of these you can obtain seven years' pardon. At the high altar pardon is given for twenty years. If you time your visit between Maunday and Lammas, you obtain fourteen thousand years' pardon. What could this all mean to her? What knew she of the need to encourage pilgrimages to Rome, to fasten the eyes of the world upon it? What knew she of the magnificent statesmanship that could hold the Holy City in the imagination of all—believer and pagan alike—glorious, impregnable, supreme?

She knew only that Jesus granted absolution through much suffering and great faith, a real change of heart. A small detail which, in the calculation of the shrewd Pope, had been relegated to comparative unimportance.

So, in the same way, she looked about her on the condition of the serfs, and saw nothing of the slow upbuilding of the feudal system, of the service that once had meaning, but only the apostolic equality of all men and the nobility of labor.

All men were created in the image of God, and she wanted to see all men free and equal. Nevertheless, she had a horror of violence. She was fearful of the spectre of the wild beast that stalked ever behind the noble purposes of the Uprising.

Once she encountered some men riotously returning from the sacking of the house of the collector of the latest poll-tax. Some staggered under the weight of the valuables which they had carried off, while others staggered under the strong wines which they had poured down their throats. Her quick indignation was aroused.

"Thieves! Robbers! Despoilers! How can ye so bring disgrace on the Great Society!"

But the leader only laughed, and called out in his thickened voice:—

"Nonsense, girl! A poll-tax collector—'tis no thievery, my dear, but a putting back into our own pockets what he did take from ours." And they passed on, laughing and hiccoughing.

Another time she came across a crowd hanging on the words of an evil-faced man, who was urging them to attack a neighboring castle.

"It will not be the only castle to fall before us," he boasted.

It disheartened her to see this fellow seeking his own ends under the pretence of the common good.

"How long since was it that Sir John dismissed you as a dishonest bailiff?" she cried. And the fellow turned purple and then took to his heels, followed by the jeers of the crowd. She did what she could, but she realized that it was but little. How long before Robert Annys would return to them? How long?

One day Richard Meryl came back. He approached the village at a moment when a large crowd had gathered about one who was holding forth on the ever popular text of Adam and Eve.

"'Adam delved and Eve span,'" the fellow was saying. "So ho! where, then, was our great gentleman? Where, then, was our fine Lord looking down from his costly manor-house upon his men sweating and toiling in the fields? And where was the fine lady lolling at her ease, wrapped in dainty raiments fashioned by the hand of others? If Eve span not she went naked, and if her lord delved not he went hungry. And now tell me, if the good God saw fit to make the world in the first place only of workers and no laggards, who, then, brought the laggards into the world?"

"The Devil, the Devil, the Evil One," shouted several. Then cries came from all sides, while the speaker's face glowed with satisfaction:—

"Put them out!"

"Burn them out!"

"Starve them out!"

Just then Meryl recognized Matilda, standing among the others, pale as death, but with a great light flaming in her eyes. He left off watching the speaker and glued his hungry eyes upon her face. He saw with a sinking heart how thin and haggard it was, and a vague terror stole over him. He had schooled himself all this time to bear the sight of her happiness, and now he saw that he must begin all over again to bear the sight of her misery.

The man's strident voice swept on: "By God! men of Cambridgeshire, when every manor-house lieth in ashes the Lords will no longer refuse to grant us our quit-rents. Then shall we be able to till a bit of land in freedom and we shall grind our corn where we will, and there shall be no masters to own us body and soul."

"Stay!"

It was Matilda. The people turned, amazed at her boldness.

"How foolishly thou dost rant, Peter Wells!" she said in a clear, steady voice that all marvelled at. "Wot ye not, neighbors, that even Piers Ploughman tells us we must have overlords and rulers? Wot ye not that when the rats and mice desired to put to death all the cats in the realm that one wise rat spake and said:—

"'If we have no cats over us, sure all the rats will eat one another!'

"Now, what good will ever come of violence and bloodshed? Oh, surely, ye are of little faith, for if ye believed in the justice of your Cause ye would be satisfied to stand before the kind King with no weapons in your hands save just rightwiseness. Ye would not put your trust in burning and sacking and pillaging. Oh, shame, shame upon you!"

There were some that seemed impressed by the girl's words, but Peter shrugged his shoulders roughly. "Bah! spoken like thy soft-hearted poor priest, Robert Annys. He was forever bidding us wait. Wait! and for what?" he blazed out furiously—"for another poll-tax to be wrung from the poor while the rich hide their treasure between the folds of the Justices' gowns? Wait? for what? For more laws to be passed making it a crime to seek honest labor? for more raping of our women? Nay, let thy Robert Annys face me, and I shall tell him we have waited too long already."

Her head drooped. Ah, if he would but face them!

"Where is Robert Annys? Why is he not here to help us?" queried one, impatiently. Matilda trembled and swayed as if she would fall, and the shadows darkened under her glowing eyes. Meryl watched her closely.

"Why does he not come back to us?" repeated the voice. "Where does he tarry so long?"

It would never do to let these wild men suspect the truth. She nerved herself to answer.

"Did ye not yourselves send him on a dangerous mission into Kent?" she asked. There was something unfamiliar in her voice that puzzled Meryl.

"It is long since time that he returned," muttered the fellow, and Matilda broke out with a sudden impatience: "Mayhap he is risking his life even now for us while ye stand idly talking. Learn to obey, bide ye in patience, for it lacks not many days before the word will be spoken and then ye may go forth as honest men."

Then Meryl approached her and drew her aside, and, as she recognized him, she fell sobbing into his arms.

He conducted her home, and then he asked the meaning of it all.

"Thou art unhappy. Tell me what has happened. And where is Robert Annys?"

"Said I not already that he was in Kent?" she whispered.

"Nay," he said impatiently, "thy face is far too dear to me to permit it to deceive."

As she did not reply to this, he gazed at her in gloomy silence for a while, and then spoke with a certain stern deliberateness.

"He is not in Kent."

She quivered. "How should I know more than I have said?" she asked plaintively.

"'How should I know,'" he mocked; "I left thee on the eve of wedding Robert Annys. Art thou his wife?"

"Nay!"

"Art thou betrothed?"

"Nay!"

"What? not even betrothed?" Then in a low, trembling voice, "Has he wronged thee?"

"Oh, Richard, for shame! for shame!"

"When did he go away?"

"The second day of the Stourbridge Fair."

"And thou hast not seen him since?" he asked in amazement.

"Nay, I have not seen him since."

He paced up and down a few times, and then he came back to her and looked down on her, sullen, uncertain, not knowing what to think. "Listen!" at last he broke out, "I return and find thee unhappy. He must have caused this. Tell me the truth and the whole truth, or I shall seek him if it be to the end of the earth, and I shall wring the truth from him if it has to be from his dying lips. Dost understand?"

She understood. But before she would speak, she made him promise solemnly not to reveal his whereabouts. It was a promise given most reluctantly, nevertheless she felt certain it would not be broken.

He received the news with amazement and incredulity just as she had done. Impossible! Robert Annys a Benedictine? Impossible! "What is it that thou art keeping from me? What drove him to this?"

He paced up and down in deep thought. Suddenly he stood before her again and asked abruptly, "Where is Rose?"

In a few words she told him of Rose's flight and the death of her grandmother.

"When did Rose go?"

"The second day of the Stourbridge Fair," she said.

Meryl's face darkened. "How? the very day he went? What is this that thou art telling me?"

The blood leapt to her cheeks, she looked up into his stormy eyes, protesting, denying—she scarce knew what—"Nay, nay, Richard! How canst thou? Believe me, thou art quite wrong—She"—but the long strain of the past months had worn on her and her self-control was at an end. She fled into the house, weeping bitterly, while he left in a turmoil, angry, sore at heart.

During the next few days, he deeply regretted his promise. He saw the growing rebellion against the harsh landlordism of the monastery; he knew but a word would send dozens of the men rioting at the gates. It was easy to predict what would happen if he led them there and then cried out that their former leader was within, a deserter, caring naught for them and their woes, concerning himself solely with Aves and Breviaries. Ah, he would not stay behind, either! His blood leapt at the thought of breaking down the doors with the maddened men at his heels, of beating his way through the surging crowd, of dragging Annys from his cell and flinging him, with all the guilt of his miserable soul upon him, straight to the judgment seat. He had guessed something of the truth. He knew the nature of Rose Westel, he knew also that it must have taken some tremendous upheaval to send Robert Annys knocking at St. Dunstan's. But there was no pity in his heart for the struggle which his friend must have waged, nothing but a blind rage against the man who had broken Matilda's heart.

He had no patience to bide at home. He joined a party of desperate men who were setting out for Ely on a wild errand. His mood had entirely changed. He derived a certain fierce satisfaction in rousing the people to immediate action, in stirring them to commit deeds of violence—in short, to do all that Robert Annys would have deplored. It was the only way there was left to fight him—he had not chosen the weapons, it was all that was left him.

Soon among all the men of the Bury there was not one more reckless, more feared, than he.