A March on London | Page 7

they attack it?"
The Prior was silent.
"I know what you mean, good Father," Edgar said, after a pause. "They
say that my father is a magician, because he stirs not abroad, but spends
his time on his researches. I remember when I was a small boy, and the
lads of the village wished to anger me, they would shout out, 'Here is
the magician's son,' and I had many a fight in consequence."
"Just so, Edgar; the ignorant always hate that which they cannot
understand; so Friar Bacon was persecuted, and accused of dabbling in
magic when he was making discoveries useful to mankind. I say not

that they will do any great harm when they first rise, for it cannot be
said that the serfs here are so hardly treated as they were in France,
where their lords had power of life and death over them, and could slay
them like cattle if they chose, none interfering. Hence the hatred was so
deep that in the very first outbreak the peasants fell upon the nobles and
massacred them and their families.
"Here there is no such feeling. It is against the government that taxes
them so heavily that their anger is directed, and I fear that this new
poll-tax that has been ordered will drive them to extremities. I have
news that across the river in Essex the people of some places have not
only refused to pay, but have forcibly driven away the tax-gatherers,
and when these things once begin, there is no saying how they are
going to end. However, if there is trouble, I think not that at first we
shall be in any danger here, but if they have success at first their
pretensions will grow. They will inflame themselves. The love of
plunder will take the place of their reasonable objections to
over-taxation, and seeing that they have but to stretch out their hands to
take what they desire, plunder and rapine will become general."
As Edgar walked back home he felt that there was much truth in the
Prior's remarks. He himself had heard many things said among the
villagers which showed that their patience was well-nigh at an end.
Although, since he began his studies, he had no time to keep up his
former close connection with the village, he had always been on
friendly terms with his old playmates, and they talked far more freely
with him than they would do to anyone else of gentle blood. Once or
twice he had, from a spirit of adventure, gone with them to meetings
that were held after dark in a quiet spot near Dartford, and listened to
the talk of strangers from Gravesend and other places. He knew himself
how heavily the taxation pressed upon the people, and his sympathies
were wholly with them. There had been nothing said even by the most
violent of the speakers to offend him. The protests were against the
exactions of the tax-gatherers, the extravagance of the court, and the
hardship that men should be serfs on the land.
Once they had been addressed by a secular priest from the other side of

the river, who had asserted that all men were born equal and had equal
rights. This sentiment had been loudly applauded, but he himself had
sense enough to see that it was contrary to fact, and that men were not
born equal. One was the son of a noble, the other of a serf. One child
was a cripple and a weakling from its birth, another strong and lusty.
One was well-nigh a fool, and another clear-headed. It seemed to him
that there were and must be differences.
Many of the secular clergy were among the foremost in stirring up the
people. They themselves smarted under their disabilities. For the most
part they were what were called hedge priests, men of but little or no
education, looked down upon by the regular clergy, and almost wholly
dependant on the contributions of their hearers. They resented the
difference between themselves and the richly endowed clergy and
religious houses, and denounced the priests and monks as drones who
sucked the life- blood of the country.
This was the last gathering at which Edgar had been present. He had
been both shocked and offended at the preaching. What was the name
of the priest he knew not, nor did the villagers, but he went by the name
of Jack Straw, and was, Edgar thought, a dangerous fellow. The lad had
no objection to his abuse of the tax-gatherers, or to his complaints of
the extravagance of the court, but this man's denunciation of the monks
and clergy at once shocked and angered him. Edgar's intercourse with
the villagers had removed some of the prejudices generally felt by