class="lefth">Part II.  The Pilgrimage

I. In the Cloisters 131 II. In Malvern Chase 137 III. By a Burn's Side 147 IV. A Boon 156 V. The Adventure in Devon 164 VI. The Adventure in Cheshire 180 VII. The Adventure in Yorkshire 196 VIII. The Believers 217 IX. The Adventure in Kent 228 X. The Poets Sing to Richard 242 Part III.  The Rising I. The Beginning 265 II. Blackheath 271 III. In the City 280 IV. In the Tower 286 V. Mile End 296 VI. Free Men 307 VII. Reaction 315 VIII. The Friday Night 319 IX. Smithfield 324 X. The Old Fetters 338 XI. The Prisoner 349 XII. Y-Robed in Russet 358 Epilogue 369

PROLOGUE

am Ymagynatyf,' quod he, 'idel was I nevere.'"

The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman.
B. Passus XII.

I

The Lark and the Cuckoo

HERE were a many singers on the hill-top. They twittered in the gorse; they whistled from the old hawthorn tree, amid the white may; they sprang to heaven, shaking off melody in their flight; and one, russet-clad, lay at his length against the green slope, murmuring English in his throat.

'T was in a May morning, he said, 'T was in a May morning,—and he loitered over the words and drew out the morwening very long and sweet. Then, because there was a singing mote of a lark in the misty blue above him, his own song dropped back into his breast, and he waited.

He was young and lank, and his hair was yellow-red. He followed the