Long Will

by Florence Converse

  Produced by Carl Hudkins, Carol Brown, jnik (media provider)and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide, In thy most need to go by thy side.

  This is No. 328 of Everyman's Library. A list of authors and theirworks in this series will be found at the end of this volume. Thepublishers will be pleased to send freely to all applicants aseparate, annotated list of the Library.

  J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED 10-13 BEDFORD STREET LONDON W.C.2

  E. P. DUTTON & CO. INC. 286-302 FOURTH AVENUE NEW YORK

  EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

  EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

  FICTION

  LONG WILL

  BY FLORENCE CONVERSE

  _All rights reserved_

  _Made in Great Britain at The Temple Press Letchworth and decorated by Eric Ravilious for J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. Aldine House Bedford St. London_

  _First Published in this Edition 1908_

  _Reprinted 1911, 1917, 1919, 1923, 1926 1929, 1933_

  EDITOR'S NOTE

  This story forms a very tempting by-way into the old English life andthe contemporary literature which gave us Chaucer's _CanterburyTales_ and Langland's _Vision of Piers Plowman_. It deals withthose poets and with many figures of the fourteenth century whosenames still ring like proverbs in the twentieth--Wat Tyler and JackStraw, John Wycliff, John of Gaunt, and Richard II.--and it summonsthem to real life in that antique looking-glass of history which isromance. It begins in its prologue very near the evil day of the BlackDeath, when the fourteenth century had about half run its course; andin its epilogue it brings us to the year when the two poets died,barely surviving the century they had expressed in its gaiety and itsgreat trouble, as no other century has ever been interpreted. To readthe story without wishing to read Chaucer and _Piers Plowman_ isimpossible, and if a book may be judged by its art in provoking a newinterest in other and older books, then this is one of an uncommonquality. First published in 1903, it has already won a criticalaudience, and it goes out now in a second edition to appeal to a stillwider public here and in America.

  _April 1908._

  To ..........

  _Lo, here is felawschipe: One fayth to holde, One truth to speake, One wrong to wreke, One loving-cuppe to syppe, And to dippe In one disshe faithfullich, As lamkins of one folde. Either for other to suffre alle thing. One songe to sing In swete accord and maken melodye. Right-so thou and I good-fellowes be: Now God us thee!_

  "Why I move this matere is moste for the pore, For in her lyknesse owre lord ofte hath ben y-knowe."

  _The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._ B. PASSUS XI.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE PAGE

  I. _The Lark and the Cuckoo_ 3

  II. _The Hills_ 11

  III. _Kingdoms Not of This World_ 17

  PART I. The Malcontents

  I. _The Miracle_ 27

  II. _The Rose of Love_ 31

  III. _They That Mourn_ 39

  IV. _A Vow_ 46

  V. _A Disciple_ 48

  VI. _Food for Thought_ 61

  VII. _A Progress to Westminster_ 65

  VIII. _An Embassage_ 75

  IX. _The King's Secret_ 80

  X. _Plot and Counterplot_ 94

  XI. _Midsummer Eve_ 107

  XII. _Sanctuary_ 114

  XIII. _The Man o' Words_ 121

  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

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

  _The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._ B. PASSUS XII.