A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson

Published：2026-07-31 18:05:04 Source: best logic games for 9 year olds Author: Pop Up Retail

A DREAM OF JOHN BALL

AND

A KING'S LESSON

BY

WILLIAM MORRIS

CONTENTS

A DREAM OF JOHN BALL

CHAPTER I

THE MEN OF KENT

Sometimes I am rewarded for fretting myself so much about presentmatters by a quite unasked-for pleasant dream. I mean when I amasleep. This dream is as it were a present of an architecturalpeep-show. I see some beautiful and noble building new made, as itwere for the occasion, as clearly as if I were awake; not vaguely orabsurdly, as often happens in dreams, but with all the detail clear andreasonable. Some Elizabethan house with its scrap of earlierfourteenth-century building, and its later degradations of Queen Anneand Silly Billy and Victoria, marring but not destroying it, in an oldvillage once a clearing amid the sandy woodlands of Sussex. Or an oldand unusually curious church, much churchwardened, and beside it afragment of fifteenth-century domestic architecture amongst the notunpicturesque lath and plaster of an Essex farm, and looking naturalenough among the sleepy elms and the meditative hens scratching aboutin the litter of the farmyard, whose trodden yellow straw comes up tothe very jambs of the richly carved Norman doorway of the church. Orsometimes 'tis a splendid collegiate church, untouched by restoringparson and architect, standing amid an island of shapely trees andflower-beset cottages of thatched grey stone and cob, amidst the narrowstretch of bright green water-meadows that wind between the sweepingWiltshire downs, so well beloved of William Cobbett. Or some new-seenand yet familiar cluster of houses in a grey village of the upperThames overtopped by the delicate tracery of a fourteenth-centurychurch; or even sometimes the very buildings of the past untouched bythe degradation of the sordid utilitarianism that cares not and knowsnot of beauty and history: as once, when I was journeying (in a dreamof the night) down the well-remembered reaches of the Thames betwixtStreatley and Wallingford, where the foothills of the White Horse fallback from the broad stream, I came upon a clear-seen mediaeval townstanding up with roof and tower and spire within its walls, grey andancient, but untouched from the days of its builders of old. All this Ihave seen in the dreams of the night clearer than I can force myself tosee them in dreams of the day. So that it would have been nothing newto me the other night to fall into an architectural dream if that wereall, and yet I have to tell of things strange and new that befell meafter I had fallen asleep. I had begun my sojourn in the Land of Nod bya very confused attempt to conclude that it was all right for me tohave an engagement to lecture at Manchester and Mitcham Fair Green athalf-past eleven at night on one and the same Sunday, and that I couldmanage pretty well. And then I had gone on to try to make the best ofaddressing a large open-air audience in the costume I was really thenwearing—to wit, my night-shirt, reinforced for the dream occasion by apair of braceless trousers. The consciousness of this fact so botheredme, that the earnest faces of my audience—who would NOT notice it, butwere clearly preparing terrible anti-Socialist posers for me—began tofade away and my dream grew thin, and I awoke (as I thought) to findmyself lying on a strip of wayside waste by an oak copse just outside acountry village.

I got up and rubbed my eyes and looked about me, and the landscapeseemed unfamiliar to me, though it was, as to the lie of the land, anordinary English low-country, swelling into rising ground here andthere. The road was narrow, and I was convinced that it was a piece ofRoman road from its straightness. Copses were scattered over thecountry, and there were signs of two or three villages and hamlets insight besides the one near me, between which and me there was someorchard-land, where the early apples were beginning to redden on thetrees. Also, just on the other side of the road and the ditch whichran along it, was a small close of about a quarter of an acre, neatlyhedged with quick, which was nearly full of white poppies, and, as faras I could see for the hedge, had also a good few rose-bushes of thebright-red nearly single kind, which I had heard are the ones fromwhich rose-water used to be distilled. Otherwise the land was quiteunhedged, but all under tillage of various kinds, mostly in smallstrips. From the other side of a copse not far off rose a tall spirewhite and brand-new, but at once bold in outline and unaffectedlygraceful and also distinctly English in character. This, together withthe unhedged tillage and a certain unwonted trimness and handinessabout the enclosures of the garden and orchards, puzzled me for aminute or two, as I did not understand, new as the spire was, how itcould have been designed by a modern architect; and I was of courseused to the hedged tillage and tumbledown bankrupt-looking surroundingsof our modern agriculture. So that the garden-like neatness andtrimness of everything surprised me. But after a minute or two thatsurprise left me entirely; and if what I saw and heard afterwards seemsstrange to you, remember that it did not seem strange to me at thetime, except where now and again I shall tell you of it. Also, oncefor all, if I were to give you the very words of those who spoke to meyou would scarcely understand them, although their language was Englishtoo, and at the time I could understand them at once.

Well, as I stretched myself and turned my face toward the village, Iheard horse-hoofs on the road, and presently a man and horse showed onthe other end of the stretch of road and drew near at a swinging trotwith plenty of clash of metal. The man soon came up to me, but paid meno more heed than throwing me a nod. He was clad in armour of mingledsteel and leather, a sword girt to his side, and over his shoulder along-handled bill-hook.

His armour was fantastic in form and well wrought; but by this time Iwas quite used to the strangeness of him, and merely muttered tomyself, "He is coming to summon the squire to the leet;" so I turnedtoward the village in good earnest. Nor, again, was I surprised at myown garments, although I might well have been from their unwontedness.I was dressed in a black cloth gown reaching to my ankles, neatlyembroidered about the collar and cuffs, with wide sleeves gathered inat the wrists; a hood with a sort of bag hanging down from it was on myhead, a broad red leather girdle round my waist, on one side of whichhung a pouch embroidered very prettily and a case made of hard leatherchased with a hunting scene, which I knew to be a pen and ink case; onthe other side a small sheath-knife, only an arm in case of direnecessity.

Well, I came into the village, where I did not see (nor by this timeexpected to see) a single modern building, although many of them werenearly new, notably the church, which was large, and quite ravished myheart with its extreme beauty, elegance, and fitness. The chancel ofthis was so new that the dust of the stone still lay white on themidsummer grass beneath the carvings of the windows. The houses werealmost all built of oak frame-work filled with cob or plaster wellwhitewashed; though some had their lower stories of rubble-stone, withtheir windows and doors of well-moulded freestone. There was muchcurious and inventive carving about most of them; and though some wereold and much worn, there was the same look of deftness and trimness,and even beauty, about every detail in them which I noticed before inthe field-work. They were all roofed with oak shingles, mostly grownas grey as stone; but one was so newly built that its roof was yet paleand yellow. This was a corner house, and the corner post of it had acarved niche wherein stood a gaily painted figure holding ananchor—St. Clement to wit, as the dweller in the house was ablacksmith. Half a stone's throw from the east end of the churchyardwall was a tall cross of stone, new like the church, the headbeautifully carved with a crucifix amidst leafage. It stood on a setof wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, where three roads from othervillages met and formed a wide open space on which a thousand people ormore could stand together with no great crowding.

All this I saw, and also that there was a goodish many people about,women and children, and a few old men at the doors, many of themsomewhat gaily clad, and that men were coming into the village streetby the other end to that by which I had entered, by twos and threes,most of them carrying what I could see were bows in cases of linenyellow with wax or oil; they had quivers at their backs, and most ofthem a short sword by their left side, and a pouch and knife on theright; they were mostly dressed in red or brightish green or blue clothjerkins, with a hood on the head generally of another colour. As theycame nearer I saw that the cloth of their garments was somewhat coarse,but stout and serviceable. I knew, somehow, that they had beenshooting at the butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a noise of menthereabout, and even now and again when the wind set from that quarterthe twang of the bowstring and the plump of the shaft in the target.

I leaned against the churchyard wall and watched these men, some ofwhom went straight into their houses and some loitered about still;they were rough-looking fellows, tall and stout, very black some ofthem, and some red-haired, but most had hair burnt by the sun into thecolour of tow; and, indeed, they were all burned and tanned andfreckled variously. Their arms and buckles and belts and thefinishings and hems of their garments were all what we should now callbeautiful, rough as the men were; nor in their speech was any of thatdrawling snarl or thick vulgarity which one is used to hear fromlabourers in civilisation; not that they talked like gentlemen either,but full and round and bold, and they were merry and good-temperedenough; I could see that, though I felt shy and timid amongst them.

One of them strode up to me across the road, a man some six feet high,with a short black beard and black eyes and berry-brown skin, with ahuge bow in his hand bare of the case, a knife, a pouch, and a shorthatchet, all clattering together at his girdle.

"Well, friend," said he, "thou lookest partly mazed; what tongue hastthou in thine head?"

"A tongue that can tell rhymes," said I.

"So I thought," said he. "Thirstest thou any?"

"Yea, and hunger," said I.

And therewith my hand went into my purse, and came out again with but afew small and thin silver coins with a cross stamped on each, and threepellets in each corner of the cross. The man grinned.

"Aha!" said he, "is it so? Never heed it, mate. It shall be a songfor a supper this fair Sunday evening. But first, whose man art thou?"

"No one's man," said I, reddening angrily; "I am my own master."

He grinned again.

"Nay, that's not the custom of England, as one time belike it will be.Methinks thou comest from heaven down, and hast had a high place theretoo."

He seemed to hesitate a moment, and then leant forward and whispered inmy ear: "John the Miller, that ground small, small, small," andstopped and winked at me, and from between my lips without my mindforming any meaning came the words, "The king's son of heaven shall payfor all."

He let his bow fall on to his shoulder, caught my right hand in his andgave it a great grip, while his left hand fell among the gear at hisbelt, and I could see that he half drew his knife.

"Well, brother," said he, "stand not here hungry in the highway whenthere is flesh and bread in the Rose yonder. Come on."

And with that he drew me along toward what was clearly a tavern door,outside which men were sitting on a couple of benches and drinkingmeditatively from curiously shaped earthen pots glazed green andyellow, some with quaint devices on them.

CHAPTER II

THE MAN FROM ESSEX

I entered the door and started at first with my old astonishment, withwhich I had woke up, so strange and beautiful did this interior seem tome, though it was but a pothouse parlour. A quaintly-carved side boardheld an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden and earthenbowls; a stout oak table went up and down the room, and a carved oakchair stood by the chimney-corner, now filled by a very old mandim-eyed and white-bearded. That, except the rough stools and bencheson which the company sat, was all the furniture. The walls werepanelled roughly enough with oak boards to about six feet from thefloor, and about three feet of plaster above that was wrought in apattern of a rose stem running all round the room, freely and roughlydone, but with (as it seemed to my unused eyes) wonderful skill andspirit. On the hood of the great chimney a huge rose was wrought inthe plaster and brightly painted in its proper colours. There were adozen or more of the men I had seen coming along the street sittingthere, some eating and all drinking; their cased bows leaned againstthe wall, their quivers hung on pegs in the panelling, and in a cornerof the room I saw half-a-dozen bill-hooks that looked made more for warthan for hedge-shearing, with ashen handles some seven foot long.Three or four children were running about among the legs of the men,heeding them mighty little in their bold play, and the men seemedlittle troubled by it, although they were talking earnestly andseriously too. A well-made comely girl leaned up against the chimneyclose to the gaffer's chair, and seemed to be in waiting on thecompany: she was clad in a close-fitting gown of bright blue cloth,with a broad silver girdle daintily wrought, round her loins, a rosewreath was on her head and her hair hung down unbound; the gaffergrumbled a few words to her from time to time, so that I judged he washer grandfather.

The men all looked up as we came into the room, my mate leading me bythe hand, and he called out in his rough, good-tempered voice, "Here,my masters, I bring you tidings and a tale; give it meat and drink thatit may be strong and sweet."

"Whence are thy tidings, Will Green?" said one.

My mate grinned again with the pleasure of making his joke once more ina bigger company: "It seemeth from heaven, since this good old ladhath no master," said he.

"The more fool he to come here," said a thin man with a grizzled beard,amidst the laughter that followed, "unless he had the choice given himbetween hell and England."

"Nay," said I, "I come not from heaven, but from Essex."

As I said the word a great shout sprang from all mouths at once, asclear and sudden as a shot from a gun. For I must tell you that I knewsomehow, but I know not how, that the men of Essex were gathering torise against the poll-groat bailiffs and the lords that would turn themall into villeins again, as their grandfathers had been. And thepeople was weak and the lords were poor; for many a mother's son hadfallen in the war in France in the old king's time, and the Black Deathhad slain a many; so that the lords had bethought them: "We aregrowing poorer, and these upland-bred villeins are growing richer, andthe guilds of craft are waxing in the towns, and soon what will therebe left for us who cannot weave and will not dig? Good it were if wefell on all who are not guildsmen or men of free land, if we fell onsoccage tenants and others, and brought both the law and the stronghand on them, and made them all villeins in deed as they are now inname; for now these rascals make more than their bellies need of bread,and their backs of homespun, and the overplus they keep to themselves;and we are more worthy of it than they. So let us get the collar ontheir necks again, and make their day's work longer and theirbever-time shorter, as the good statute of the old king bade. And goodit were if the Holy Church were to look to it (and the Lollards mighthelp herein) that all these naughty and wearisome holidays were doneaway with; or that it should be unlawful for any man below the degreeof a squire to keep the holy days of the church, except in the heartand the spirit only, and let the body labour meanwhile; for does notthe Apostle say, 'If a man work not, neither should he eat'? And ifsuch things were done, and such an estate of noble rich men and worthypoor men upholden for ever, then would it be good times in England, andlife were worth the living."

All this were the lords at work on, and such talk I knew was common notonly among the lords themselves, but also among their sergeants andvery serving-men. But the people would not abide it; therefore, as Isaid, in Essex they were on the point of rising, and word had gone howthat at St. Albans they were wellnigh at blows with the Lord Abbot'ssoldiers; that north away at Norwich John Litster was wiping the woadfrom his arms, as who would have to stain them red again, but not withgrain or madder; and that the valiant tiler of Dartford had smitten apoll-groat bailiff to death with his lath-rending axe for mishandling ayoung maid, his daughter; and that the men of Kent were on the move.

Now, knowing all this I was not astonished that they shouted at thethought of their fellows the men of Essex, but rather that they saidlittle more about it; only Will Green saying quietly, "Well, thetidings shall be told when our fellowship is greater; fall-to now onthe meat, brother, that we may the sooner have thy tale." As he spokethe blue-clad damsel bestirred herself and brought me a cleantrencher—that is, a square piece of thin oak board scraped clean—anda pewter pot of liquor. So without more ado, and as one used to it, Idrew my knife out of my girdle and cut myself what I would of the fleshand bread on the table. But Will Green mocked at me as I cut, andsaid, "Certes, brother, thou hast not been a lord's carver, though butfor thy word thou mightest have been his reader. Hast thou seenOxford, scholar?"

A vision of grey-roofed houses and a long winding street and the soundof many bells came over me at that word as I nodded "Yes" to him, mymouth full of salt pork and rye-bread; and then I lifted my pot and wemade the clattering mugs kiss and I drank, and the fire of the goodKentish mead ran through my veins and deepened my dream of things past,present, and to come, as I said: "Now hearken a tale, since ye willhave it so. For last autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town ofDunwich, and thither came the keels from Iceland, and on them were somemen of Iceland, and many a tale they had on their tongues; and withthese men I foregathered, for I am in sooth a gatherer of tales, andthis that is now at my tongue's end is one of them."

So such a tale I told them, long familiar to me; but as I told it thewords seemed to quicken and grow, so that I knew not the sound of myown voice, and they ran almost into rhyme and measure as I told it; andwhen I had done there was silence awhile, till one man spake, but notloudly:

"Yea, in that land was the summer short and the winter long; but menlived both summer and winter; and if the trees grew ill and the cornthrove not, yet did the plant called man thrive and do well. God sendus such men even here."

"Nay," said another, "such men have been and will be, and belike arenot far from this same door even now."

"Yea," said a third, "hearken a stave of Robin Hood; maybe that shallhasten the coming of one I wot of." And he fell to singing in a clearvoice, for he was a young man, and to a sweet wild melody, one of thoseballads which in an incomplete and degraded form you have read perhaps.My heart rose high as I heard him, for it was concerning the struggleagainst tyranny for the freedom of life, how that the wildwood and theheath, despite of wind and weather, were better for a free man than thecourt and the cheaping-town; of the taking from the rich to give to thepoor; of the life of a man doing his own will and not the will ofanother man commanding him for the commandment's sake. The men alllistened eagerly, and at whiles took up as a refrain a couplet at theend of a stanza with their strong and rough, but not unmusical voices.As they sang, a picture of the wild-woods passed by me, as they wereindeed, no park-like dainty glades and lawns, but rough and tangledthicket and bare waste and heath, solemn under the morning sun, anddreary with the rising of the evening wind and the drift of thenight-long rain.

When he had done, another began in something of the same strain, butsinging more of a song than a story ballad; and thus much I remember ofit:

The Sheriff is made a mighty lord,
Of goodly gold he hath enow,
And many a sergeant girt with sword;
But forth will we and bend the bow.
We shall bend the bow on the lily lea
Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree.

With stone and lime is the burg wall built,
And pit and prison are stark and strong,
And many a true man there is spilt,
And many a right man doomed by wrong.

So forth shall we and bend the bow
And the king's writ never the road shall know.

Now yeomen walk ye warily,
And heed ye the houses where ye go,
For as fair and as fine as they may be,
Lest behind your heels the door clap to.
Fare forth with the bow to the lily lea
Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree.

Now bills and bows I and out a-gate!
And turn about on the lily lea!
And though their company be great
The grey-goose wing shall set us free.
Now bent is the bow in the green abode
And the king's writ knoweth not the road.

So over the mead and over the hithe,
And away to the wild-wood wend we forth;
There dwell we yeomen bold and blithe
Where the Sheriff's word is nought of worth.
Bent is the bow on the lily lea
Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree.

But here the song dropped suddenly, and one of the men held up his handas who would say, Hist! Then through the open window came the sound ofanother song, gradually swelling as though sung by men on the march.This time the melody was a piece of the plain-song of the church,familiar enough to me to bring back to my mind the great arches of somecathedral in France and the canons singing in the choir.

All leapt up and hurried to take their bows from wall and corner; andsome had bucklers withal, circles of leather, boiled and then mouldedinto shape and hardened: these were some two hand-breadths across, withiron or brass bosses in the centre. Will Green went to the cornerwhere the bills leaned against the wall and handed them round to thefirst-comers as far as they would go, and out we all went gravely andquietly into the village street and the fair sunlight of the calmafternoon, now beginning to turn towards evening. None had saidanything since we first heard the new-come singing, save that as wewent out of the door the ballad-singer clapped me on the shoulder andsaid: "Was it not sooth that I said, brother, that Robin Hood shouldbring us John Ball?"

CHAPTER III

THEY MEET AT THE CROSS

The street was pretty full of men by then we were out in it, and allfaces turned toward the cross. The song still grew nearer and louder,and even as we looked we saw it turning the corner through the hedgesof the orchards and closes, a good clump of men, more armed, as itwould seem, than our villagers, as the low sun flashed back from manypoints of bright iron and steel. The words of the song could now beheard, and amidst them I could pick out Will Green's late challenge tome and my answer; but as I was bending all my mind to disentangle morewords from the music, suddenly from the new white tower behind usclashed out the church bells, harsh and hurried at first, but presentlyfalling into measured chime; and at the first sound of them a greatshout went up from us and was echoed by the new-comers, "John Ball hathrung our bell!" Then we pressed on, and presently we were all mingledtogether at the cross.

Will Green had good-naturedly thrust and pulled me forward, so that Ifound myself standing on the lowest step of the cross, his seventy-twoinches of man on one side of me. He chuckled while I panted, and said:

"There's for thee a good hearing and seeing stead, old lad. Thou arttall across thy belly and not otherwise, and thy wind, belike, is noneof the best, and but for me thou wouldst have been amidst the thickestof the throng, and have heard words muffled by Kentish bellies and seenlittle but swinky woollen elbows and greasy plates and jacks. Look nomore on the ground, as though thou sawest a hare, but let thine eyesand thine ears be busy to gather tidings to bear back to Essex—orheaven!"

I grinned good-fellowship at him but said nothing, for in truth my eyesand ears were as busy as he would have them to be. A buzz of generaltalk went up from the throng amidst the regular cadence of the bells,which now seemed far away and as it were that they were not swayed byhands, but were living creatures making that noise of their own wills.

I looked around and saw that the newcomers mingled with us must havebeen a regular armed band; all had bucklers slung at their backs, fewlacked a sword at the side. Some had bows, some "staves"—that is,bills, pole-axes, or pikes. Moreover, unlike our villagers, they haddefensive arms. Most had steel-caps on their heads, and some had bodyarmour, generally a "jack," or coat into which pieces of iron or hornwere quilted; some had also steel or steel-and-leather arm or thighpieces. There were a few mounted men among them, their horses beingbig-boned hammer-headed beasts, that looked as if they had been takenfrom plough or waggon, but their riders were well armed with steelarmour on their heads, legs, and arms. Amongst the horsemen I notedthe man that had ridden past me when I first awoke; but he seemed to bea prisoner, as he had a woollen hood on his head instead of his helmet,and carried neither bill, sword, nor dagger. He seemed by no meansill-at-ease, however, but was laughing and talking with the men whostood near him.

Above the heads of the crowd, and now slowly working towards the cross,was a banner on a high-raised cross-pole, a picture of a man and womanhalf-clad in skins of beasts seen against a background of green trees,the man holding a spade and the woman a distaff and spindle rudely doneenough, but yet with a certain spirit and much meaning; and underneaththis symbol of the early world and man's first contest with nature werethe written words:

When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?

The banner came on and through the crowd, which at last opened where westood for its passage, and the banner-bearer turned and faced thethrong and stood on the first step of the cross beside me.

A man followed him, clad in a long dark-brown gown of coarse woollen,girt with a cord, to which hung a "pair of beads" (or rosary, as weshould call it to-day) and a book in a bag. The man was tall andbig-boned, a ring of dark hair surrounded his priest's tonsure; hisnose was big but clear cut and with wide nostrils; his shaven faceshowed a longish upper lip and a big but blunt chin; his mouth was bigand the lips closed firmly; a face not very noteworthy but for his greyeyes well opened and wide apart, at whiles lighting up his whole facewith a kindly smile, at whiles set and stern, at whiles resting in thatlook as if they were gazing at something a long way off, which is thewont of the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.

He went slowly up the steps of the cross and stood at the top with onehand laid on the shaft, and shout upon shout broke forth from thethrong. When the shouting died away into a silence of the humanvoices, the bells were still quietly chiming with that far-away voiceof theirs, and the long-winged dusky swifts, by no means scared by theconcourse, swung round about the cross with their wild squeals; and theman stood still for a little, eyeing the throng, or rather lookingfirst at one and then another man in it, as though he were trying tothink what such an one was thinking of, or what he were fit for.Sometimes he caught the eye of one or other, and then that kindly smilespread over his face, but faded off it into the sternness and sadnessof a man who has heavy and great thoughts hanging about him. But whenJohn Ball first mounted the steps of the cross a lad at some one'sbidding had run off to stop the ringers, and so presently the voice ofthe bells fell dead, leaving on men's minds that sense of blankness oreven disappointment which is always caused by the sudden stopping of asound one has got used to and found pleasant. But a great expectationhad fallen by now on all that throng, and no word was spoken even in awhisper, and all men's hearts and eyes were fixed upon the dark figurestanding straight up now by the tall white shaft of the cross, hishands stretched out before him, one palm laid upon the other.

And for me, as I made ready to hearken, I felt a joy in my soul that Ihad never yet felt.

CHAPTER IV

THE VOICE OF JOHN BALL

SO now I heard John Ball; how he lifted up his voice and said:

"Ho, all ye good people! I am a priest of God, and in my day's work itcometh that I should tell you what ye should do, and what ye shouldforbear doing, and to that end I am come hither: yet first, if I myselfhave wronged any man here, let him say wherein my wrongdoing lieth,that I may ask his pardon and his pity."

A great hum of good-will ran through the crowd as he spoke; then hesmiled as in a kind of pride, and again he spoke:

"Wherefore did ye take me out of the archbishop's prison but three daysagone, when ye lighted the archbishop's house for the candle ofCanterbury, but that I might speak to you and pray you: therefore Iwill not keep silence, whether I have done ill, or whether I have donewell. And herein, good fellows and my very brethren, I would have youto follow me; and if there be such here, as I know full well there besome, and may be a good many, who have been robbers of their neighbours('And who is my neighbour?' quoth the rich man), or lechers, ordespiteful haters, or talebearers, or fawners on rich men for the hurtof the poor (and that is the worst of all)—Ah, my poor brethren whohave gone astray, I say not to you, go home and repent lest you mar ourgreat deeds, but rather come afield and there repent. Many a day haveye been fools, but hearken unto me and I shall make you wise above thewisdom of the earth; and if ye die in your wisdom, as God wot ye wellmay, since the fields ye wend to bear swords for daisies, and spearsfor bents, then shall ye be, though men call you dead, a part andparcel of the living wisdom of all things, very stones of the pillarsthat uphold the joyful earth.

"Forsooth, ye have heard it said that ye shall do well in this worldthat in the world to come ye may live happily for ever; do ye wellthen, and have your reward both on earth and in heaven; for I say toyou that earth and heaven are not two but one; and this one is thatwhich ye know, and are each one of you a part of, to wit, the HolyChurch, and in each one of you dwelleth the life of the Church, unlessye slay it. Forsooth, brethren, will ye murder the Church any one ofyou, and go forth a wandering man and lonely, even as Cain did who slewhis brother? Ah, my brothers, what an evil doom is this, to be anoutcast from the Church, to have none to love you and to speak withyou, to be without fellowship! Forsooth, brothers, fellowship isheaven, and lack of fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack offellowship is death: and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is forfellowship's sake that ye do them, and the life that is in it, thatshall live on and on for ever, and each one of you part of it, whilemany a man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane.

"Therefore, I bid you not dwell in hell but in heaven, or while yemust, upon earth, which is a part of heaven, and forsooth no foul part.

"Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him, shallhave memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when his heartfailed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his wife or his sonor his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms, and how thathis fellow heard him and came and they mourned together under the sun,till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them.This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, andshall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, butevery man for himself. Therefore, I tell you that the proud,despiteous rich man, though he knoweth it not, is in hell already,because he hath no fellow; and he that hath so hardy a heart that insorrow he thinketh of fellowship, his sorrow is soon but a story ofsorrow—a little change in the life that knows not ill."

He left off for a little; and indeed for some time his voice hadfallen, but it was so clear and the summer evening so soft and still,and the silence of the folk so complete, that every word told. Hiseyes fell down to the crowd as he stopped speaking, since for somelittle while they had been looking far away into the blue distance ofsummer; and the kind eyes of the man had a curious sight before him inthat crowd, for amongst them were many who by this time were notdry-eyed, and some wept outright in spite of their black beards, whileall had that look as if they were ashamed of themselves, and did notwant others to see how deeply they were moved, after the fashion oftheir race when they are strongly stirred. I looked at Will Greenbeside me: his right hand clutched his bow so tight, that the knuckleswhitened; he was staring straight before him, and the tears wererunning out of his eyes and down his big nose as though without hiswill, for his face was stolid and unmoved all the time till he caughtmy eye, and then he screwed up the strangest face, of scowling brow,weeping eyes, and smiling mouth, while he dealt me a sounding thump inthe ribs with his left elbow, which, though it would have knocked medown but for the crowd, I took as an esquire does the accolade whichmakes a knight of him.

But while I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose thebattle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite oftheir defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant,and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name—while I pondered all this, John Ball began to speak again in the samesoft and dear voice with which he had left off.

"Good fellows, it was your fellowship and your kindness that took meout of the archbishop's prison three days agone, though God wot ye hadnought to gain by it save outlawry and the gallows; yet lacked I notyour fellowship before ye drew near me in the body, and when between meand Canterbury street was yet a strong wall, and the turnkeys andsergeants and bailiffs.

"For hearken, my friends and helpers; many days ago, when April was yetyoung, I lay there, and the heart that I had strung up to bear allthings because of the fellowship of men and the blessed saints and theangels and those that are, and those that are to be, this heart, that Ihad strung up like a strong bow, fell into feebleness, so that I laythere a-longing for the green fields and the white-thorn bushes and thelark singing over the corn, and the talk of good fellows round theale-house bench, and the babble of the little children, and the team onthe road and the beasts afield, and all the life of earth; and I aloneall the while, near my foes and afar from my friends, mocked andflouted and starved with cold and hunger; and so weak was my heart thatthough I longed for all these things yet I saw them not, nor knew thembut as names; and I longed so sore to be gone that I chided myself thatI had once done well; and I said to myself:

"Forsooth, hadst thou kept thy tongue between thy teeth thou mightesthave been something, if it had been but a parson of a town, andcomfortable to many a poor man; and then mightest thou have clad hereand there the naked back, and filled the empty belly, and holpen many,and men would have spoken well of thee, and of thyself thou hadstthought well; and all this hast thou lost for lack of a word here andthere to some great man, and a little winking of the eyes amidst murderand wrong and unruth; and now thou art nought and helpless, and thehemp for thee is sown and grown and heckled and spun, and lo there, therope for thy gallows-tree!—all for nought, for nought.

"Forsooth, my friends, thus I thought and sorrowed in my feeblenessthat I had not been a traitor to the Fellowship of the Church, for e'enso evil was my foolish imagination.

"Yet, forsooth, as I fell a-pondering over all the comfort and helpthat I might have been and that I might have had, if I had been but alittle of a trembling cur to creep and crawl before abbot and bishopand baron and bailiff, came the thought over me of the evil of theworld wherewith I, John Ball, the rascal hedge-priest, had fought andstriven in the Fellowship of the saints in heaven and poor men uponearth.

"Yea, forsooth, once again I saw as of old, the great treading down thelittle, and the strong beating down the weak, and cruel men fearingnot, and kind men daring not, and wise men caring not; and the saintsin heaven forbearing and yet bidding me not to forbear; forsooth, Iknew once more that he who doeth well in fellowship, and because offellowship, shall not fail though he seem to fail to-day, but in dayshereafter shall he and his work yet be alive, and men be holpen by themto strive again and yet again; and yet indeed even that was little,since, forsooth, to strive was my pleasure and my life.

"So I became a man once more, and I rose up to my feet and went up anddown my prison what I could for my hopples, and into my mouth camewords of good cheer, even such as we to-day have sung, and stoutly Isang them, even as we now have sung them; and then did I rest me, andonce more thought of those pleasant fields where I would be, and allthe life of man and beast about them, and I said to myself that Ishould see them once more before I died, if but once it were.

"Forsooth, this was strange, that whereas before I longed for them andyet saw them not, now that my longing was slaked my vision was cleared,and I saw them as though the prison walls opened to me and I was out ofCanterbury street and amidst the green meadows of April; andtherewithal along with me folk that I have known and who are dead, andfolk that are living; yea, and all those of the Fellowship on earth andin heaven; yea, and all that are here this day. Overlong were the taleto tell of them, and of the time that is gone.

"So thenceforward I wore through the days with no such faint heart,until one day the prison opened verily and in the daylight, and therewere ye, my fellows, in the door—your faces glad, your hearts lightwith hope, and your hands heavy with wrath; then I saw and understoodwhat was to do. Now, therefore, do ye understand it!"

His voice was changed, and grew louder than loud now, as he cast hishands abroad towards that company with those last words of his; and Icould feel that all shame and fear was falling from those men, and thatmere fiery manhood was shining through their wonted English shamefaststubbornness, and that they were moved indeed and saw the road beforethem. Yet no man spoke, rather the silence of the men-folk deepened,as the sun's rays grew more level and more golden, and the swiftswheeled about shriller and louder than before.

Then again John Ball spoke and said, "In good sooth, I deem ye wot noworse than I do what is to do—and first that somewhat we shall do—since it is for him that is lonely or in prison to dream of fellowship,but for him that is of a fellowship to do and not to dream.

"And next, ye know who is the foeman, and that is the proud man, theoppressor, who scorneth fellowship, and himself is a world to himselfand needeth no helper nor helpeth any, but, heeding no law, layeth lawon other men because he is rich; and surely every one that is rich issuch an one, nor may be other.

"Forsooth, in the belly of every rich man dwelleth a devil of hell, andwhen the man would give his goods to the poor, the devil within himgainsayeth it, and saith, 'Wilt thou then be of the poor, and suffercold and hunger and mocking as they suffer, then give thou thy goods tothem, and keep them not.' And when he would be compassionate, againsaith the devil to him, 'If thou heed these losels and turn on them aface like to their faces, and deem of them as men, then shall theyscorn thee, and evil shall come of it, and even one day they shall fallon thee to slay thee when they have learned that thou art but as theybe.'

"Ah, woe worth the while! too oft he sayeth sooth, as the wont of thedevil is, that lies may be born of the barren truth; and sooth it isthat the poor deemeth the rich to be other than he, and meet to be hismaster, as though, forsooth, the poor were come of Adam, and the richof him that made Adam, that is God; and thus the poor man oppresseththe poor man, because he feareth the oppressor. Nought such are ye, mybrethren; or else why are ye gathered here in harness to bid all bearwitness of you that ye are the sons of one man and one mother, begottenof the earth?"

As he said the words there came a stir among the weapons of the throng,and they pressed closer round the cross, yet with held the shout as yetwhich seemed gathering in their bosoms.

And again he said:

"Forsooth, too many rich men there are in this realm; and yet if therewere but one, there would be one too many, for all should be histhralls. Hearken, then, ye men of Kent. For overlong belike have Iheld you with words; but the love of you constrained me, and the joythat a man hath to babble to his friends and his fellows whom he hathnot seen for a long season.

"Now, hearken, I bid you: To the rich men that eat up a realm therecometh a time when they whom they eat up, that is the poor, seem poorerthan of wont, and their complaint goeth up louder to the heavens; yetit is no riddle to say that oft at such times the fellowship of thepoor is waxing stronger, else would no man have heard his cry. Also atsuch times is the rich man become fearful, and so waxeth in cruelty,and of that cruelty do people misdeem that it is power and mightwaxing. Forsooth, ye are stronger than your fathers, because ye aremore grieved than they, and ye should have been less grieved than theyhad ye been horses and swine; and then, forsooth, would ye have beenstronger to bear; but ye, ye are not strong to bear, but to do.

"And wot ye why we are come to you this fair eve of holiday? and wot yewhy I have been telling of fellowship to you? Yea, forsooth, I deem yewot well, that it is for this cause, that ye might bethink you of yourfellowship with the men of Essex."

His last word let loose the shout that had been long on all men's lips,and great and fierce it was as it rang shattering through the quietupland village. But John Ball held up his hand, and the shout was oneand no more.

Then he spoke again:

"Men of Kent, I wot well that ye are not so hard bested as those ofother shires, by the token of the day when behind the screen of leafyboughs ye met Duke William with bill and bow as he wended Londonwardfrom that woeful field of Senlac; but I have told of fellowship, and yehave hearkened and understood what the Holy Church is, whereby ye knowthat ye are fellows of the saints in heaven and the poor men of Essex;and as one day the saints shall call you to the heavenly feast, so nowdo the poor men call you to the battle.

"Men of Kent, ye dwell fairly here, and your houses are framed of stoutoak beams, and your own lands ye till; unless some accursed lawyer withhis false lying sheepskin and forged custom of the Devil's Manor hathstolen it from you; but in Essex slaves they be and villeins, and worsethey shall be, and the lords swear that ere a year be over ox and horseshall go free in Essex, and man and woman shall draw the team and theplough; and north away in the east countries dwell men in poor halls ofwattled reeds and mud, and the north-east wind from off the fenwhistles through them; and poor they be to the letter; and there himwhom the lord spareth, the bailiff squeezeth, and him whom the bailiffforgetteth, the Easterling Chapman sheareth; yet be these stout men andvaliant, and your very brethren.

"And yet if there be any man here so base as to think that a smallmatter, let him look to it that if these necks abide under the yoke,Kent shall sweat for it ere it be long; and ye shall lose acre andclose and woodland, and be servants in your own houses, and your sonsshall be the lords' lads, and your daughters their lemans, and ye shallbuy a bold word with many stripes, and an honest deed with a leap fromthe gallows-tree.

"Bethink ye, too, that ye have no longer to deal with Duke William,who, if he were a thief and a cruel lord, was yet a prudent man and awise warrior; but cruel are these, and headstrong, yea, thieves andfools in one—and ye shall lay their heads in the dust."

A shout would have arisen again, but his eager voice rising higher yet,restrained it as he said:

"And how shall it be then when these are gone? What else shall ye lackwhen ye lack masters? Ye shall not lack for the fields ye have tilled,nor the houses ye have built, nor the cloth ye have woven; all theseshall be yours, and whatso ye will of all that the earth beareth; thenshall no man mow the deep grass for another, while his own kine lackcow-meat; and he that soweth shall reap, and the reaper shall eat infellowship the harvest that in fellowship he hath won; and he thatbuildeth a house shall dwell in it with those that he biddeth of hisfree will; and the tithe barn shall garner the wheat for all men to eatof when the seasons are untoward, and the rain-drift hideth the sheavesin August; and all shall be without money and without price.Faithfully and merrily then shall all men keep the holidays of theChurch in peace of body and joy of heart. And man shall help man, andthe saints in heaven shall be glad, because men no more fear eachother; and the churl shall be ashamed, and shall hide his churlishnesstill it be gone, and he be no more a churl; and fellowship shall beestablished in heaven and on the earth."

CHAPTER V

THEY HEAR TIDINGS OF BATTLE AND MAKE THEM READY

He left off as one who had yet something else to say; and, indeed, Ithought he would give us some word as to the trysting-place, andwhither the army was to go from it; because it was now clear to me thatthis gathering was but a band of an army. But much happened beforeJohn Ball spoke again from the cross, and it was on this wise.

When there was silence after the last shout that the crowd had raised awhile ago, I thought I heard a thin sharp noise far away, somewhat tothe north of the cross, which I took rather for the sound of a trumpetor horn, than for the voice of a man or any beast. Will Green alsoseemed to have heard it, for he turned his head sharply and then backagain, and looked keenly into the crowd as though seeking to catch someone's eye. There was a very tall man standing by the prisoner on thehorse near the outskirts of the crowd, and holding his bridle. Thisman, who was well-armed, I saw look up and say something to theprisoner, who stooped down and seemed to whisper him in turn. The tallman nodded his head and the prisoner got off his horse, which was acleaner-limbed, better-built beast than the others belonging to theband, and the tall man quietly led him a little way from the crowd,mounted him, and rode off northward at a smart pace.

Will Green looked on sharply at all this, and when the man rode off,smiled as one who is content, and deems that all is going well, andsettled himself down again to listen to the priest.

But now when John Ball had ceased speaking, and after another shout,and a hum of excited pleasure and hope that followed it, there wassilence again, and as the priest addressed himself to speaking oncemore, he paused and turned his head towards the wind, as if he heardsomething, which certainly I heard, and belike every one in the throng,though it was not over-loud, far as sounds carry in clear quietevenings. It was the thump-a-thump of a horse drawing near at ahand-gallop along the grassy upland road; and I knew well it was thetall man coming back with tidings, the purport of which I could wellguess.

I looked up at Will Green's face. He was smiling as one pleased, andsaid softly as he nodded to me, "Yea, shall we see the grey-goose flythis eve?"

But John Ball said in a great voice from the cross, "Hear ye thetidings on the way, fellows! Hold ye together and look to your gear;yet hurry not, for no great matter shall this be. I wot well there islittle force between Canterbury and Kingston, for the lords are lookingnorth of Thames toward Wat Tyler and his men. Yet well it is, well itis!"

The crowd opened and spread out a little, and the men moved about init, some tightening a girdle, some getting their side arms more withinreach of their right hands, and those who had bows stringing them.

Will Green set hand and foot to the great shapely piece of polished redyew, with its shining horn tips, which he carried, and bent it with noseeming effort; then he reached out his hand over his shoulder and drewout a long arrow, smooth, white, beautifully balanced, with a barbediron head at one end, a horn nock and three strong goose feathers atthe other. He held it loosely between the finger and thumb of hisright hand, and there he stood with a thoughtful look on his face, andin his hands one of the most terrible weapons which a strong man hasever carried, the English long-bow and cloth-yard shaft.

But all this while the sound of the horse's hoofs was growing nearer,and presently from the corner of the road amidst the orchards broke outour long friend, his face red in the sun near sinking now. He wavedhis right hand as he came in sight of us, and sang out, "Bills andbows! bills and bows!" and the whole throng turned towards him andraised a great shout.

He reined up at the edge of the throng, and spoke in a loud voice, sothat all might hear him:

"Fellows, these are the tidings; even while our priest was speaking weheard a horn blow far off; so I bade the sergeant we have taken, andwho is now our fellow-in-arms, to tell me where away it was that therewould be folk a-gathering, and what they were; and he did me to witthat mayhappen Sir John Newton was stirring from Rochester Castle; or,maybe, it was the sheriff and Rafe Hopton with him; so I rode off whatI might towards Hartlip, and I rode warily, and that was well, for as Icame through a little wood between Hartlip and Guildstead, I saw beyondit a gleam of steel, and lo in the field there a company, and a pennonof Rafe Hopton's arms, and that is blue and thereon three silver fish:and a pennon of the sheriff's arms, and that is a green tree; andwithal another pennon of three red kine, and whose they be I knownot."[1]

"There tied I my horse in the middle of the wood, and myself I creptalong the dyke to see more and to hear somewhat; and no talk I heard totell of save at whiles a big knight talking to five or six others, andsaying somewhat, wherein came the words London and Nicholas Bramber,and King Richard; but I saw that of men-at-arms and sergeants theremight be a hundred, and of bows not many, but of those outlandarbalests maybe a fifty; and so, what with one and another of servantsand tipstaves and lads, some three hundred, well armed, and themen-at-arms of the best. Forsooth, my masters, there had I been but aminute, ere the big knight broke off his talk, and cried out to themusic to blow up, 'And let us go look on these villeins,' said he; andwithal the men began to gather in a due and ordered company, and theirfaces turned hitherward; forsooth, I got to my horse, and led him outof the wood on the other side, and so to saddle and away along thegreen roads; neither was I seen or chased. So look ye to it, mymasters, for these men will be coming to speak with us; nor is thereneed for haste, but rather for good speed; for in some twenty or thirtyminutes will be more tidings to hand."

By this time one of our best-armed men had got through the throng andwas standing on the cross beside John Ball. When the long man haddone, there was confused noise of talk for a while, and the throngspread itself out more and more, but not in a disorderly manner; thebowmen drawing together toward the outside, and the billmen formingbehind them. Will Green was still standing beside me and had hold ofmy arm, as though he knew both where he and I were to go.

"Fellows," quoth the captain from the cross, "belike this stour shallnot live to be older than the day, if ye get not into a plump togetherfor their arbalestiers to shoot bolts into, and their men-at-arms tothrust spears into. Get you to the edge of the crofts and spread outthere six feet between man and man, and shoot, ye bowmen, from thehedges, and ye with the staves keep your heads below the level of thehedges, or else for all they be thick a bolt may win its way in."

He grinned as he said this, and there was laughter enough in the throngto have done honour to a better joke.

Then he sung out, "Hob Wright, Rafe Wood, John Pargetter, and thou WillGreen, bestir ye and marshal the bowshot; and thou Nicholas Woodyershall be under me Jack Straw in ordering of the staves. Gregory Tailorand John Clerk, fair and fine are ye clad in the arms of the Canterburybailiffs; ye shall shine from afar; go ye with the banner into thehighway, and the bows on either side shall ward you; yet jump, lads,and over the hedge with you when the bolts begin to fly your way! Takeheed, good fellows all, that our business is to bestride the highway,and not let them get in on our flank the while; so half to the right,half to the left of the highway. Shoot straight and strong, and wasteno breath with noise; let the loose of the bowstring cry for you! andlook you! think it no loss of manhood to cover your bodies with treeand bush; for one of us who know is worth a hundred of those proudfools. To it, lads, and let them see what the grey goose bears betweenhis wings! Abide us here, brother John Ball, and pray for us if thouwilt; but for me, if God will not do for Jack Straw what Jack Strawwould do for God were he in like case, I can see no help for it."

"Yea, forsooth," said the priest, "here will I abide you my fellows ifye come back; or if ye come not back, here will I abide the foe.Depart, and the blessing of the Fellowship be with you."

Down then leapt Jack Straw from the cross, and the whole throng set offwithout noise or hurry, soberly and steadily in outward seeming. WillGreen led me by the hand as if I were a boy, yet nothing he said, beingforsooth intent on his charge. We were some four hundred men in all;but I said to myself that without some advantage of the ground we werelost men before the men-at-arms that long Gregory Tailor had told usof; for I had not seen as yet the yard-long shaft at its work.

We and somewhat more than half of our band turned into the orchards onthe left of the road, through which the level rays of the low sun shonebrightly. The others took up their position on the right side of it.We kept pretty near to the road till we had got through all the closessave the last, where we were brought up by a hedge and a dyke, beyondwhich lay a wide-open nearly treeless space, not of tillage, as at theother side of the place, but of pasture, the common grazing ground ofthe township. A little stream wound about through the ground, with afew willows here and there; there was only a thread of water in it inthis hot summer tide, but its course could easily be traced by the deepblue-green of the rushes that grew plenteously in the bed. Geese werelazily wandering about and near this brook, and a herd of cows,accompanied by the town bull, were feeding on quietly, their heads allturned one way; while half a dozen calves marched close together sideby side like a plump of soldiers, their tails swinging in a kind ofmeasure to keep off the flies, of which there was great plenty. Threeor four lads and girls were sauntering about, heeding or not heedingthe cattle. They looked up toward us as we crowded into the lastclose, and slowly loitered off toward the village. Nothing looked likebattle; yet battle sounded in the air; for now we heard the beat of thehorse-hoofs of the men-at-arms coming on towards us like the rolling ofdistant thunder, and growing louder and louder every minute; we werenone too soon in turning to face them. Jack Straw was on our side ofthe road, and with a few gestures and a word or two he got his men intotheir places. Six archers lined the hedge along the road where thebanner of Adam and Eve, rising above the grey leaves of theapple-trees, challenged the new-comers; and of the billmen also he kepta good few ready to guard the road in case the enemy should try to rushit with the horsemen. The road, not being a Roman one, was, you mustremember, little like the firm smooth country roads that you are usedto; it was a mere track between the hedges and fields, partlygrass-grown, and cut up by the deep-sunk ruts hardened by the droughtof summer. There was a stack of fagot and small wood on the otherside, and our men threw themselves upon it and set to work to stake theroad across for a rough defence against the horsemen.

What befell more on the road itself I had not much time to note, forour bowmen spread themselves out along the hedge that looked into thepasture-field, leaving some six feet between man and man; the rest ofthe billmen went along with the bowmen, and halted in clumps of somehalf-dozen along their line, holding themselves ready to help thebowmen if the enemy should run up under their shafts, or to run on tolengthen the line in case they should try to break in on our flank.The hedge in front of us was of quick. It had been strongly plashed inthe past February, and was stiff and stout. It stood on a low bank;moreover, the level of the orchard was some thirty inches higher thanthat of the field and the ditch some two foot deeper than the face ofthe field. The field went winding round to beyond the church, making aquarter of a circle about the village, and at the western end of itwere the butts whence the folk were coming from shooting when I firstcame into the village street.

Altogether, to me who knew nothing of war the place seemed defensibleenough. I have said that the road down which Long Gregory came withhis tidings went north; and that was its general direction; but itsfirst reach was nearly east, so that the low sun was not in the eyes ofany of us, and where Will Green took his stand, and I with him, it wasnearly at our backs.

[1] Probably one of the Calverlys, a Cheshire family, one of whom was anoted captain in the French wars.

CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE AT THE TOWNSHIP'S END

Our men had got into their places leisurely and coolly enough, and withno lack of jesting and laughter. As we went along the hedge by theroad, the leaders tore off leafy twigs from the low oak bushes therein,and set them for a rallying sign in their hats and headpieces, and twoor three of them had horns for blowing.

Will Green, when he got into his place, which was thirty yards fromwhere Jack Straw and the billmen stood in the corner of the two hedges,the road hedge and the hedge between the close and field, looked toright and left of him a moment, then turned to the man on the left andsaid:

"Look you, mate, when you hear our horns blow ask no more questions,but shoot straight and strong at whatso cometh towards us, till ye hearmore tidings from Jack Straw or from me. Pass that word onward."

Then he looked at me and said:

"Now, lad from Essex, thou hadst best sit down out of the way at once:forsooth I wot not why I brought thee hither. Wilt thou not back tothe cross, for thou art little of a fighting-man?"

"Nay," said I, "I would see the play. What shall come of it?"

"Little," said he; "we shall slay a horse or twain maybe. I will tellthee, since thou hast not seen a fight belike, as I have seen some,that these men-at-arms cannot run fast either to the play or from it,if they be a-foot; and if they come on a-horseback, what shall hinderme to put a shaft into the poor beast? But down with thee on thedaisies, for some shot there will be first."

As he spoke he was pulling off his belts and other gear, and his coat,which done, he laid his quiver on the ground, girt him again, did hisaxe and buckler on to his girdle, and hung up his other attire on thenearest tree behind us. Then he opened his quiver and took out of itsome two dozen of arrows, which he stuck in the ground beside him readyto his hand. Most of the bowmen within sight were doing the like.

As I glanced toward the houses I saw three or four bright figuresmoving through the orchards, and presently noted that they were women,all clad more or less like the girl in the Rose, except that two ofthem wore white coifs on their heads. Their errand there was clear,for each carried a bundle of arrows under her arm.

One of them came straight up to Will Green, and I could see at oncethat she was his daughter. She was tall and strongly made, with blackhair like her father, somewhat comely, though no great beauty; but asthey met, her eyes smiled even more than her mouth, and made her facelook very sweet and kind, and the smile was answered back in a way soquaintly like to her father's face, that I too smiled for goodwill andpleasure.

"Well, well, lass," said he, "dost thou think that here is Crecy fieldtoward, that ye bring all this artillery? Turn back, my girl, and setthe pot on the fire; for that shall we need when we come home, I andthis ballad-maker here."

"Nay," she said, nodding kindly at me, "if this is to be no Crecy, thenmay I stop to see, as well as the ballad-maker, since he hath neithersword nor staff?"

"Sweetling," he said, "get thee home in haste. This play is butlittle, yet mightest thou be hurt in it; and trust me the time maycome, sweetheart, when even thou and such as thou shalt hold a sword ora staff. Ere the moon throws a shadow we shall be back."

She turned away lingering, not without tears on her face, laid thesheaf of arrows at the foot of the tree, and hastened off through theorchard. I was going to say something, when Will Green held up hishand as who would bid us hearken. The noise of the horse-hoofs, aftergrowing nearer and nearer, had ceased suddenly, and a confused murmurof voices had taken the place of it.

"Get thee down, and take cover, old lad," said Will Green; "the dancewill soon begin, and ye shall hear the music presently."

Sure enough as I slipped down by the hedge close to which I had beenstanding, I heard the harsh twang of the bow-strings, one, two, three,almost together, from the road, and even the whew of the shafts, thoughthat was drowned in a moment by a confused but loud and threateningshout from the other side, and again the bowstrings clanged, and thistime a far-off clash of arms followed, and therewithal that cry of astrong man that comes without his will, and is so different from hiswonted voice that one has a guess thereby of the change that death is.Then for a while was almost silence; nor did our horns blow up, thoughsome half-dozen of the billmen had leapt into the road when the bowsfirst shot. But presently came a great blare of trumpets and hornsfrom the other side, and therewith as it were a river of steel andbright coats poured into the field before us, and still their hornsblew as they spread out toward the left of our line; the cattle in thepasture-field, heretofore feeding quietly, seemed frightened silly bythe sudden noise, and ran about tail in air and lowing loudly; the oldbull with his head a little lowered, and his stubborn legs plantedfirmly, growling threateningly; while the geese about the brook waddledaway gobbling and squeaking; all which seemed so strange to us alongwith the threat of sudden death that rang out from the bright arrayover against us, that we laughed outright, the most of us, and WillGreen put down his head in mockery of the bull and grunted like him,whereat we laughed yet more. He turned round to me as he nocked hisarrow, and said:

"I would they were just fifty paces nigher, and they move not. Ho!Jack Straw, shall we shoot?"

For the latter-named was nigh us now; he shook his head and saidnothing as he stood looking at the enemy's line.

"Fear not but they are the right folk, Jack," quoth Will Green.

"Yea, yea," said he, "but abide awhile; they could make nought of thehighway, and two of their sergeants had a message from the grey-goosefeather. Abide, for they have not crossed the road to our right hand,and belike have not seen our fellows on the other side, who are now fora bushment to them."

I looked hard at the man. He was a tall, wiry, and broad-shoulderedfellow, clad in a handsome armour of bright steel that certainly hadnot been made for a yeoman, but over it he had a common linensmock-frock or gabardine, like our field workmen wear now or used towear, and in his helmet he carried instead of a feather a wisp ofwheaten straw. He bore a heavy axe in his hand besides the sword hewas girt with, and round his neck hung a great horn for blowing. Ishould say that I knew that there were at least three "Jack Straws"among the fellowship of the discontented, one of whom was over in Essex.

As we waited there, every bowman with his shaft nocked on the string,there was a movement in the line opposite, and presently came from it alittle knot of three men, the middle one on horseback, the other twoarmed with long-handled glaives; all three well muffled up in armour.As they came nearer I could see that the horseman had a tabard over hisarmour, gaily embroidered with a green tree on a gold ground, and inhis hand a trumpet.

"They are come to summon us. Wilt thou that he speak, Jack?" said WillGreen.

"Nay," said the other; "yet shall he have warning first. Shoot when myhorn blows!"

And therewith he came up to the hedge, climbed over, slowly because ofhis armour, and stood some dozen yards out in the field. The man onhorseback put his trumpet to his mouth and blew a long blast, and thentook a scroll into his hand and made as if he were going to read; butJack Straw lifted up his voice and cried out:

"Do it not, or thou art but dead! We will have no accursed lawyers andtheir sheep-skins here! Go back to those that sent thee——"

But the man broke in in a loud harsh voice:

"Ho! YE PEOPLE! what will ye gathering in arms?"

Then cried Jack Straw:

"Sir Fool, hold your peace till ye have heard me, or else we shoot atonce. Go back to those that sent thee, and tell them that we free menof Kent are on the way to London to speak with King Richard, and totell him that which he wots not; to wit, that there is a certain sortof fools and traitors to the realm who would put collars on our necksand make beasts of us, and that it is his right and his devoir to do ashe swore when he was crowned and anointed at Westminster on the Stoneof Doom, and gainsay these thieves and traitors; and if he be too weak,then shall we help him; and if he will not be king, then shall we haveone who will be, and that is the King's Son of Heaven. Now, therefore,if any withstand us on our lawful errand as we go to speak with our ownking and lord, let him look to it. Bear back this word to them thatsent thee. But for thee, hearken, thou bastard of an inky sheep-skin!get thee gone and tarry not; three times shall I lift up my hand, andthe third time look to thyself, for then shalt thou hear the loose ofour bowstrings, and after that nought else till thou hearest the devilbidding thee welcome to hell!"

Our fellows shouted, but the summoner began again, yet in a quaveringvoice:

"Ho! YE PEOPLE! what will ye gathering in arms? Wot ye not that yeare doing or shall do great harm, loss, and hurt to the king'slieges——"

He stopped; Jack Straw's hand was lowered for the second time. Helooked to his men right and left, and then turned rein and turned tail,and scuttled back to the main body at his swiftest. Huge laughterrattled out all along our line as Jack Straw climbed back into theorchard grinning also.

Then we noted more movement in the enemy's line. They were spreadingthe archers and arbalestiers to our left, and the men-at-arms andothers also spread some, what under the three pennons of which LongGregory had told us, and which were plain enough to us in the dearevening. Presently the moving line faced us, and the archers set offat a smart pace toward us, the men-at-arms holding back a little behindthem. I knew now that they had been within bowshot all along, but ourmen were loth to shoot before their first shots would tell, like thosehalf-dozen in the road when, as they told me afterwards, a plump oftheir men-at-arms had made a show of falling on.

But now as soon as those men began to move on us directly in face, JackStraw put his horn to his lips and blew a loud rough blast that wasechoed by five or six others along the orchard hedge. Every man hadhis shaft nocked on the string; I watched them, and Will Greenspecially; he and his bow and its string seemed all of a piece, soeasily by seeming did he draw the nock of the arrow to his ear. Amoment, as he took his aim, and then—O then did I understand themeaning of the awe with which the ancient poet speaks of the loose ofthe god Apollo's bow; for terrible indeed was the mingled sound of thetwanging bowstring and the whirring shaft so close to me.

I was now on my knees right in front of Will and saw all clearly; thearbalestiers (for no long-bow men were over against our stead) had allof them bright headpieces, and stout body-armour of boiled leather withmetal studs, and as they came towards us, I could see over theirshoulders great wooden shields hanging at their backs. Further to ourleft their long-bow men had shot almost as soon as ours, and I heard orseemed to hear the rush of the arrows through the apple-boughs and aman's cry therewith; but with us the long-bow had been before thecross-bow; one of the arbalestiers fell outright, his great shieldclattering down on him, and moved no more; while three others were hitand were crawling to the rear. The rest had shouldered their bows andwere aiming, but I thought unsteadily; and before the triggers weredrawn again Will Green had nocked and loosed, and not a few others ofour folk; then came the wooden hail of the bolts rattling through theboughs, but all overhead and no one hit.

The next time Will Green nocked his arrow he drew with a great shout,which all our fellows took up; for the arbalestiers instead of turningabout in their places covered by their great shields and winding uptheir cross-bows for a second shot, as is the custom of such soldiers,ran huddling together toward their men-at-arms, our arrows drivingthump-thump into their shields as they ran: I saw four lying on thefield dead or sore wounded.

But our archers shouted again, and kept on each plucking the arrowsfrom the ground, and nocking and loosing swiftly but deliberately atthe line before them; indeed now was the time for these terriblebowmen, for as Will Green told me afterwards they always reckoned tokill through cloth or leather at five hundred yards, and they had letthe cross-bow men come nearly within three hundred, and these were nowall mingled and muddled up with the men-at-arms at scant five hundredyards' distance; and belike, too, the latter were not treating them toowell, but seemed to be belabouring them with their spear-staves intheir anger at the poorness of the play; so that as Will Green said itwas like shooting at hay-ricks.

All this you must understand lasted but a few minutes, and when our menhad been shooting quite coolly, like good workmen at peaceful work, fora few minutes more, the enemy's line seemed to clear somewhat; thepennon with the three red kine showed in front and three men armed fromhead to foot in gleaming steel, except for their short coats brightwith heraldry, were with it. One of them (and he bore the three kine onhis coat) turned round and gave some word of command, and an angryshout went up from them, and they came on steadily towards us, the manwith the red kine on his coat leading them, a great naked sword in hishand: you must note that they were all on foot; but as they drew nearerI saw their horses led by grooms and pages coming on slowly behind them.

Sooth said Will Green that the men-at-arms run not fast either to orfro the fray; they came on no faster than a hasty walk, their armsclashing about them and the twang of the bows and whistle of the arrowsnever failing all the while, but going on like the push of the westerlygale, as from time to time the men-at-arms shouted, "Ha! ha! out! out!Kentish thieves!"

But when they began to fall on, Jack Straw shouted out, "Bills to thefield! bills to the field!"

Then all our billmen ran up and leapt over the hedge into the meadowand stood stoutly along the ditch under our bows, Jack Straw in theforefront handling his great axe. Then he cast it into his left hand,caught up his horn and winded it loudly. The men-at-arms drew nearsteadily, some fell under the arrow-storm, but not a many; for thoughthe target was big, it was hard, since not even the cloth-yard shaftcould pierce well-wrought armour of plate, and there was much armouramong them. Withal the arbalestiers were shooting again, but high andat a venture, so they did us no hurt.

But as these soldiers made wise by the French war were now drawingnear, and our bowmen were casting down their bows and drawing theirshort swords, or handling their axes, as did Will Green, muttering,"Now must Hob Wright's gear end this play"—while this was a-doing, lo,on a sudden a flight of arrows from our right on the flank of thesergeants' array, which stayed them somewhat; not because it slew manymen, but because they began to bethink them that their foes were manyand all around them; then the road-hedge on the right seemed alive witharmed men, for whatever could hold sword or staff amongst us was there;every bowman also leapt our orchard-hedge sword or axe in hand, andwith a great shout, billmen, archers, and all, ran in on them;half-armed, yea, and half-naked some of them; strong and stout andlithe and light withal, the wrath of battle and the hope of bettertimes lifting up their hearts till nothing could withstand them. Sowas all mingled together, and for a minute or two was a confusedclamour over which rose a clatter like the riveting of iron plates, orthe noise of the street of coppersmiths at Florence; then the throngburst open and the steel-clad sergeants and squires and knights ranhuddling and shuffling towards their horses; but some cast down theirweapons and threw up their hands and cried for peace and ransom; andsome stood and fought desperately, and slew some till they werehammered down by many strokes, and of these were the bailiffs andtipstaves, and the lawyers and their men, who could not run and hopedfor no mercy.

I looked as on a picture and wondered, and my mind was at strain toremember something forgotten, which yet had left its mark on it. Iheard the noise of the horse-hoofs of the fleeing men-at-arms (thearchers and arbalestiers had scattered before the last minutes of theplay), I heard the confused sound of laughter and rejoicing down in themeadow, and close by me the evening wind lifting the lighter twigs ofthe trees, and far away the many noises of the quiet country, tilllight and sound both began to fade from me and I saw and heard nothing.

I leapt up to my feet presently and there was Will Green before me as Ihad first seen him in the street with coat and hood and the gear at hisgirdle and his unstrung bow in his hand; his face smiling and kindagain, but maybe a thought sad.

"Well," quoth I, "what is the tale for the ballad-maker?"

"As Jack Straw said it would be," said he, "'the end of the day and theend of the fray;'" and he pointed to the brave show of the sky over thesunken sun; "the knights fled and the sheriff dead: two of the lawyerkind slain afield, and one hanged: and cruel was he to make them cruel:and three bailiffs knocked on the head—stout men, and so witless, thatnone found their brains in their skulls; and five arbalestiers and onearcher slain, and a score and a half of others, mostly men come backfrom the French wars, men of the Companions there, knowing no othercraft than fighting for gold; and this is the end they are paid for.Well, brother, saving the lawyers who belike had no souls, but onlyparchment deeds and libels of the same, God rest their souls!"

He fell a-musing; but I said, "And of our Fellowship were any slain?"

"Two good men of the township," he said, "Hob Horner and Antony Webber,were slain outright, Hob with a shaft and Antony in the hand-play, andJohn Pargetter hurt very sore on the shoulder with a glaive; and fivemore men of the Fellowship slain in the hand-play, and some few hurt,but not sorely. And as to those slain, if God give their souls rest itis well; for little rest they had on the earth belike; but for me, Idesire rest no more."

I looked at him and our eyes met with no little love; and I wondered tosee how wrath and grief within him were contending with the kindness ofthe man, and how clear the tokens of it were in his face.

"Come now, old lad," said he, "for I deem that John Ball and Jack Strawhave a word to say to us at the cross yet, since these men broke offthe telling of the tale; there shall we know what we are to take inhand to-morrow. And afterwards thou shalt eat and drink in my housethis once, if never again."

So we went through the orchard closes again; and others were about andanigh us, all turned towards the cross as we went over the dewy grass,whereon the moon was just beginning to throw shadows.

CHAPTER VII

MORE WORDS AT THE CROSS

I got into my old place again on the steps of the cross, Will Greenbeside me, and above me John Ball and Jack Straw again. The moon washalf-way up the heavens now, and the short summer night had begun, calmand fragrant, with just so much noise outside our quiet circle as madeone feel the world alive and happy.

We waited silently until we had heard John Ball and the story of whatwas to do; and presently he began to speak.

"Good people, it is begun, but not ended. Which of you is hardy enoughto wend the road to London to-morrow?"

"All! All!" they shouted.

"Yea," said he, "even so I deemed of you. Yet forsooth hearken!London is a great and grievous city; and mayhappen when ye come thitherit shall seem to you overgreat to deal with, when ye remember thelittle townships and the cots ye came from.

"Moreover, when ye dwell here in Kent ye think forsooth of yourbrethren in Essex or Suffolk, and there belike an end. But from Londonye may have an inkling of all the world, and over-burdensome maybeshall that seem to you, a few and a feeble people.

"Nevertheless I say to you, remember the Fellowship, in the hope ofwhich ye have this day conquered; and when ye come to London be wiseand wary; and that is as much as to say, be bold and hardy; for inthese days are ye building a house which shall not be overthrown, andthe world shall not be too great or too little to hold it: for indeedit shall be the world itself, set free from evil-doers for friends todwell in."

He ceased awhile, but they hearkened still, as if something more wascoming. Then he said:

"To-morrow we shall take the road for Rochester; and most like it werewell to see what Sir John Newton in the castle may say to us: for theman is no ill man, and hath a tongue well-shapen for words; and it werewell that we had him out of the castle and away with us, and that weput a word in his mouth to say to the King. And wot ye well, goodfellows, that by then we come to Rochester we shall be a goodlycompany, and ere we come to Blackheath a very great company; and atLondon Bridge who shall stay our host?

"Therefore there is nought that can undo us except our own selves andour hearkening to soft words from those who would slay us. They shallbid us go home and abide peacefully with our wives and children whilethey, the lords and councillors and lawyers, imagine counsel and remedyfor us; and even so shall our own folly bid us; and if we hearkenthereto we are undone indeed; for they shall fall upon our peace withwar, and our wives and children they shall take from us, and some of usthey shall hang, and some they shall scourge, and the others shall betheir yoke-beasts—yea, and worse, for they shall lack meat more.

"To fools hearken not, whether they be yourselves or your foemen, foreither shall lead you astray.

"With the lords parley not, for ye know already what they would say toyou, and that is, 'Churl, let me bridle thee and saddle thee, and eatthy livelihood that thou winnest, and call thee hard names because Ieat thee up; and for thee, speak not and do not, save as I bid thee.'

"All that is the end of their parleying.

"Therefore be ye bold, and again bold, and thrice bold! Grip the bow,handle the staff, draw the sword, and set on in the name of theFellowship!"

He ended amid loud shouts; but straight-way answering shouts wereheard, and a great noise of the winding of horns, and I misdoubted anew onslaught; and some of those in the throng began to string theirbows and handle their bills; but Will Green pulled me by the sleeve andsaid:

"Friends are these by the winding of their horns; thou art quit forthis night, old lad." And then Jack Straw cried out from the cross:"Fair and softly, my masters! These be men of our Fellowship, and arefor your guests this night; they are from the bents this side ofMedway, and are with us here because of the pilgrimage road, and thatis the best in these parts, and so the shortest to Rochester. Anddoubt ye nothing of our being taken unawares this night; for I havebidden and sent out watchers of the ways, and neither a man's son nor amare's son may come in on us without espial. Now make we our friendswelcome. Forsooth, I looked for them an hour later; and had they comean hour earlier yet, some heads would now lie on the cold grass whichshall lie on a feather bed to-night. But let be, since all is well!

"Now get we home to our houses, and eat and drink and slumber thisnight, if never once again, amid the multitude of friends and fellows;and yet soberly and without riot, since so much work is to hand.Moreover the priest saith, bear ye the dead men, both friends and foes,into the chancel of the church, and there this night he will wake them:but after to-morrow let the dead abide to bury their dead!"

Therewith he leapt down from the cross, and Will and I bestirredourselves and mingled with the new-comers. They were some threehundred strong, clad and armed in all ways like the people of ourtownship, except some half-dozen whose armour shone cold like ice underthe moonbeams. Will Green soon had a dozen of them by the sleeve tocome home with him to board and bed, and then I lost him for someminutes, and turning about saw John Ball standing behind me, lookingpensively on all the stir and merry humours of the joyous uplanders.

"Brother from Essex," said he, "shall I see thee again to-night? I werefain of speech with thee; for thou seemest like one that has seen morethan most."

"Yea," said I, "if ye come to Will Green's house, for thither am Ibidden."

"Thither shall I come," said he, smiling kindly, "or no man I know infield. Lo you, Will Green looking for something, and that is me. Butin his house will be song and the talk of many friends; and forsooth Ihave words in me that crave to come out in a quiet place where they mayhave each one his own answer. If thou art not afraid of dead men whowere alive and wicked this morning, come thou to the church when supperis done, and there we may talk all we will."

Will Green was standing beside us before he had done, with his handlaid on the priest's shoulder, waiting till he had spoken out; and as Inodded Yea to John Ball he said:

"Now, master priest, thou hast spoken enough this two or three hours,and this my new brother must tell and talk in my house; and there mymaid will hear his wisdom which lay still under the hedge e'en now whenthe bolts were abroad. So come ye, and ye good fellows, come!"

So we turned away together into the little street. But while John Ballhad been speaking to me I felt strangely, as though I had more thingsto say than the words I knew could make clear: as if I wanted to getfrom other people a new set of words. Moreover, as we passed up thestreet again I was once again smitten with the great beauty of thescene; the houses, the church with its new chancel and tower,snow-white in the moonbeams now; the dresses and arms of the people,men and women (for the latter were now mixed up with the men); theirgrave sonorous language, and the quaint and measured forms of speech,were again become a wonder to me and affected me almost to tears.

CHAPTER VIII

SUPPER AT WILL GREEN'S

I walked along with the others musing as if I did not belong to them,till we came to Will Green's house. He was one of the wealthier of theyeomen, and his house was one of those I told you of, the lower storyof which was built of stone. It had not been built long, and was verytrim and neat. The fit of wonder had worn off me again by then Ireached it, or perhaps I should give you a closer description of it,for it was a handsome yeoman's dwelling of that day, which is as muchas saying it was very beautiful. The house on the other side of it,the last house in the village, was old or even ancient; all built ofstone, and except for a newer piece built on to it—a hall, itseemed—had round arches, some of them handsomely carved. I knew thatthis was the parson's house; but he was another sort of priest thanJohn Ball, and what for fear, what for hatred, had gone back to hismonastery with the two other chantrey priests who dwelt in that house;so that the men of the township, and more especially the women, werethinking gladly how John Ball should say mass in their new chancel onthe morrow.

Will Green's daughter was waiting for him at the door and gave him aclose and eager hug, and had a kiss to spare for each of us withal: astrong girl she was, as I have said, and sweet and wholesome also. Shemade merry with her father; yet it was easy to see that her heart wasin her mouth all along. There was a younger girl some twelve summersold, and a lad of ten, who were easily to be known for his children; anold woman also, who had her livelihood there, and helped the household;and moreover three long young men, who came into the house after we hadsat down, to whom Will nodded kindly. They were brisk lads and smart,but had been afield after the beasts that evening, and had not seen thefray.

The room we came into was indeed the house, for there was nothing butit on the ground floor, but a stair in the corner went up to thechamber or loft above. It was much like the room at the Rose, butbigger; the cupboard better wrought, and with more vessels on it, andhandsomer. Also the walls, instead of being panelled, were hung with acoarse loosely-woven stuff of green worsted with birds and trees woveninto it. There were flowers in plenty stuck about the room, mostly ofthe yellow blossoming flag or flower-de-luce, of which I had seenplenty in all the ditches, but in the window near the door was a potfull of those same white poppies I had seen when I first woke up; andthe table was all set forth with meat and drink, a big salt-cellar ofpewter in the middle, covered with a white cloth.

We sat down, the priest blessed the meat in the name of the Trinity,and we crossed ourselves and fell to. The victual was plentiful ofbroth and flesh-meat, and bread and cherries, so we ate and drank, andtalked lightly together when we were full.

Yet was not the feast so gay as might have been. Will Green had me tosit next to him, and on the other side sat John Ball; but the priesthad grown somewhat distraught, and sat as one thinking of somewhat thatwas like to escape his thought. Will Green looked at his daughter fromtime to time, and whiles his eyes glanced round the fair chamber as onewho loved it, and his kind face grew sad, yet never sullen. When theherdsmen came into the hall they fell straightway to asking questionsconcerning those of the Fellowship who had been slain in the fray, andof their wives and children; so that for a while thereafter no mancared to jest, for they were a neighbourly and kind folk, and weresorry both for the dead, and also for the living that should sufferfrom that day's work.

So then we sat silent awhile. The unseen moon was bright over the roofof the house, so that outside all was gleaming bright save the blackshadows, though the moon came not into the room, and the white wall ofthe tower was the whitest and the brightest thing we could see.

Wide open were the windows, and the scents of the fragrant nightfloated in upon us, and the sounds of the men at their meat or makingmerry about the township; and whiles we heard the gibber of an owl fromthe trees westward of the church, and the sharp cry of a blackbird madefearful by the prowling stoat, or the far-off lowing of a cow from theupland pastures; or the hoofs of a horse trotting on the pilgrimageroad (and one of our watchers would that be).

Thus we sat awhile, and once again came that feeling over me of wonderand pleasure at the strange and beautiful sights, mingled with thesights and sounds and scents beautiful indeed, yet not strange, butrather long familiar to me.

But now Will Green started in his seat where he sat with his daughterhanging over his chair, her hand amidst his thick black curls, and sheweeping softly, I thought; and his rough strong voice broke the silence.

"Why, lads and neighbours, what ails us? If the knights who fled fromus this eve were to creep back hither and look in at the window, theywould deem that they had slain us after all, and that we were but theghosts of the men who fought them. Yet, forsooth, fair it is at whilesto sit with friends and let the summer night speak for us and tell usits tales. But now, sweetling, fetch the mazer and the wine."

"Forsooth," said John Ball, "if ye laugh not over-much now, ye shalllaugh the more on the morrow of to-morrow, as ye draw nearer to theplay of point and edge."

"That is sooth," said one of the upland guests. "So it was seen inFrance when we fought there; and the eve of fight was sober and themorn was merry."

"Yea," said another, "but there, forsooth, it was for nothing yefought; and to-morrow it shall be for a fair reward."

"It was for life we fought," said the first.

"Yea," said the second, "for life; and leave to go home and find thelawyers at their fell game. Ho, Will Green, call a health over thecup!"

For now Will Green had a bowl of wine in his hand. He stood up andsaid: "Here, now, I call a health to the wrights of Kent who beturning our plough-shares into swords and our pruning-hooks intospears! Drink around, my masters!"

Then he drank, and his daughter filled the bowl brimming again and hepassed it to me. As I took it I saw that it was of light polished woodcuriously speckled, with a band of silver round it, on which was cutthe legend, "In the name of the Trinity fill the cup and drink to me."And before I drank, it came upon me to say, "To-morrow, and the fairdays afterwards!"

Then I drank a great draught of the strong red wine, and passed it on;and every man said something over it, as "The road to London Bridge!""Hob Carter and his mate!" and so on, till last of all John Ball drank,saying:

"Ten years hence, and the freedom of the Fellowship!" Then he said toWill Green: "Now, Will, must I needs depart to go and wake the dead,both friend and foe in the church yonder; and whoso of you will beshriven let him come to me thither in the morn, nor spare for as littleafter sunrise as it may be. And this our friend and brother from overthe water of Thames, he hath will to talk with me and I with him; sonow will I take him by the hand: and so God keep you, fellows!"

I rose to meet him as he came round the head of the table, and took hishand. Will Green turned round to me and said:

"Thou wilt come back again timely, old lad; for betimes on the morrowmust we rise if we shall dine at Rochester."

I stammered as I yea-said him; for John Ball was looking strangely atme with a half-smile, and my heart beat anxiously and fearfully: but wewent quietly to the door and so out into the bright moonlight.

I lingered a little when we had passed the threshold, and looked backat the yellow-lighted window and the shapes of the men that I sawtherein with a grief and longing that I could not give myself a reasonfor, since I was to come back so soon. John Ball did not press me tomove forward, but held up his hand as if to bid me hearken. The folkand guests there had already shaken themselves down since ourdeparture, and were gotten to be reasonably merry it seemed; for one ofthe guests, he who had spoken of France before, had fallen to singing aballad of the war to a wild and melancholy tune. I remember the firstrhymes of it, which I heard as I turned away my head and we moved ontoward the church:

"On a fair field of France
We fought on a morning
So lovely as it lieth
Along by the water.
There was many a lord there
Mowed men in the medley,
'Midst the banners of the barons
And bold men of the knighthood,
And spearmen and sergeants
And shooters of the shaft."

CHAPTER IX

BETWIXT THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

We entered the church through the south porch under a round-arched doorcarved very richly, and with a sculpture over the doorway and under thearch, which, as far as I could see by the moonlight, figured St.Michael and the Dragon. As I came into the rich gloom of the nave Inoticed for the first time that I had one of those white poppies in myhand; I must have taken it out of the pot by the window as I passed outof Will Green's house.

The nave was not very large, but it looked spacious too; it wassomewhat old, but well-built and handsome; the roof of curved woodenrafters with great tie-beams going from wall to wall. There was nolight in it but that of the moon streaming through the windows, whichwere by no means large, and were glazed with white fretwork, with hereand there a little figure in very deep rich colours. Two largerwindows near the east end of each aisle had just been made so that thechurch grew lighter toward the east, and I could see all the work onthe great screen between the nave and chancel which glittered bright innew paint and gilding: a candle glimmered in the loft above it, beforethe huge rood that filled up the whole space between the loft and thechancel arch. There was an altar at the east end of each aisle, theone on the south side standing against the outside wall, the one on thenorth against a traceried gaily-painted screen, for that aisle ran onalong the chancel. There were a few oak benches near this secondaltar, seemingly just made, and well carved and moulded; otherwise thefloor of the nave, which was paved with a quaint pavement of glazedtiles like the crocks I had seen outside as to ware, was quite clear,and the shafts of the arches rose out of it white and beautiful underthe moon as though out of a sea, dark but with gleams struck over it.

The priest let me linger and look round, when he had crossed himselfand given me the holy water; and then I saw that the walls were figuredall over with stories, a huge St. Christopher with his black beardlooking like Will Green, being close to the porch by which we entered,and above the chancel arch the Doom of the last Day, in which thepainter had not spared either kings or bishops, and in which a lawyerwith his blue coif was one of the chief figures in the group which theDevil was hauling off to hell.

"Yea," said John Ball, "'tis a goodly church and fair as you may see'twixt Canterbury and London as for its kind; and yet do I misdoubt mewhere those who are dead are housed, and where those shall house themafter they are dead, who built this house for God to dwell in. Godgrant they be cleansed at last; forsooth one of them who is now aliveis a foul swine and a cruel wolf. Art thou all so sure, scholar, thatall such have souls? and if it be so, was it well done of God to makethem? I speak to thee thus, for I think thou art no delator; and ifthou be, why should I heed it, since I think not to come back from thisjourney."

I looked at him and, as it were, had some ado to answer him; but I saidat last, "Friend, I never saw a soul, save in the body; I cannot tell."

He crossed himself and said, "Yet do I intend that ere many days aregone by my soul shall be in bliss among the fellowship of the saints,and merry shall it be, even before my body rises from the dead; forwisely I have wrought in the world, and I wot well of friends that arelong ago gone from the world, as St. Martin, and St. Francis, and St.Thomas of Canterbury, who shall speak well of me to the heavenlyFellowship, and I shall in no wise lose my reward."

I looked shyly at him as he spoke; his face looked sweet and calm andhappy, and I would have said no word to grieve him; and yet belike myeyes looked wonder on him: he seemed to note it and his face grewpuzzled. "How deemest thou of these things?" said he: "why do men dieelse, if it be otherwise than this?"

I smiled: "Why then do they live?" said I.

Even in the white moonlight I saw his face flush, and he cried out in agreat voice, "To do great deeds or to repent them that they ever wereborn." "Yea," said I, "they live to live because the world liveth." Hestretched out his hand to me and grasped mine, but said no more; andwent on till we came to the door in the rood-screen; then he turned tome with his hand on the ring-latch, and said, "Hast thou seen many deadmen?"

"Nay, but few," said I.

"And I a many," said he; "but come now and look on these, our friendsfirst and then our foes, so that ye may not look to see them while wesit and talk of the days that are to be on the earth before the Day ofDoom cometh."

So he opened the door, and we went into the chancel; a light burned onthe high altar before the host, and looked red and strange in themoonlight that came through the wide traceried windows unstained by thepictures and beflowerings of the glazing; there were new stalls for thepriests and vicars where we entered, carved more abundantly andbeautifully than any of the woodwork I had yet seen, and everywhere wasrich and fair colour and delicate and dainty form. Our dead lay justbefore the high altar on low biers, their faces all covered with linencloths, for some of them had been sore smitten and hacked in the fray.We went up to them and John Ball took the cloth from the face of one;he had been shot to the heart with a shaft and his face was calm andsmooth. He had been a young man fair and comely, with hair flaxenalmost to whiteness; he lay there in his clothes as he had fallen, thehands crossed over his breast and holding a rush cross. His bow lay onone side of him, his quiver of shafts and his sword on the other.

John Ball spake to me while he held the corner of the sheet: "Whatsayest thou, scholar? feelest thou sorrow of heart when thou lookest onthis, either for the man himself, or for thyself and the time when thoushalt be as he is?"

I said, "Nay, I feel no sorrow for this; for the man is not here: thisis an empty house, and the master has gone from it. Forsooth, this tome is but as a waxen image of a man; nay, not even that, for if it werean image, it would be an image of the man as he was when he was alive.But here is no life nor semblance of life, and I am not moved by it;nay, I am more moved by the man's clothes and war-gear—there is morelife in them than in him."

"Thou sayest sooth," said he; "but sorrowest thou not for thine owndeath when thou lookest on him?"

I said, "And how can I sorrow for that which I cannot so much as thinkof? Bethink thee that while I am alive I cannot think that I shalldie, or believe in death at all, although I know well that I shalldie—I can but think of myself as living in some new way."

Again he looked on me as if puzzled; then his face cleared as he said,"Yea, forsooth, and that is what the Church meaneth by death, and eventhat I look for; and that hereafter I shall see all the deeds that Ihave done in the body, and what they really were, and what shall comeof them; and ever shall I be a member of the Church, and that is theFellowship; then, even as now."

I sighed as he spoke; then I said, "Yea, somewhat in this fashion havemost of men thought, since no man that is can conceive of not being;and I mind me that in those stories of the old Danes, their common wordfor a man dying is to say, 'He changed his life.'"

"And so deemest thou?"

I shook my head and said nothing.

"What hast thou to say hereon?" said he, "for there seemeth somethingbetwixt us twain as it were a wall that parteth us."

"This," said I, "that though I die and end, yet mankind yet liveth,therefore I end not, since I am a man; and even so thou deemest, goodfriend; or at the least even so thou doest, since now thou art ready todie in grief and torment rather than be unfaithful to the Fellowship,yea rather than fail to work thine utmost for it; whereas, as thouthyself saidst at the cross, with a few words spoken and a littlehuddling-up of the truth, with a few pennies paid, and a few massessung, thou mightest have had a good place on this earth and in thatheaven. And as thou doest, so now doth many a poor man unnamed andunknown, and shall do while the world lasteth: and they that do lessthan this, fail because of fear, and are ashamed of their cowardice,and make many tales to themselves to deceive themselves, lest theyshould grow too much ashamed to live. And trust me if this were notso, the world would not live, but would die, smothered by its ownstink. Is the wall betwixt us gone, friend?"

He smiled as he looked at me, kindly, but sadly and shamefast, andshook his head.

Then in a while he said, "Now ye have seen the images of those who wereour friends, come and see the images of those who were once our foes."

So he led the way through the side screen into the chancel aisle, andthere on the pavement lay the bodies of the foemen, their weapons takenfrom them and they stripped of their armour, but not otherwise of theirclothes, and their faces mostly, but not all, covered. At the east endof the aisle was another altar, covered with a rich cloth beautifullyfigured, and on the wall over it was a deal of tabernacle work, in themidmost niche of it an image painted and gilt of a gay knight onhorseback, cutting his own cloak in two with his sword to give a cantleof it to a half-naked beggar. "Knowest thou any of these men?" said I.

He said, "Some I should know, could I see their faces; but let them be."

"Were they evil men?" said I.

"Yea," he said, "some two or three. But I will not tell thee of them;let St. Martin, whose house this is, tell their story if he will. Asfor the rest they were hapless fools, or else men who must earn theirbread somehow, and were driven to this bad way of earning it; God resttheir souls! I will be no tale-bearer, not even to God."

So we stood musing a little while, I gazing not on the dead men, but onthe strange pictures on the wall, which were richer and deeper colouredthan those in the nave; till at last John Ball turned to me and laidhis hand on my shoulder. I started and said, "Yea, brother; now must Iget me back to Will Green's house, as I promised to do so timely."

"Not yet, brother," said he; "I have still much to say to thee, and thenight is yet young. Go we and sit in the stalls of the vicars, and letus ask and answer on matters concerning the fashion of this world ofmenfolk, and of this land wherein we dwell; for once more I deem ofthee that thou hast seen things which I have not seen, and could nothave seen." With that word he led me back into the chancel, and we satdown side by side in the stalls at the west end of it, facing the highaltar and the great east window. By this time the chancel was gettingdimmer as the moon wound round the heavens; but yet was there atwilight of the moon, so that I could still see the things about me forall the brightness of the window that faced us; and this moon twilightwould last, I knew, until the short summer night should wane, and thetwilight of the dawn begin to show us the colours of all things aboutus.

So we sat, and I gathered my thoughts to hear what he would say, and Imyself was trying to think what I should ask of him; for I thought ofhim as he of me, that he had seen things which I could not have seen.

CHAPTER X

TWO TALK OF THE DAYS TO COME

"Brother," said John Ball, "how deemest thou of our adventure? I donot ask thee if thou thinkest we are right to play the play like men,but whether playing like men we shall fail like men."

"Why dost thou ask me?" said I; "how much further than beyond thischurch can I see?" "Far further," quoth he, "for I wot that thou art ascholar and hast read books; and withal, in some way that I cannotname, thou knowest more than we; as though with thee the world hadlived longer than with us. Hide not, therefore, what thou hast inthine heart, for I think after this night I shall see thee no more,until we meet in the heavenly Fellowship."

"Friend," I said, "ask me what thou wilt; or rather ask thou the yearsto come to tell thee some little of their tale; and yet methinks thouthyself mayest have some deeming thereof."

He raised himself on the elbow of the stall and looked me full in theface, and said to me: "Is it so after all that thou art no man in theflesh, but art sent to me by the Master of the Fellowship, and theKing's Son of Heaven, to tell me what shall be? If that be so tell mestraight out, since I had some deeming hereof before; whereas thyspeech is like ours and yet unlike, and thy face hath something in itwhich is not after the fashion of our day. And yet take heed, if thouart such an one, I fear thee not, nay, nor him that sent thee; nor forthy bidding, nor for his, will I turn back from London Bridge but willpress on, for I do what is meet and right."

"Nay," said I, "did I not tell thee e'en now that I knew life but notdeath? I am not dead; and as to who hath sent me, I say not that I amcome by my own will; for I know not; yet also I know not the will thathath sent me hither. And this I say to thee, moreover, that if I knowmore than thou, I do far less; therefore thou art my captain and I thyminstrel."

He sighed as one from whom a weight had been lifted, and said: "Well,then, since thou art alive on the earth and a man like myself, tell mehow deemest thou of our adventure: shall we come to London, and howshall we fare there?"

Said I, "What shall hinder you to come to London, and to fare there asye will? For be sure that the Fellowship in Essex shall not fail you;nor shall the Londoners who hate the king's uncles withstand you; norhath the Court any great force to meet you in the field; ye shall castfear and trembling into their hearts."

"Even so, I thought," said he; "but afterwards what shall betide?"

Said I, "It grieves my heart to say that which I think. Yet hearken;many a man's son shall die who is now alive and happy, and if thesoldiers be slain, and of them most not on the field, but by thelawyers, how shall the captains escape? Surely thou goest to thydeath."

He smiled very sweetly, yet proudly, as he said: "Yea, the road islong, but the end cometh at last. Friend, many a day have I beendying; for my sister, with whom I have played and been merry in theautumn tide about the edges of the stubble-fields; and we gathered thenuts and bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush,and wondered at his voice and thought him big; and the sparrow-hawkwheeled and turned over the hedges and the weasel ran across the path,and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sathappy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for shepined from famine after the years of the great sickness; and my brotherwas slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying save hethat stripped him of his gear; and my unwedded wife with whom I dweltin love after I had taken the tonsure, and all men said she was goodand fair, and true she was and lovely; she also is dead and gone fromthe earth; and why should I abide save for the deeds of the flesh whichmust be done? Truly, friend, this is but an old tale that men mustdie; and I will tell thee another, to wit, that they live: and I livenow and shall live. Tell me then what shall befall."

Somehow I could not heed him as a living man as much as I had done, andthe voice that came from me seemed less of me as I answered:

"These men are strong and valiant as any that have been or shall be,and good fellows also and kindly; but they are simple, and see no greatway before their own noses. The victory shall they have and shall notknow what to do with it; they shall fight and overcome, because oftheir lack of knowledge, and because of their lack of knowledge shallthey be cozened and betrayed when their captains are slain, and allshall come to nought by seeming; and the king's uncles shall prevail,that both they and the king may come to the shame that is appointed forthem. And yet when the lords have vanquished, and all England liethunder them again, yet shall their victory be fruitless; for the freemen that hold unfree lands shall they not bring under the collar again,and villeinage shall slip from their hands, till there be, and not longafter ye are dead, but few unfree men in England; so that your livesand your deaths both shall bear fruit."

"Said I not," quoth John Ball, "that thou wert a sending from othertimes? Good is thy message, for the land shall be free. Tell on now."

He spoke eagerly, and I went on somewhat sadly: "The times shallbetter, though the king and lords shall worsen, the Gilds of Craftshall wax and become mightier; more recourse shall there be of foreignmerchants. There shall be plenty in the land and not famine. Where aman now earneth two pennies he shall earn three."

"Yea," said he, "then shall those that labour become strong andstronger, and so soon shall it come about that all men shall work andnone make to work, and so shall none be robbed, and at last shall allmen labour and live and be happy, and have the goods of the earthwithout money and without price."

"Yea," said I, "that shall indeed come to pass, but not yet for awhile, and belike a long while."

And I sat for long without speaking, and the church grew darker as themoon waned yet more.

Then I said: "Bethink thee that these men shall yet have masters overthem, who have at hand many a law and custom for the behoof of masters,and being masters can make yet more laws in the same behoof; and theyshall suffer poor people to thrive just so long as their thriving shallprofit the mastership and no longer; and so shall it be in those days Itell of; for there shall be king and lords and knights and squiresstill, with servants to do their bidding, and make honest men afraid;and all these will make nothing and eat much as aforetime, and the morethat is made in the land the more shall they crave."

"Yea," said he, "that wot I well, that these are of the kin of thedaughters of the horse-leech; but how shall they slake their greed,seeing that as thou sayest villeinage shall be gone? Belike their menshall pay them quit-rents and do them service, as free men may, but allthis according to law and not beyond it; so that though the workersshall be richer than they now be, the lords shall be no richer, and soall shall be on the road to being free and equal."

Said I, "Look you, friend; aforetime the lords, for the most part, heldthe land and all that was on it, and the men that were on it worked forthem as their horses worked, and after they were fed and housed all wasthe lords'; but in the time to come the lords shall see their menthriving on the land and shall say once more, 'These men have more thanthey need, why have we not the surplus since we are their lords?'Moreover, in those days shall betide much chaffering for wares betweenman and man, and country and country; and the lords shall note that ifthere were less corn and less men on their lands there would be moresheep, that is to say more wool for chaffer, and that thereof theyshould have abundantly more than aforetime; since all the land theyown, and it pays them quit-rent or service, save here and there a croftor a close of a yeoman; and all this might grow wool for them to sellto the Easterlings. Then shall England see a new thing, for whereashitherto men have lived on the land and by it, the land shall no longerneed them, but many sheep and a few shepherds shall make wool grow tobe sold for money to the Easterlings, and that money shall the lordspouch: for, look you, they shall set the lawyers a-work and the stronghand moreover, and the land they shall take to themselves and theirsheep; and except for these lords of land few shall be the free menthat shall hold a rood of land whom the word of their lord may not turnadrift straightway."

"How mean you?" said John Ball: "shall all men be villeins again?"

"Nay," said I, "there shall be no villeins in England."

"Surely then," said he, "it shall be worse, and all men save a fewshall be thralls to be bought and sold at the cross."

"Good friend," said I, "it shall not be so; all men shall be free evenas ye would have it; yet, as I say, few indeed shall have so much landas they can stand upon save by buying such a grace of their masters."

"And now," said he, "I wot not what thou sayest. I know a thrall, andhe is his master's every hour, and never his own; and a villein I know,and whiles he is his own and whiles his lord's; and I know a free man,and he is his own always; but how shall he be his own if he have noughtwhereby to make his livelihood? Or shall he be a thief and take fromothers? Then is he an outlaw. Wonderful is this thou tellest of a freeman with nought whereby to live!"

"Yet so it shall be," said I, "and by such free men shall all wares bemade."

"Nay, that cannot be; thou art talking riddles," said he; "for howshall a woodwright make a chest without the wood and the tools?"

Said I, "He must needs buy leave to labour of them that own all thingsexcept himself and such as himself."

"Yea, but wherewith shall he buy it?" said John Ball. "What hath heexcept himself?"

"With himself then shall he buy it," quoth I, "with his body and thepower of labour that lieth therein; with the price of his labour shallhe buy leave to labour."

"Riddles again!" said he; "how can he sell his labour for aught elsebut his daily bread? He must win by his labour meat and drink andclothing and housing! Can he sell his labour twice over?"

"Not so," said I, "but this shall he do belike; he shall sell himself,that is the labour that is in him, to the master that suffers him towork, and that master shall give to him from out of the wares he makethenough to keep him alive, and to beget children and nourish them tillthey be old enough to be sold like himself, and the residue shall therich man keep to himself."

John Ball laughed aloud, and said: "Well, I perceive we are not yetout of the land of riddles. The man may well do what thou sayest andlive, but he may not do it and live a free man."

"Thou sayest sooth," said I.

CHAPTER XI

HARD IT IS FOR THE OLD WORLD TO SEE THE NEW

He held his peace awhile, and then he said: "But no man sellethhimself and his children into thraldom uncompelled; nor is any fool sogreat a fool as willingly to take the name of freeman and the life of athrall as payment for the very life of a freeman. Now would I ask theesomewhat else; and I am the readier to do so since I perceive that thouart a wondrous seer; for surely no man could of his own wit haveimagined a tale of such follies as thou hast told me. Now well I wotthat men having once shaken themselves clear of the burden ofvilleinage, as thou sayest we shall do (and I bless thee for the word),shall never bow down to this worser tyranny without sore strife in theworld; and surely so sore shall it be, before our valiant sons giveway, that maids and little lads shall take the sword and the spear, andin many a field men's blood and not water shall turn the gristmills ofEngland. But when all this is over, and the tyranny is established,because there are but few men in the land after the great war, howshall it be with you then? Will there not be many soldiers andsergeants and few workers? Surely in every parish ye shall have theconstables to see that the men work; and they shall be saying everyday, 'Such an one, hast thou yet sold thyself for this day or this weekor this year? Go to now, and get thy bargain done, or it shall be theworse for thee.' And wheresoever work is going on there shall beconstables again, and those that labour shall labour under the whiplike the Hebrews in the land of Egypt. And every man that may, willsteal as a dog snatches at a bone; and there again shall ye need moresoldiers and more constables till the land is eaten up by them; norshall the lords and the masters even be able to bear the burden of it;nor will their gains be so great, since that which each man may do in aday is not right great when all is said."

"Friend," said I, "from thine own valiancy and high heart thouspeakest, when thou sayest that they who fall under this tyranny shallfight to the death against it. Wars indeed there shall be in theworld, great and grievous, and yet few on this score; rather shall menfight as they have been fighting in France at the bidding of some lordof the manor, or some king, or at last at the bidding of some usurerand forestaller of the market. Valiant men, forsooth, shall arise inthe beginning of these evil times, but though they shall die as yeshall, yet shall not their deaths be fruitful as yours shall be;because ye, forsooth, are fighting against villeinage which is waning,but they shall fight against usury which is waxing. And, moreover, Ihave been telling thee how it shall be when the measure of the time isfull; and we, looking at these things from afar, can see them as theyare indeed; but they who live at the beginning of those times andamidst them, shall not know what is doing around them; they shallindeed feel the plague and yet not know the remedy; by little and bylittle they shall fall from their better livelihood, and weak andhelpless shall they grow, and have no might to withstand the evil ofthis tyranny; and then again when the times mend somewhat and they havebut a little more ease, then shall it be to them like the kingdom ofheaven, and they shall have no will to withstand any tyranny, but shallthink themselves happy that they be pinched somewhat less. Alsowhereas thou sayest that there shall be for ever constables andsergeants going to and fro to drive men to work, and that they will notwork save under the lash, thou art wrong and it shall not be so; forthere shall ever be more workers than the masters may set to work, sothat men shall strive eagerly for leave to work; and when one says, Iwill sell my hours at such and such a price, then another will say, andI for so much less; so that never shall the lords lack slaves willingto work, but often the slaves shall lack lords to buy them."

"Thou tellest marvels indeed," said he; "but how then? if all thechurls work not, shall there not be famine and lack of wares?"

"Famine enough," said I, "yet not from lack of wares; it shall be cleancontrary. What wilt thou say when I tell thee that in the latter daysthere shall be such traffic and such speedy travel across the seas thatmost wares shall be good cheap, and bread of all things the cheapest?"

Quoth he: "I should say that then there would be better livelihood formen, for in times of plenty it is well; for then men eat that whichtheir own hands have harvested, and need not to spend of theirsubstance in buying of others. Truly, it is well for honest men, butnot so well for forestallers and regraters;[2] but who heeds whatbefalls such foul swine, who filch the money from people's purses, anddo not one hair's turn of work to help them?"

"Yea, friend," I said, "but in those latter days all power shall be inthe hands of these foul swine, and they shall be the rulers of all;therefore, hearken, for I tell thee that times of plenty shall in thosedays be the times of famine, and all shall pray for the prices of waresto rise, so that the forestallers and regraters may thrive, and thatsome of their well-doing may overflow on to those on whom they live."

"I am weary of thy riddles," he said. "Yet at least I hope that theremay be fewer and fewer folk in the land; as may well be, if life isthen so foul and wretched."

"Alas, poor man!" I said; "nor mayst thou imagine how foul and wretchedit may be for many of the folk; and yet I tell thee that men shallincrease and multiply, till where there is one man in the land now,there shall be twenty in those days—yea, in some places ten timestwenty."

"I have but little heart to ask thee more questions," said he; "andwhen thou answerest, thy words are plain, but the things they tell of Imay scarce understand. But tell me this: in those days will men deemthat so it must be for ever, as great men even now tell us of our ills,or will they think of some remedy?"

I looked about me. There was but a glimmer of light in the church now,but what there was, was no longer the strange light of the moon, butthe first coming of the kindly day.

"Yea," said John Ball, "'tis the twilight of the dawn. God and St.Christopher send us a good day!"

"John Ball," said I, "I have told thee that thy death will bring aboutthat which thy life has striven for: thinkest thou that the thing whichthou strivest for is worth the labour? or dost thou believe in the taleI have told thee of the days to come?"

He said: "I tell thee once again that I trust thee for a seer; becauseno man could make up such a tale as thou; the things which thou tellestare too wonderful for a minstrel, the tale too grievous. And whereasthou askest as to whether I count my labour lost, I say nay; if so bethat in those latter times (and worser than ours they will be) menshall yet seek a remedy: therefore again I ask thee, is it so that theyshall?"

"Yea," said I, "and their remedy shall be the same as thine, althoughthe days be different: for if the folk be enthralled, what remedy savethat they be set free? and if they have tried many roads towardsfreedom, and found that they led no-whither, then shall they try yetanother. Yet in the days to come they shall be slothful to try it,because their masters shall be so much mightier than thine, that theyshall not need to show the high hand, and until the days get to theirevilest, men shall be cozened into thinking that it is of their ownfree will that they must needs buy leave to labour by pawning theirlabour that is to be. Moreover, your lords and masters seem verymighty to you, each one of them, and so they are, but they are few; andthe masters of the days to come shall not each one of them seem verymighty to the men of those days, but they shall be very many, and theyshall be of one intent in these matters without knowing it; like as onesees the oars of a galley when the rowers are hidden, that rise andfall as it were with one will."

"And yet," he said, "shall it not be the same with those that these mendevour? shall not they also have one will?"

"Friend," I said, "they shall have the will to live, as the wretchedestthing living has: therefore shall they sell themselves that they maylive, as I told thee; and their hard need shall be their lord's easylivelihood, and because of it he shall sleep without fear, since theirneed compelleth them not to loiter by the way to lament with friend orbrother that they are pinched in their servitude, or to devise meansfor ending it. And yet indeed thou sayest it: they also shall have onewill if they but knew it: but for a long while they shall have but aglimmer of knowledge of it: yet doubt it not that in the end they shallcome to know it clearly, and then shall they bring about the remedy;and in those days shall it be seen that thou hast not wrought fornothing, because thou hast seen beforehand what the remedy should be,even as those of later days have seen it."

We both sat silent a little while. The twilight was gaining on thenight, though slowly. I looked at the poppy which I still held in myhand, and bethought me of Will Green, and said:

"Lo, how the light is spreading: now must I get me back to Will Green'shouse as I promised."

"Go, then," said he, "if thou wilt. Yet meseems before long he shallcome to us; and then mayst thou sleep among the trees on the greengrass till the sun is high, for the host shall not be on foot veryearly; and sweet it is to sleep in shadow by the sun in the fullmorning when one has been awake and troubled through the night-tide."

"Yet I will go now," said I; "I bid thee good-night, or rathergood-morrow."

Therewith I half rose up; but as I did so the will to depart left me asthough I had never had it, and I sat down again, and heard the voice ofJohn Ball, at first as one speaking from far away, but little by littlegrowing nearer and more familiar to me, and as if once more it werecoming from the man himself whom I had got to know.

[2] Forestaller, one who buys up goods when they are cheap, and soraises the price for his own benefit; forestalls the due and realdemand. Regrater, one who both buys and sells in the same market, orwithin five miles thereof; buys, say a ton of cheese at 10 A.M. andsells it at 5 P.M. a penny a pound dearer without moving from hischair. The word "monopolist" will cover both species of thief.

CHAPTER XII

ILL WOULD CHANGE BE AT WHILES WERE IT NOT FOR
THE CHANGE BEYOND THE CHANGE

He said: "Many strange things hast thou told me that I could notunderstand; yea, some my wit so failed to compass, that I cannot somuch as ask thee questions concerning them; but of some matters would Iask thee, and I must hasten, for in very sooth the night is worn oldand grey. Whereas thou sayest that in the days to come, when thereshall be no labouring men who are not thralls after their new fashion,that their lords shall be many and very many, it seemeth to me thatthese same lords, if they be many, shall hardly be rich, or but veryfew of them, since they must verily feed and clothe and house theirthralls, so that that which they take from them, since it will have tobe dealt out amongst many, will not be enough to make many rich; sinceout of one man ye may get but one man's work; and pinch him never sosorely, still as aforesaid ye may not pinch him so sorely as not tofeed him. Therefore, though the eyes of my mind may see a few lordsand many slaves, yet can they not see many lords as well as manyslaves; and if the slaves be many and the lords few, then some dayshall the slaves make an end of that mastery by the force of theirbodies. How then shall thy mastership of the latter days endure?"

"John Ball," said I, "mastership hath many shifts whereby it strivethto keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thousayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man'swork, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men—yea,of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shallmake many masters and many rich men."

John Ball laughed. "Great is my harvest of riddles to-night," said he;"for even if a man sleep not, and eat and drink while he is a-working,ye shall but make two men, or three at the most, out of him."

Said I: "Sawest thou ever a weaver at his loom?"

"Yea," said he, "many a time."

He was silent a little, and then said: "Yet I marvelled not at it; butnow I marvel, because I know what thou wouldst say. Time was when theshuttle was thrust in and out of all the thousand threads of the warp,and it was long to do; but now the spring-staves go up and down as theman's feet move, and this and that leaf of the warp cometh forward andthe shuttle goeth in one shot through all the thousand warps. Yea, soit is that this multiplieth a man many times. But look you, he is somultiplied already; and so hath he been, meseemeth, for many hundredyears."

"Yea," said I, "but what hitherto needed the masters to multiply himmore? For many hundred years the workman was a thrall bought and soldat the cross; and for other hundreds of years he hath been a villein—that is, a working-beast and a part of the stock of the manor on whichhe liveth; but then thou and the like of thee shall free him, and thenis mastership put to its shifts; for what should avail the masterythen, when the master no longer owneth the man by law as his chattel,nor any longer by law owneth him as stock of his land, if the masterhath not that which he on whom he liveth may not lack and live withal,and cannot have without selling himself?"

He said nothing, but I saw his brow knitted and his lips pressedtogether as though in anger; and again I said:

"Thou hast seen the weaver at his loom: think how it should be if hesit no longer before the web and cast the shuttle and draw home thesley, but if the shed open of itself and the shuttle of itself speedthrough it as swift as the eye can follow, and the sley come home ofitself; and the weaver standing by and whistling The Hunt's Up! thewhile, or looking to half-a-dozen looms and bidding them what to do.And as with the weaver so with the potter, and the smith, and everyworker in metals, and all other crafts, that it shall be for themlooking on and tending, as with the man that sitteth in the cart whilethe horse draws. Yea, at last so shall it be even with those who aremere husbandmen; and no longer shall the reaper fare afield in themorning with his hook over his shoulder, and smite and bind and smiteagain till the sun is down and the moon is up; but he shall draw athing made by men into the field with one or two horses, and shall saythe word and the horses shall go up and down, and the thing shall reapand gather and bind, and do the work of many men. Imagine all this inthy mind if thou canst, at least as ye may imagine a tale ofenchantment told by a minstrel, and then tell me what shouldst thoudeem that the life of men would be amidst all this, men such as thesemen of the township here, or the men of the Canterbury gilds."

"Yea," said he; "but before I tell thee my thoughts of thy tale ofwonder, I would ask thee this: In those days when men work so easily,surely they shall make more wares than they can use in one countryside,or one good town, whereas in another, where things have not gone aswell, they shall have less than they need; and even so it is with usnow, and thereof cometh scarcity and famine; and if people may not comeat each other's goods, it availeth the whole land little that onecountry-side hath more than enough while another hath less; for thegoods shall abide there in the storehouses of the rich place till theyperish. So if that be so in the days of wonder ye tell of (and I seenot how it can be otherwise), then shall men be but little holpen bymaking all their wares so easily and with so little labour."

I smiled again and said: "Yea, but it shall not be so; not only shallmen be multiplied a hundred and a thousand fold, but the distance ofone place from another shall be as nothing; so that the wares which lieready for market in Durham in the evening may be in London on themorrow morning; and the men of Wales may eat corn of Essex and the menof Essex wear wool of Wales; so that, so far as the flitting of goodsto market goes, all the land shall be as one parish. Nay, what say I?Not as to this land only shall it be so, but even the Indies, and farcountries of which thou knowest not, shall be, so to say, at everyman's door, and wares which now ye account precious and dear-bought,shall then be common things bought and sold for little price at everyhuckster's stall. Say then, John, shall not those days be merry, andplentiful of ease and contentment for all men?"

"Brother," said he, "meseemeth some doleful mockery lieth under thesejoyful tidings of thine; since thou hast already partly told me to mysad bewilderment what the life of man shall be in those days. Yet willI now for a little set all that aside to consider thy strange tale asof a minstrel from over sea, even as thou biddest me. Therefore I say,that if men still abide men as I have known them, and unless these folkof England change as, the land changeth—and forsooth of the men, forgood and for evil, I can think no other than I think now, or beholdthem other than I have known them and loved them—I say if the men bestill men, what will happen except that there should be all plenty inthe land, and not one poor man therein, unless of his own free will hechoose to lack and be poor, as a man in religion or such like; forthere would then be such abundance of all good things, that, as greedyas the lords might be, there would be enough to satisfy their greed andyet leave good living for all who laboured with their hands; so thatthese should labour far less than now, and they would have time tolearn knowledge, so that there should be no learned or unlearned, forall should be learned; and they would have time also to learn how toorder the matters of the parish and the hundred, and of the parliamentof the realm, so that the king should take no more than his own; and toorder the rule of the realm, so that all men, rich and unrich, shouldhave part therein; and so by undoing of evil laws and making of goodones, that fashion would come to an end whereof thou speakest, thatrich men make laws for their own behoof; for they should no longer beable to do thus when all had part in making the laws; whereby it wouldsoon come about that there would be no men rich and tyrannous, but allshould have enough and to spare of the increase of the earth and thework of their own hands. Yea surely, brother, if ever it cometh aboutthat men shall be able to make things, and not men, work for theirsuperfluities, and that the length of travel from one place to anotherbe made of no account, and all the world be a market for all the world,then all shall live in health and wealth; and envy and grudging shallperish. For then shall we have conquered the earth and it shall beenough; and then shall the kingdom of heaven be come down to the earthin very deed. Why lookest thou so sad and sorry? what sayest thou?"

I said: "Hast thou forgotten already what I told thee, that in thoselatter days a man who hath nought save his own body (and such men shallbe far the most of men) must needs pawn his labour for leave to labour?Can such a man be wealthy? Hast thou not called him a thrall?"

"Yea," he said; "but how could I deem that such things could be whenthose days should be come wherein men could make things work for them?"

"Poor man!" said I. "Learn that in those very days, when it shall bewith the making of things as with the carter in the cart, that there hesitteth and shaketh the reins and the horse draweth and the cart goeth;in those days, I tell thee, many men shall be as poor and wretchedalways, year by year, as they are with thee when there is famine in theland; nor shall any have plenty and surety of livelihood save thosethat shall sit by and look on while others labour; and these, I tellthee, shall be a many, so that they shall see to the making of alllaws, and in their hands shall be all power, and the labourers shallthink that they cannot do without these men that live by robbing them,and shall praise them and wellnigh pray to them as ye pray to thesaints, and the best worshipped man in the land shall be he who byforestalling and regrating hath gotten to him the most money."

"Yea," said he, "and shall they who see themselves robbed worship therobber? Then indeed shall men be changed from what they are now, andthey shall be sluggards, dolts, and cowards beyond all the earth hathyet borne. Such are not the men I have known in my life-days, and thatnow I love in my death."

"Nay," I said, "but the robbery shall they not see; for have I not toldthee that they shall hold themselves to be free men? And for why? Iwill tell thee: but first tell me how it fares with men now; may thelabouring man become a lord?"

He said: "The thing hath been seen that churls have risen from thedortoir of the monastery to the abbot's chair and the bishop's throne;yet not often; and whiles hath a bold sergeant become a wise captain,and they have made him squire and knight; and yet but very seldom. Andnow I suppose thou wilt tell me that the Church will open her armswider to this poor people, and that many through her shall rise intolordship. But what availeth that? Nought were it to me if the Abbotof St. Alban's with his golden mitre sitting guarded by his knights andsergeants, or the Prior of Merton with his hawks and his hounds, hadonce been poor men, if they were now tyrants of poor men; nor would itbetter the matter if there were ten times as many Houses of Religion inthe land as now are, and each with a churl's son for abbot or priorover it."

I smiled and said: "Comfort thyself; for in those days shall there beneither abbey nor priory in the land, nor monks nor friars, nor anyreligious." (He started as I spoke.) "But thou hast told me thathardly in these days may a poor man rise to be a lord: now I tell theethat in the days to come poor men shall be able to become lords andmasters and do-nothings; and oft will it be seen that they shall do so;and it shall be even for that cause that their eyes shall be blinded tothe robbing of themselves by others, because they shall hope in theirsouls that they may each live to rob others: and this shall be the verysafeguard of all rule and law in those days."

"Now am I sorrier than thou hast yet made me," said he; "for when oncethis is established, how then can it be changed? Strong shall be thetyranny of the latter days. And now meseems, if thou sayest sooth,this time of the conquest of the earth shall not bring heaven down tothe earth, as erst I deemed it would, but rather that it shall bringhell up on to the earth. Woe's me, brother, for thy sad and wearyforetelling! And yet saidst thou that the men of those days would seeka remedy. Canst thou yet tell me, brother, what that remedy shall be,lest the sun rise upon me made hopeless by thy tale of what is to be?And, lo you, soon shall she rise upon the earth."

In truth the dawn was widening now, and the colours coming into thepictures on wall and in window; and as well as I could see through thevaried glazing of these last (and one window before me had as yetnothing but white glass in it), the ruddy glow, which had but so littlea while quite died out in the west, was now beginning to gather in theeast—the new day was beginning. I looked at the poppy that I stillcarried in my hand, and it seemed to me to have withered and dwindled.I felt anxious to speak to my companion and tell him much, and withal Ifelt that I must hasten, or for some reason or other I should be toolate; so I spoke at last loud and hurriedly:

"John Ball, be of good cheer; for once more thou knowest, as I know,that the Fellowship of Men shall endure, however many tribulations itmay have to wear through. Look you, a while ago was the light brightabout us; but it was because of the moon, and the night was deepnotwithstanding, and when the moonlight waned and died, and there wasbut a little glimmer in place of the bright light, yet was the worldglad because all things knew that the glimmer was of day and not ofnight. Lo you, an image of the times to betide the hope of theFellowship of Men. Yet forsooth, it may well be that this bright day ofsummer which is now dawning upon us is no image of the beginning of theday that shall be; but rather shall that day-dawn be cold and grey andsurly; and yet by its light shall men see things as they verily are,and no longer enchanted by the gleam of the moon and the glamour of thedream-tide. By such grey light shall wise men and valiant souls seethe remedy, and deal with it, a real thing that may be touched andhandled, and no glory of the heavens to be worshipped from afar off.And what shall it be, as I told thee before, save that men shall bedetermined to be free; yea, free as thou wouldst have them, when thinehope rises the highest, and thou art thinking not of the king's uncles,and poll-groat bailiffs, and the villeinage of Essex, but of the end ofall, when men shall have the fruits of the earth and the fruits oftheir toil thereon, without money and without price. The time shallcome, John Ball, when that dream of thine that this shall one day be,shall be a thing that men shall talk of soberly, and as a thing soon tocome about, as even with thee they talk of the villeins becomingtenants paying their lord quit-rent; therefore, hast thou done well tohope it; and, if thou heedest this also, as I suppose thou heedest itlittle, thy name shall abide by thy hope in those days to come, andthou shalt not be forgotten."

I heard his voice come out of the twilight, scarcely seeing him, thoughnow the light was growing fast, as he said:

"Brother, thou givest me heart again; yet since now I wot well thatthou art a sending from far-off times and far-off things: tell thou, ifthou mayest, to a man who is going to his death how this shall comeabout."

"Only this may I tell thee" said I; "to thee, when thou didst try toconceive of them, the ways of the days to come seemed follies scarce tobe thought of; yet shall they come to be familiar things, and an orderby which every man liveth, ill as he liveth, so that men shall deem ofthem, that thus it hath been since the beginning of the world, and thatthus it shall be while the world endureth; and in this wise so shallthey be thought of a long while; and the complaint of the poor the richman shall heed, even as much and no more as he who lieth in pleasureunder the lime-trees in the summer heedeth the murmur of his toilingbees. Yet in time shall this also grow old, and doubt shall creep in,because men shall scarce be able to live by that order, and thecomplaint of the poor shall be hearkened, no longer as a tale notutterly grievous, but as a threat of ruin, and a fear. Then shall thesethings, which to thee seem follies, and to the men between thee and memere wisdom and the bond of stability, seem follies once again; yet,whereas men have so long lived by them, they shall cling to them yetfrom blindness and from fear; and those that see, and that have thusmuch conquered fear that they are furthering the real time that comethand not the dream that faileth, these men shall the blind and thefearful mock and missay, and torment and murder: and great and grievousshall be the strife in those days, and many the failures of the wise,and too oft sore shall be the despair of the valiant; and back-sliding,and doubt, and contest between friends and fellows lacking time in thehubbub to understand each other, shall grieve many hearts and hinderthe Host of the Fellowship: yet shall all bring about the end, till thydeeming of folly and ours shall be one, and thy hope and our hope; andthen—the Day will have come."

Once more I heard the voice of John Ball: "Now, brother, I sayfarewell; for now verily hath the Day of the Earth come, and thou and Iare lonely of each other again; thou hast been a dream to me as I tothee, and sorry and glad have we made each other, as tales of old timeand the longing of times to come shall ever make men to be. I go tolife and to death, and leave thee; and scarce do I know whether to wishthee some dream of the days beyond thine to tell what shall be, as thouhast told me, for I know not if that shall help or hinder thee; butsince we have been kind and very friends, I will not leave thee withouta wish of good-will, so at least I wish thee what thou thyself wishestfor thyself, and that is hopeful strife and blameless peace, which isto say in one word, life. Farewell, friend."

For some little time, although I had known that the daylight wasgrowing and what was around me, I had scarce seen the things I hadbefore noted so keenly; but now in a flash I saw all—the east crimsonwith sunrise through the white window on my right hand; therichly-carved stalls and gilded screen work, the pictures on the walls,the loveliness of the faultless colour of the mosaic window lights, thealtar and the red light over it looking strange in the daylight, andthe biers with the hidden dead men upon them that lay before the highaltar. A great pain filled my heart at the sight of all that beauty,and withal I heard quick steps coming up the paved church-path to theporch, and the loud whistle of a sweet old tune therewith; then thefootsteps stopped at the door; I heard the latch rattle, and knew thatWill Green's hand was on the ring of it.

Then I strove to rise up, but fell back again; a white light, empty ofall sights, broke upon me for a moment, and lo I behold, I was lying inmy familiar bed, the south-westerly gale rattling the Venetian blindsand making their hold-fasts squeak.

I got up presently, and going to the window looked out on the wintermorning; the river was before me broad between outer bank and bank, butit was nearly dead ebb, and there was a wide space of mud on each sideof the hurrying stream, driven on the faster as it seemed by the pushof the south-west wind. On the other side of the water the fewwillow-trees left us by the Thames Conservancy looked doubtfully aliveagainst the bleak sky and the row of wretched-looking blue-slatedhouses, although, by the way, the latter were the backs of a sort ofstreet of "villas" and not a slum; the road in front of the house wassooty and muddy at once, and in the air was that sense of dirtydiscomfort which one is never quit of in London. The morning washarsh, too, and though the wind was from the south-west it was as coldas a north wind; and yet amidst it all, I thought of the corner of thenext bight of the river which I could not quite see from where I was,but over which one can see clear of houses and into Richmond Park,looking like the open country; and dirty as the river was, and harsh aswas the January wind, they seemed to woo me toward the country-side,where away from the miseries of the "Great Wen" I might of my own willcarry on a daydream of the friends I had made in the dream of the nightand against my will.

But as I turned away shivering and downhearted, on a sudden came thefrightful noise of the "hooters," one after the other, that call theworkmen to the factories, this one the after-breakfast one, more bytoken. So I grinned surlily, and dressed and got ready for my day's"work" as I call it, but which many a man besides John Ruskin (thoughnot many in his position) would call "play."

A KING'S LESSON

It is told of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary—the Alfred the Greatof his time and people—that he once heard (once ONLY?) that some (onlySOME, my lad?) of his peasants were over-worked and under-fed. So hesent for his Council, and bade come thereto also some of the mayors ofthe good towns, and some of the lords of land and their bailiffs, andasked them of the truth thereof; and in diverse ways they all told oneand the same tale, how the peasant carles were stout and well able towork and had enough and to spare of meat and drink, seeing that theywere but churls; and how if they worked not at the least as hard asthey did, it would be ill for them and ill for their lords; for thatthe more the churl hath the more he asketh; and that when he knowethwealth, he knoweth the lack of it also, as it fared with our firstparents in the Garden of God. The King sat and said but little whilethey spake, but he misdoubted them that they were liars. So theCouncil brake up with nothing done; but the King took the matter toheart, being, as kings go, a just man, besides being more valiant thanthey mostly were, even in the old feudal time. So within two or threedays, says the tale, he called together such lords and councillors ashe deemed fittest, and bade busk them for a ride; and when they wereready he and they set out, over rough and smooth, decked out in all theglory of attire which was the wont of those days. Thus they rode tillthey came to some village or thorpe of the peasant folk, and through itto the vineyards where men were working on the sunny southern slopesthat went up from the river: my tale does not say whether that wereTheiss, or Donau, or what river. Well, I judge it was late spring orearly summer, and the vines but just beginning to show their grapes;for the vintage is late in those lands, and some of the grapes are notgathered till the first frosts have touched them, whereby the wine madefrom them is the stronger and sweeter. Anyhow there were the peasants,men and women, boys and young maidens, toiling and swinking; somehoeing between the vine-rows, some bearing baskets of dung up the steepslopes, some in one way, some in another, labouring for the fruit theyshould never eat, and the wine they should never drink. Thereto turnedthe King and got off his horse and began to climb up the stony ridgesof the vineyard, and his lords in like manner followed him, wonderingin their hearts what was toward; but to the one who was following nextafter him he turned about and said with a smile, "Yea, lords, this is anew game we are playing to-day, and a new knowledge will come from it."And the lord smiled, but somewhat sourly.

As for the peasants, great was their fear of those gay and goldenlords. I judge that they did not know the King, since it was littlelikely that any one of them had seen his face; and they knew of him butas the Great Father, the mighty warrior who kept the Turk from harryingtheir thorpe. Though, forsooth, little matter was it to any man therewhether Turk or Magyar was their over-lord, since to one master oranother they had to pay the due tale of labouring days in the year, andhard was the livelihood that they earned for themselves on the dayswhen they worked for themselves and their wives and children.

Well, belike they knew not the King; but amidst those rich lords theysaw and knew their own lord, and of him they were sore afraid. Butnought it availed them to flee away from those strong men and stronghorses—they who had been toiling from before the rising of the sun,and now it wanted little more than an hour of noon: besides, with theKing and lords was a guard of crossbowmen, who were left the other sideof the vineyard wall,—keen-eyed Italians of the mountains, straightshooters of the bolt. So the poor folk fled not; nay they made as ifall this were none of their business, and went on with their work. Forindeed each man said to himself, "If I be the one that is not slain,to-morrow I shall lack bread if I do not work my hardest to-day; andmaybe I shall be headman if some of these be slain and I live."

Now comes the King amongst them and says: "Good fellows, which of youis the headman?"

Spake a man, sturdy and sunburnt, well on in years and grizzled: "I amthe headman, lord."

"Give me thy hoe, then," says the King; "for now shall I order thismatter myself, since these lords desire a new game, and are fain towork under me at vine-dressing. But do thou stand by me and set meright if I order them wrong: but the rest of you go play!"

The carle knew not what to think, and let the King stand with his handstretched out, while he looked askance at his own lord and baron, whowagged his head at him grimly as one who says, "Do it, dog!"

Then the carle lets the hoe come into the King's hand; and the Kingfalls to, and orders his lords for vine-dressing, to each his due shareof the work: and whiles the carle said yea and whiles nay to hisordering. And then ye should have seen velvet cloaks cast off, andmantles of fine Flemish scarlet go to the dusty earth; as the lords andknights busked them to the work.

So they buckled to; and to most of them it seemed good game to play atvine-dressing. But one there was who, when his scarlet cloak was off,stood up in a doublet of glorious Persian web of gold and silk, such asmen make not now, worth a hundred florins the Bremen ell. Unto him theKing with no smile on his face gave the job of toing and froing up anddown the hill with the biggest and the frailest dung-basket that therewas; and thereat the silken lord screwed up a grin, that was sport tosee, and all the lords laughed; and as he turned away he said, yet sothat none heard him, "Do I serve this son's son of a whore that heshould bid me carry dung?" For you must know that the King's father,John Hunyad, one of the great warriors of the world, the Hammer of theTurks, was not gotten in wedlock, though he were a king's son.

Well, they sped the work bravely for a while, and loud was the laughteras the hoes smote the earth and the flint stones tinkled and the cloudof dust rose up; the brocaded dung-bearer went up and down, cursing andswearing by the White God and the Black; and one would say to another,"See ye how gentle blood outgoes churls' blood, even when the gentledoes the churl's work: these lazy loons smote but one stroke to ourthree." But the King, who worked no worse than any, laughed not atall; and meanwhile the poor folk stood by, not daring to speak a wordone to the other; for they were still sore afraid, not now of beingslain on the spot, but this rather was in their hearts: "These greatand strong lords and knights have come to see what work a man may dowithout dying: if we are to have yet more days added to our year's taleof lords' labour, then are we lost without remedy." And their heartssank within them.

So sped the work; and the sun rose yet higher in the heavens, and itwas noon and more. And now there was no more laughter among thosetoiling lords, and the strokes of the hoe and mattock came far slower,while the dung-bearer sat down at the bottom of the hill and looked outon the river; but the King yet worked on doggedly, so for shame theother lords yet kept at it. Till at last the next man to the King lethis hoe drop with a clatter, and swore a great oath. Now he was astrong black-bearded man in the prime of life, a valiant captain ofthat famous Black Band that had so often rent the Turkish array; andthe King loved him for his sturdy valour; so he says to him, "Is aughtwrong, Captain?"

"Nay, lord," says he, "ask the headman carle yonder what ails us."

"Headman," says the King, "what ails these strong knights? Have Iordered them wrongly?"

"Nay, but shirking ails them, lord," says he, "for they are weary; andno wonder, for they have been playing hard, and are of gentle blood."

"Is that so, lord," says the King, "that ye are weary already?"

Then the rest hung their heads and said nought, all save that captainof war; and he said, being a bold man and no liar: "King, I see whatthou wouldst be at; thou hast brought us here to preach us a sermonfrom that Plato of thine; and to say sooth, so that I may swink nomore, and go eat my dinner, now preach thy worst! Nay, if thou wilt bepriest I will be thy deacon. Wilt thou that I ask this labouring carlea thing or two?"

"Yea," said the King. And there came, as it were, a cloud of thoughtover his face.

Then the captain straddled his legs and looked big, and said to thecarle: "Good fellow, how long have we been working here?"

"Two hours or thereabout, judging by the sun above us," says he.

"And how much of thy work have we done in that while?" says thecaptain, and winks his eye at him withal.

"Lord," says the carle, grinning a little despite himself, "be notwroth with my word. In the first half-hour ye did five-and-fortyminutes' work of ours, and in the next half-hour scant a thirtyminutes' work, and the third half-hour a fifteen minutes' work, and inthe fourth half-hour two minutes' work." The grin now had faded fromhis face, but a gleam came into his eyes as he said: "And now, as Isuppose, your day's work is done, and ye will go to your dinner, andeat the sweet and drink the strong; and we shall eat a littlerye-bread, and then be working here till after the sun has set and themoon has begun to cast shadows. Now for you, I wot not how ye shallsleep nor where, nor what white body ye shall hold in your arms whilethe night flits and the stars shine; but for us, while the stars yetshine, shall we be at it again, and bethink ye for what! I know notwhat game and play ye shall be devising for to-morrow as ye ride backhome; but for us when we come back here to-morrow, it shall be as ifthere had been no yesterday and nothing done therein, and that work ofthat to-day shall be nought to us also, for we shall win no respitefrom our toil thereby, and the morrow of to-morrow will all be to beginagain once more, and so on and on till no to-morrow abideth us.Therefore, if ye are thinking to lay some new tax or tale upon us,think twice of it, for we may not bear it. And all this I say with theless fear, because I perceive this man here beside me, in the blackvelvet jerkin and the gold chain on his neck, is the King; nor do Ithink he will slay me for my word since he hath so many a Turk beforehim and his mighty sword!"

Then said the captain: "Shall I smite the man, O King? or hath hepreached thy sermon for thee?"

"Smite not, for he hath preached it," said the King. "Hearken to thecarle's sermon, lords and councillors of mine! Yet when another hathspoken our thought, other thoughts are born therefrom, and now have Ianother sermon to preach; but I will refrain me as now. Let us downand to our dinner."

So they went, the King and his gentles, and sat down by the river underthe rustle of the poplars, and they ate and drank and were merry. Andthe King bade bear up the broken meats to the vine-dressers, and a gooddraught of the archer's wine, and to the headman he gave a broad goldpiece, and to each man three silver pennies. But when the poor folkhad all that under their hands, it was to them as though the kingdom ofheaven had come down to earth.

In the cool of the evening home rode the King and his lords. The Kingwas distraught and silent; but at last the captain, who rode besidehim, said to him: "Preach me now thine after-sermon, O King!"

"I think thou knowest it already," said the King, "else hadst thou notspoken in such wise to the carle; but tell me what is thy craft and thecraft of all these, whereby ye live, as the potter by making pots, andso forth?"

Said the captain: "As the potter lives by making pots, so we live byrobbing the poor."

Again said the King: "And my trade?"

Said he, "Thy trade is to be a king of such thieves, yet no worser thanthe rest."

The King laughed.

"Bear that in mind," said he, "and then shall I tell thee my thoughtwhile yonder carle spake. 'Carle,' I thought, 'were I thou or such asthou, then would I take in my hand a sword or a spear, or were it onlya hedge-stake, and bid others do the like, and forth would we go; andsince we would be so many, and with nought to lose save a miserablelife, we would do battle and prevail, and make an end of the craft ofkings and of lords and of usurers, and there should be but one craft inthe world, to wit, to work merrily for ourselves and to live merrilythereby.'"

Said the captain: "This then is thy sermon. Who will heed it if thoupreach it?"

Said the King: "They who will take the mad king and put him in aking's madhouse, therefore do I forbear to preach it. Yet it SHALL bepreached."

"And not heeded," said the captain, "save by those who head and hangthe setters forth of new things that are good for the world. Our tradeis safe for many an many a generation."

And therewith they came to the King's palace, and they ate and drankand slept and the world went on its ways.

Related articles