THREE:All the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his land. His men were afraid, for it was the first time they had seen him spend a day without work. He touched neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders, just wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. He ate no supper, but locked himself into his room, while the baby's thin wail rose through the beams of the kitchen ceiling, and little David cried fractiously for "mother."We have as yet confined our observations to the bondmen; but in 1381, an act of ill-judged policy of the nine nobles and prelates who formed the council of young Richard gave rise to a sort of coalition among the lower classes. This act was the famous tax of three groats upon every individual who had attained the age of fifteen. The hearth-money, which had been enforced by the Black Prince upon the inhabitants of Guienne, and which had probably formed the precedent for this tax, had not worked well, and there appeared little chance that the present exaction, framed as it was by those who directed the royal councils, would work better. Certain wealthy individuals contracted with the government for the collection of the tax, and private rapacity thus rendered the imposition more obnoxious than it otherwise might have been.
FORE:A week or two before they arrived Reuben went to Playden, and looked over the house. It was a new one, on the hill above Star Lock, and it was just what he would have expected of Richard and Annegimcrack. He scraped the mortar with his finger-nail, poked at the tiles with his stick, and pronounced the place jerry-built in the worst way. It had no land attached to it, eitheronly a silly garden with a tennis court and flowers. Richard's success struck him as extremely petty compared with his own.
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