Читать книгу Long Will - Florence Converse Converse - Страница 20

ALOTE slipped out at the back door into a weedy lane full of moonlight. She set her feet ankle-deep in grass and dew. A muck heap cast a shadow from one side to the other of the lane and filled the air with pungent odour. There was a stair against the wall of Will Langland's cot, and Calote climbed up this to a little gabled chamber that had a window looking on Cornhill. The street was white and silent under the moon. There was no light in any house as far as Calote could see. Even the tavern was dark: Dame Emma had shut out her roisterers and made her house a house of mourning, for that the Black Prince was dead. Calote let slip her strait russet gown and stood at the window in her kirtle, shaking out her hair.

Such hair had Guenevere, she said thoughtfully; yet am I Calote.—A kinsman to the Earl of March?—Mayhap to-night he weeps the death of the Black Prince. Yet, I know not.—Wat Tyler saith these nobles be aye at one another's throat.—When there be so many kind of love i' the world, wherefore do some folk make choice of hating?—So many kind of love!—Wherefore may not I essay all?—Wherefore be there Calotes—and Gueneveres?—Yet, there be a many left for me. I will leave thinking o' squires and knights. I will listen to Dame Reason in the Romaunt—and Wat, and the ploughman, and my father.

She crossed herself and said her Pater Noster, then dropped her kirtle and lay down upon her pallet. For coverlet she had a frayed old cassock of her father's. She lay beneath the window, and the moon came about to look on her.

I will love all I may, said Calote; but I will forget to be loved.

And so she fell asleep.

She did not wake an hour after when Long Will came up to bed, stooping among the rafters. He crossed the room to look upon her where she lay full in the light of the moon. Because the night was close she had set free her arms from the warmth of the old cassock, but the golden mantle of her hair veiled her white breast that rose and fell ever so lightly.

Will Langland beckoned to his wife and she came to stand beside him:—

'T is now a woman—and yesterday a child, said he. Mayhap I am dull-eyed, noting little that's not writ on parchment, yet meseems I have never seen woman so fair as this my daughter. Is 't true?

Yea, Will; it is true, said Kitte.

Then Calote opened her eyes upon her father and mother, and she was dreaming.

O red rose! said she, and shut her eyes again.

And Will Langland and Kitte his wife went down on their knees to pray.