"A message from the prophet!" cried Black Jack, as he glanced over the writing, and then read aloud, "John Ball greeteth Jack Straw, John Leicester, Ralph Rugge, and the other leaders, and also all the true commons assembled at Mile-end, and commandeth them that they listen to the voice of their anointed king, and hasten back to their own homes; and John Ball, who is now freed, will obtain from the royal hand, the charter of freedom, for the bond, and the redress of all the grievances that weigh down the free."
Naomi was disgusted. Reuben had once or twice offended her by his coarseness, but she could never get used to it.The conversation had quite deserted Reuben, who sat silent and forgotten in his corner, thinking what fools all these people were. After he had wondered what they were talking about for a quarter of an hour, he rose to go, and gave a sigh of relief when the fresh air of Iden Hill came rustling to him on the doorstep.Loud cheers rose up from the struggling, drunken mass in the market-place.
ONE:"What dost thou here, monk?" asked De Boteler, sternly, "after my orders that you should never more enter this hall."
To-day business was bad. Here and there a ploughboy pulled up his slop and fumbled for pennies in his corduroys, but for the most part the stalls were deserted, even in certain cases by their holders. This was not because the Fair was empty. On the contrary, it was much more crowded than usual; but the crowd clotted into groups, all discussing the same thingthe Inclosure.She thought it over for two months, during which Reuben suffered all the torments of his lot. She soon came to realise and appreciate her powers; she dangled hopes and fears with equal zest before his eyes, she used his anxieties to stoke the furnaces of his passion, till she had betrayed him into blazes and explosions which he looked on afterwards with uneasy shame."Father John, you have a sister"That year Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and limed them for oats. He felt that now he had strength to return to his first battle, and wring a grain crop out of that grudging soil. The new piece of ground abutted the Odiam lands on the Flightshot side, and he could see it from his window. Before going to bed at night, he would lean out and feast his eyes on it as it lay there softly covered in the dark, or glimmering in the faint star-dazzle of spring. Sometimes it seemed almost as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he would sit there inhaling it till Naomi peevishly begged him to shut the window and come to bed. Then in the mornings, when he woke according to healthy habit at five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could see his land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness of dawn, silently calling him out to the freshness of its many dews.
