Now,knowing all this I was not astonished that they shouted at the thought of their fellows the men of Essex,but rather that they said little more about it;only Will Green saying quietly,"Well,the tidings shall be told when our fellowship is greater;fall-to now on the meat,brother,that we may the sooner have thy tale."As he spoke the blue-clad damsel bestirred herself and brought me a clean trencher--that is,a square piece of thin oak board scraped clean--and a pewter pot of liquor.So without more ado,and as one used to it,I drew my knife out of my girdle and cut myself what I would of the flesh and bread on the table.But Will Green mocked at me as I cut,and said,"Certes,brother,thou hast not been a lord's carver,though but for thy word thou mightest have been his reader.Hast thou seen Oxford,scholar?"A vision of grey-roofed houses and a long winding street and the sound of many bells came over me at that word as I nodded "Yes"to him,my mouth full of salt pork and rye-bread;and then Ilifted my pot and we made the clattering mugs kiss and I drank,and the fire of the good Kentish mead ran through my veins and deepened my dream of things past,present,and to come,as Isaid:"Now hearken a tale,since ye will have it so.For last autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town of Dunwich,and thither came the keels from Iceland,and on them were some men of Iceland,and many a tale they had on their tongues;and with these men I foregathered,for I am in sooth a gatherer of tales,and this that is now at my tongue's end is one of them."So such a tale I told them,long familiar to me;but as I told it the words seemed to quicken and grow,so that I knew not the sound of my own voice,and they ran almost into rhyme and measure as I told it;and when I had done there was silence awhile,till one man spake,but not loudly:
"Yea,in that land was the summer short and the winter long;but men lived both summer and winter;and if the trees grew ill and the corn throve not,yet did the plant called man thrive and do well.God send us such men even here.""Nay,"said another,"such men have been and will be,and belike are not far from this same door even now.""Yea,"said a third,"hearken a stave of Robin Hood;maybe that shall hasten the coming of one I wot of."And he fell to singing in a clear voice,for he was a young man,and to a sweet wild melody,one of those ballads which in an incomplete and degraded form you have read perhaps.My heart rose high as I heard him,for it was concerning the struggle against tyranny for the freedom of life,how that the wildwood and the heath,despite of wind and weather,were better for a free man than the court and the cheaping-town;of the taking from the rich to give to the poor;of the life of a man doing his own will and not the will of another man commanding him for the commandment's sake.
The men all listened eagerly,and at whiles took up as a refrain a couplet at the end of a stanza with their strong and rough,but not unmusical voices.As they sang,a picture of the wild-woods passed by me,as they were indeed,no park-like dainty glades and lawns,but rough and tangled thicket and bare waste and heath,solemn under the morning sun,and dreary with the rising of the evening wind and the drift of the night-long rain.
When he had done,another began in something of the same strain,but singing more of a song than a story ballad;and thus much Iremember of it:
The Sheriff is made a mighty lord,Of goodly gold he hath enow,And many a sergeant girt with sword;But forth will we and bend the bow.
We shall bend the bow on the lily lea Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree.
With stone and lime is the burg wall built,And pit and prison are stark and strong,And many a true man there is spilt,And many a right man doomed by wrong.
So forth shall we and bend the bow And the king's writ never the road shall know.
Now yeomen walk ye warily,And heed ye the houses where ye go,For as fair and as fine as they may be,Lest behind your heels the door clap to.
Fare forth with the bow to the lily lea Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree.
Now bills and bows I and out a-gate!
And turn about on the lily lea!
And though their company be great The grey-goose wing shall set us free.
Now bent is the bow in the green abode And the king's writ knoweth not the road.
So over the mead and over the hithe,And away to the wild-wood wend we forth;There dwell we yeomen bold and blithe Where the Sheriff's word is nought of worth.
Bent is the bow on the lily lea Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree.
But here the song dropped suddenly,and one of the men held up his hand as who would say,Hist!Then through the open window came the sound of another song,gradually swelling as though sung by men on the march.This time the melody was a piece of the plain-song of the church,familiar enough to me to bring back to my mind the great arches of some cathedral in France and the canons singing in the choir.
All leapt up and hurried to take their bows from wall and corner;and some had bucklers withal,circles of leather,boiled and then moulded into shape and hardened:these were some two hand-breadths across,with iron or brass bosses in the centre.Will Green went to the corner where the bills leaned against the wall and handed them round to the first-comers as far as they would go,and out we all went gravely and quietly into the village street and the fair sunlight of the calm afternoon,now beginning to turn towards evening.None had said anything since we first heard the new-come singing,save that as we went out of the door the ballad-singer clapped me on the shoulder and said:
"Was it not sooth that I said,brother,that Robin Hood should bring us John Ball?"