A March on London: Being a Story of Wat Tyler's InsurrectionHenty, G. A. (George Alfred)
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A March on London: Being a Story of Wat Tyler's Insurrection
Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
Tyler's Insurrection, 1381 -- Juvenile fiction
Scenes of this kind were being enacted throughout the city. Already the
restriction against plundering was disregarded, and although the men
from the counties still abstained from robbery, the released prisoners
from the jail and the denizens of the slums of the city had no such
scruples, and the houses of the Flemings were everywhere sacked and
plundered. The two friends met again at Aldgate. When they reached
Tower Hill, it was, they found, occupied by a dense throng of people,
who beleaguered the Tower and refused to allow any provisions to be
taken in, or any person to issue out.
"What had best be done, Edgar? So menacing is the appearance of the
rabble that methinks this attire would be as much out of place among
them as would our own."
"I agree with you there, Albert, and yet I know not what we are to do.
What we need is either a craftsman's dress or that of a countryman, but
I see not how the one or the other is to be obtained. Assuredly nothing
is to be bought, save perhaps bread, for the rioters have ordered that
all bakers' shops are to stand open."
He stood for a minute thinking. "I tell you what we might do," he went
on. "Let us go back into Aldgate, and then down on to the wharf. There
are many country boats there, and we might buy what we need from the
sailors."
"That is a good idea indeed, Edgar."
In a quarter of an hour they were on the wharf. Many of the craft there
had no one on board, the men having gone either to join the rioters or
to look on at what had been done. The skipper of a large fishing-boat
was sitting on the wharf looking moodily down into his vessel.
"Are you the captain of that craft?" Edgar asked him.
"I used to think so," he said; "but just at present no one obeys
orders, as every Jack thinks that he is as good as his master. I ought
to have gone out with the morning's tide, but my men would not have it
so, and just at present they are the masters, not I. A murrain on such
doings, say I. I was with them when it was but a talk of rights and
privileges, but when it comes to burning houses and slaying peaceable
men, I, for one, will have naught to do with it."
"Captain," Edgar said, "I see that you are an honest man, and maybe you
will aid us. We find that there is peril in going about attired as we
are, for we aided a short time since in saving a Flemish family from
massacre by these fellows, and we need disguises. We want two
countrymen's suits--it matters not whether they be new or old. We are
ready to pay for them, but every shop is closed, and we have come down
to the wharves to find someone who will sell."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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