part I do believe he is in the right; for wherefore is a king a king,

if he may not do as him list, but is bound by time and place?"

"Yea, sire!" said Etienne absently; he was looking across, through the open door into the church. In the dim distance there he saw a little kneeling figure, and a gleam of golden braided hair. Almost he thought it was Calote, and his heart leaped; but he remembered that this could not be if Calote were in London. There were other golden-haired maids in England.

"Yet do I not like his doctrine," the King mused. "For why?--the half on 't I cannot understand. Yesterday I fell asleep, upright, a-listening to the sound of his Latin. My confessor saith this Wyclif turneth the Bible into the English tongue for common folk to read,--and that 's scandal and heresy, to let down God's thoughts into speech of every day. But Master Wyclif's own thoughts be not God's, if all is true the Church teacheth, and I 'd liever listen to him in English.--or better, in French. Etienne, I go a-hunting, I 'm aweary of Latin, and Sanctuary, and all this cry of the Commons concerning expense. How is 't my fault if mine uncles and Sudbury and the council be spendthrifts? By Saint Thomas of Kent, I 'll stop this French war when I 'm a man. Yea, and I 'll stop the mouth of Parliament that talks me asleep."

The workmen glanced at one another and grinned. Etienne made a step to the church door; the maid within had risen up off her knees and now crossed herself and went away down the nave.

"Sire!" cried Etienne sharply; "methought I saw--Calote."

One of the workmen looked up at the name, and let his work lie.

"Calote?" said Richard. "Coeur de joie, but she 's in London."

Etienne shook his head and peered into the dimness of the church, but the maid was gone.

"Ay, me," sighed Richard wistfully, "I would thou didst love thy King but the half as well as thou lovest this peasant maid."

"Beau sire," said Etienne, kneeling, "I am thy loyal servant. Trust me, my heart plays no tricks."

"Chéri," then smiled the King, and laid his hand on Etienne's shoulder, "my head aches. Let us to my chamber and thou shalt sing me a little song, and I 'll sleep. We have not spoke of Calote these three weeks. Come, tell me a tale and be merry. To-morrow we 'll ride up to the forest at Malvern, and hunt there the next day; the prior yonder is a courteous gentleman, writes in French, and prays me partake of his hospitality. After All Hallows we 'll come back and hear the end of these great matters. I 'll pray mine uncle; I 'll fret and fume. I 'll go, will he nil be. Come let 's say a prayer in church beside my great-grandfather's tomb. Give you good-day, good fellows," he said to the workmen, and went away hanging upon his squire's arm.

"There 's a king!" said one of the stone-cutters. "His father's own son!"

"Sayst thou so?" grumbled another. "Didst mark how he would stop the mouth o' Parliament when he 's a man?"

"Pish!--'t was a jest turned in weariness," a third made excuse; "a child's jest. For mine own part, I 'm none so fond o' Parliament with its throngings, and setting a town topsy-turvy, and forever getting under a man's feet when he 's at his stone work peaceable."

"They say his mother's done her best to spoil him. I 've heard tell she was a light woman."

"Natheless, I 'd liever have him than another. He has a merry smile. I could have took him o' my knee and kissed him and rubbed his sleepy foot,--but I minded me he was a king."

"And well for thee."

"Now I wonder," said the workman who had lifted his head at mention of Calote,--"now I wonder what the young squire meant by those words he said? There 's a maid biding in my cot; her name 's Calote. She can sing the Vision concerning Piers Ploughman better than any teller o' tales ever I heard. 'T was her own father writ it. One Jack Straw sent her my way. She goeth afoot to Malvern to-day, to give her father's greeting to a monk at the Priory."

"Jack Straw? Him that spake of the people's wrongs and these evil taxings, at Tavern in January past?"

"Yea."

"Will such-like a maid be known to so fine a gentleman as yon squire?"

"Haply not. Yet I 'll swear by Saint Christopher 't was her I saw in the church when he looked through the door."

"Eh, well,--the little King 's a good fellow, say I," quoth the man that had first spoken, and added, "So is Jack Straw."

Whereupon there fell silence upon all of them, and only the clinking of hammer against stone was heard till the Commons came out of the Chapter House with a great clatter.