THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES /V^-t^atx? \ A DREAM OF JOHN BALL AND A KING'S LESSON WHEN ADAM DELVED AND EVE SPAN WHO WAS THEN THE GENTLEMAN? A DREAM OF JOHN BALL AND A KING'S LESSON BY WILLIAM MORRIS LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1910 Pint printed in tin '' Commonweal" 1886-7. First edition in book form, ii-'ith frontispiece, 1 888. Often reprinted -without frontispiece. Kelmscott Press edition, 1892. Reset, ivith frontispiece , J.inuary 1903. Reprinted June 1907, and January 1910. 250 copies reprinted on liand-made paper, March 1903. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGH THE MEN OF KENT I CHAPTER II THE MAN FROM ESSEX 13 CHAPTER III THEY MEET AT THE CROSS 24 CHAPTER IV THE VOICE OF JOHN BALL 31 CHAPTER V THEY HEAR TIDINGS OF BATTLE AND MAKE THEM READY -49 CHAPTER VI THE BA1TLE AT THE TOWNSHIP'S END . 61 vii CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAGK MORE WORDS AT THE CROSS 82 CHAPTER VIII SUPPER AT WILL GREEN'S 90 CHAPTER IX BETWIXT THE LIVING AND THE DEAD ... 99 CHAPTER X THOSE TWO TALK OF THE DAYS TO COME . . in CHAPTER XI HARD IT IS FOR THE OLD WORLD TO SEE THE NEW 112 CHAPTER XII ILL WOULD CHANGE BE AT WHILES WERE IT NOT FOR THE CHANGE BEYOND THE CHANGE . 133 A KING'S LESSON . 155 Vlll A DREAM OF JOHN BALL CHAPTER I THE MEN OF KENT C OMETIMES I am rewarded for fretting my- ^ self so much about present matters by a quite unasked-for pleasant dream. I mean when I am asleep. This dream is as it were a present of an architectural peep-show. I see some beautiful and noble building new made, as it were for the occasion, as clearly as if I were awake ; not vague- ly or absurdly, as often happens in dreams, but with all the detail clear and reasonable. Some Elizabethan house with its scrap of earlier four- teenth-century building, and its later degrada- tions of Queen Anne and Silly Billy and Victoria, marring but not destroying it, in an old village A A DREAM OF JOHN BALL once a clearing amid the sandy woodlands of Sussex. Or an old and unusually curious church, much church warden ed, and beside it a frag- ment of fifteenth- century domestic architecture amongst the not unpicturesque lath and plaster of an Essex farm, and looking natural enough among the sleepy elms and the meditative hens scratching about in the litter of the farmyard, whose trodden yellow straw comes up to the very jambs of the richly carved Norman doorway of the church. Or sometimes 'tis a splendid col- legiate church, untouched by restoring parson and architect, standing amid an island of shapely trees and flower-beset cottages of thatched grey stone and cob, amidst the narrow stretch of bright green water - meadows that wind between the sweeping Wiltshire Downs, so well beloved of William Cobbett. Or some new-seen and yet familiar cluster of houses in a grey village of the upper Thames overtopped by the delicate tracery of a fourteenth-century church ; or even some- times the very buildings of the past untouched by the degradation of the sordid utilitarianism A DREAM OF JOHN BALL that cares not and knows not of beauty and his- tory : as once, when I was journeying (in a dream of the night) down the well-remembered reaches of the Thames betwixt Streatley and Walling- ford, where the foot-hills of the White Horse fall back from the broad stream, I came upon a clear- seen mediaeval town standing up with roof and tower and spire within its walls, grey and ancient, but untouched from the days of its builders of old. All this I have seen in the dreams of the night clearer than I can force myself to see them in dreams of the day. So that it would have been nothing new to me the other night to fall into an architectural dream if that were all, and yet I have to tell of things strange and new that befell me after I had fallen asleep. I had begun my sojourn in the Land of Nod by a very confused attempt to conclude that it was all right for me to have an engagement to lecture at Manchester and Mitcham Fair Green at half-past eleven at night on one and the same Sunday, and that I could manage pretty well. And then I had gone on to try to make the best of addressing a large 3 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL open-air audience in the costume I was really then wearing to wit, my night-shirt, reinforced for the dream occasion by a pair of braceless trou- sers. The consciousness of this fact so bothered me, that the earnest faces of my audience who would not notice it, but were clearly preparing terrible anti-Socialist posers for me began to fade away and my dream grew thin, and I awoke (as I thought) to find myself lying on a strip of wayside waste by an oak copse just outside a country village. I got up and rubbed my eyes and looked about me, and the landscape seemed unfamiliar to me, though it was, as to the lie of the land, an ordi- nary English low-country, swelling into rising ground here and there. The road was narrow, and I was convinced that it was a piece of Roman road from its straightness. Copses were scattered over the country, and there were signs of two or three villages and hamlets in sight besides the one near me, between which and me there was some orchard-land, where the early apples were beginning to redden on the trees. Also, just on 4 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL the other side of the road and the ditch which ran along it, was a small close of about a quarter of an acre, neatly hedged with quick, which was nearly full of white poppies, and, as far as I could see for the hedge, had also a good few rose-bushes of the bright-red nearly single kind, which I had heard are the ones from which rose-water used to be distilled. Otherwise the land was quiteunhedged, but all under tillage of various kinds, mostly in small strips. From the other side of a copse not far off rose a tall spire white and brand-new, but at once bold in outline and unaffectedly graceful and also distinctly English in character. This, together with the unhedged tillage and a certain unwonted trimness and handiness about the en- closures of the garden and orchards, puzzled me for a minute or two, as I did not understand, new as the spire was, how it could have been designed by a modern architect ; and I was of course used to the hedged tillage and tumble-down bankrupt- looking surroundings of our modern agriculture. So that the garden-like neatness and trimness of everything surprised me. But after a minute or 5 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL two that surprise left me entirely ; and if what I saw and heard afterwards seems strange to you, remember that it did not seem strange to me at the time, except where now and again I shall tell you of it. Also, once for all, if I were to give you the very words of those who spoke to me you would scarcely understand them, although their language was English too, and at the time I could understand them at once. Well, as I stretched myself and turned my face toward the village, I heard horse-hoofs on the road, and presently a man and horse showed on the other end of the stretch of road and drew near at a swinging trot with plenty of clash of metal. The man soon came up to me, but paid me no more heed than throwing me a nod. He was clad in armour of mingled steel and leather, a sword girt to his side, and over his shoulder a long-handled bill-hook. His armour was fan- tastic in form and well wrought; but by this time I was quite used to the strangeness of him, and merely muttered to myself, ' He is coming to summon the squire to the leet ' ; so I turned to- 6 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL ward the village in good earnest. Nor, again, was I surprised at my own garments, although I might well have been from their unwontedness. I was dressed in a black cloth gown reaching to my ankles, neatly embroidered about the collar and cuffs, with wide sleeves gathered in at the wrists; a hood with a sort of bag hanging down from it was on my head, a broad red leather girdle round my waist, on one side of which hung a pouch embroidered very prettily and a case made of hard leather chased with a hunting scene, which I knew to be a pen and ink case; on the other side a small sheath-knife, only an arm in case of dire necessity. Well, I came into the village, where I did not see (nor by this time expected to see) a single modern building, although many of them were nearly new, notably the church, which was large, and quite ravished my heart with its extreme beauty, elegance, and fitness. The chancel of this was so new that the dust of the stone still lay white on the midsummer grass beneath the carvings of the windows. The houses were al- 7 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL most all built of oak frame-work filled with cob or plaster well whitewashed ; though some had their lower stories of rubble-stone, with their windows and doors of well-moulded free- stone. There was much curious and inventive carving about most of them ; and though some were old and much worn, there was the same look of deftness and trimness, and even beauty, about every detail in them which I noticed before in the field-work. They were all roofed with oak shingles, mostly grown as grey as stone ; but one was so newly built that its roof was yet pale and yellow. This was a corner house, and the corner post of it had a carved niche wherein stood a gaily painted figure holding an anchor St. Clement to wit, as the dweller in the house was a blacksmith. Half a stone's throw from the east end of the churchyard wall was a tall cross of stone, new like the church, the head beauti- fully carved with a crucifix amidst leafage. It stood on a set of wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, where three roads from other villages met and formed a wide open space on which a thou- 8 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL sand people or more could stand together with no great crowding. All this I saw, and also that there was a good- ish many people about, women and children, and a few old men at the doors, many of them some- what gaily clad, and that men were coming into the village street by 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 linen yellow with wax or oil ; they had quivers at their backs, and most of them a short sword by their left side, and a pouch and knife on the right ; they were mostly dressed in red or brightish green or blue cloth jerkins, with a hood on the head generally of another colour. As they came nearer I saw that the cloth of their garments was somewhat coarse, but stout and serviceable. I knew, somehow, that they had been shooting at the butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a noise of men thereabout, and even now and again when the wind set from that quar- ter the twang of the bowstring and the plump of the shaft in the target. 9 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL I leaned against the churchyard wall and watched these men, some of whom went straight into their houses and some loitered about still ; they were rough-looking fellows, tall and stout, very black some of them, and some red-haired, but most had hair burnt by the sun into the colour of tow ; and, indeed, they were all burned and tanned and freckled variously. Their arms and buckles and belts and the finishings and hems of their garments were all what we should now call beautiful, rough as the men were ; nor in their speech was anv of that drawling snarl or thick vulgarity which one is used to hear from labourers in civilisation; not that they talked like gentlemen either, but full and round and bold, and they were merry and good-tempered enough; 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 a huge bow in his hand bare of the case, a knife, a pouch, and a short hatchet, all clattering toge- ther at his girdle. JO A DREAM OF JOHN BALL ' Well, friend,' said he, ' thou lookest partly mazed ; what tongue hast thou 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 a few small and thin silver coins with a cross stamped on each, and three pellets in each corner of the cross. The man grinned. ' Aha ! ' said he, ' is it so ? Never heed it, mate. It shall be a song for 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 there too.' He seemed to hesitate a moment, and then leant forward and whispered in my ear : ' John ii A DREAM OF JOHN BALL the Miller, that ground small, small, small* and stopped and winked at me, and from between my lips without my mind forming any meaning came the words, ' The king's son of heaven shall pay for all' He let his bow fall on to his shoulder, caught my right hand in his and gave it a great grip, while his left hand fell among the gear at his O O belt, and I could see that he half drew his knife. ' Well, brother,' said he, ' stand not here hungry in the highway when there 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 drink- ing meditatively from curiously shaped earthen pots glazed green and yellow, some with quaint devices on them. 12 CHAPTER II THE MAN FROM ESSEX T ENTERED the door and started at first * with my old astonishment, with which I had woke up, so strange and beautiful did this in- terior seem to me, though it was but a pothouse parlour. A quaintly carved side-board held an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden and earthen bowls; a stout oak table went up and down the room, and a carved oak chair stood by the chimney-corner, now filled by a very old man dim-eyed and white-bearded. That, except the rough stools and benches on which the company sat, was all the furniture. The walls were panelled roughly enough with oak boards to about six feet from the floor, and about three feet of plaster above that was wrought in a pattern of a rose stem running all A DREAM OF JOHN BALL round the room, freely and roughly done, but with (as it seemed to my unused eyes) wonder- ful skill and spirit. On the hood of the great chimney a huge rose was wrought in the plas- ter and brightly painted in its proper colours. There were a dozen or more of the men I had seen coming along the street sitting there, some eating and all drinking ; their cased bows leaned against the wall, their quivers hung on pegs in the panelling, and in a corner of the room I saw half-a-dozen bill-hooks that looked made more for war than 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 seemed little troubled by it, although they were talking earnestly and seriously too. A well-made comely girl leaned up against the chimney close to the gaffer's chair, and seemed to be in waiting on the company : she was clad in a close-fitting gown of bright blue cloth, with a broad silver girdle, daintily wrought, round her loins, a rose wreath was on A DREAM OF JOHN BALL her head and her hair hung down unbound ; the gaffer grumbled a few words to her from time to time, so that I judged he was her grandfather. The men all looked up as we came into the room, my mate leading me by the 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 that it 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 in a bigger company: * It seemeth from heaven, since this good old lad hath 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 him between 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, as clear and sudden as a shot 15 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL from a gun. For I must tell you that I knew somehow, but I know not how, that the men of Essex were gathering to rise against the poll- groat bailiffs and the lords that would turn them all into villeins again, as their grandfathers had been. And the people was weak and the lords were poor ; for many a mother's son had fallen in the war in France in the old king's time, and the Black Death had slain a many ; so that the lords had bethought them : ' We are growing poorer, and these upland-bred villeins are grow- ing richer, and the guilds of craft are waxing in the towns, and soon what will there be left for us who cannot weave and will not dig ? Good it were if we fell on all who are not guildsmen or men of free land, if we fell on soccage tenants and others, and brought both the law and the strong hand on them, and made them all villeins in deed as they are now in name ; 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 16 collar on their necks again, and make their day's work longer and their bever-time shorter, as the good statute of the old king bade. And good it were if the Holy Church were to look to it (and the Lollards might help herein) that all these naughty and wearisome holidays were done away with ; or that it should be unlawful for any man below the degree of a squire to keep the holy days of the church, except in the heart and the spirit only, and let the body labour meanwhile ; for does not the Apostle say, ' If a man work not, neither should he eat'? And if such things were done, and such an estate of noble rich men and worthy poor men upholden for ever, then would it be good times in England, and life were worth the living.' All this were the lords at work on, and such talk I knew was common not only among the lords themselves, but also among their sergeants and very serving-men. But the people would not abide it ; therefore, as I said, in Essex they were on the point of rising, and word had gone how that at St. Albans they were wellnigh at 17 B A DREAM OF JOHN BALL blows with the Lord Abbot's soldiers; that north away at Norwich John Litster was wiping the woad from his arms, as who would have to stain them red again, but not with grain or madder ; and that the valiant tiler of Dartford had smitten a poll-groat bailiff to death with his lath-rending axe for mishandling a young 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 the thought of their fellows the men of Essex, but rather that they said little more about it ; only Will Green saying quietly, 'Well, the tidings shall be told when our fellow- ship is greater; fall- to now on the meat, brother, that we may the sooner have thy tale.' As he spoke the blue-clad damsel bestirred herself and brought me a clean trencher that is, a square piece of thin oak board scraped clean and a pewter pot of liquor. So without more ado, and as one used to it, I drew my knife out of my girdle and cut myself what I would of the flesh and bread on the table. But Will Green mocked at me as I cut, and said, ' Certes. brother, thou 18 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL hast not been a lord's carver, though but for thy word thou mightest have been his reader. Hast thou seen Oxford, scholar ? ' A vision of grey-roofed houses and a long winding street and the sound of many bells came over me at that word as I nodded * Yes ' to him, my mouth full of salt pork and rye-bread ; and then I lifted my pot and we made the clattering mugs kiss and I drank, and the fire of the good Kentish mead ran through my veins and deep- ened my dream of things past, present, and to come, as I said : ' Now hearken a tale, since ye will have it so. For last autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town of Dunwich, and thither came the keels from Iceland, and on them were some men of Iceland, and many a tale they had on their tongues ; and with these men I foregathered, for I am in sooth a gatherer of tales, and this 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 the words seemed to quicken and grow, so that I knew not the sound of my own voice, and they ran almost into rhyme and A DREAM OF JOHN BALL measure as I told it ; and when I had done there was silence awhile, till one man spake, but not loudly : ' Yea, in that land was the summer short and the winter long ; but men lived both summer and winter; and if the trees grew ill and the corn throve not, yet did the plant called man thrive and do well. God send us such men even here.' ' Nay,' said another, ' such men have been and will be, and belike are not far from this same door even now.' ' Yea,' said a third, ' hearken a stave of Robin Hood ; maybe that shall hasten the coming of one I wot of.' And he fell to singing in a clear voice, for he was a young man, and to a sweet wild melody, one of those ballads which in an incomplete and degraded form you have read perhaps. My heart rose high as I heard him, for it was concerning the struggle against tyr- rany for the freedom of life, how that the wild wood and the heath, despite of wind and weather, were better for a free man than the court and 20 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL the cheaping-town ; of the taking from the rich to give to the poor ; of the life of a man doing his own will and not the will of another man commanding him for the commandment's sake. The men all listened eagerly, and at whiles took up as a refrain a couplet at the end 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 were indeed, no park-like dainty glades and lawns, but rough and tangled thicket and bare waste and heath, solemn under the morning sun, and dreary with the rising of the evening wind and the drift of the night-long rain. When he had done, another began in some- thing of the same strain, but singing more of a song than a story ballad ; and thus much I re- member of it : The Sheriff" is made a mighty lord. Of goodly gold he hath enow. And many a sergeant girt with sword ; But forth 'will ROTHER,' said John Ball, 'how deemest U thou of our adventure ? I do not 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 this church can I see ? ' * Far further,' quoth he, * for I wot that thou art a scholar and hast read books ; and withal, in some way that I cannot name, thou knowest more than we ; as though with thee the world had lived longer than with us. Hide not, therefore, what thou hast in thine 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 in A DREAM OF JOHN BALL rather ask thou the years to come to tell thee some little of their tale ; and yet methinks thou thyself mayest have some deeming thereof.' He raised himself on the elbow of the stall and looked me full in the face, and said to me : ' Is it so after all that thou art no man in the flesh, but art sent to me by the Master of the Fellowship, and the King's Son of Heaven, to tell me what shall be ? If that be so tell me straight out, since I had some deeming hereof before ; whereas thy speech is like ours and yet unlike, and thy face hath something in it which is not after the fash- ion of our day. And yet take heed, if thou art such an one, I fear thee not, nay, nor him that sent thee ; nor for thy bidding, nor for his, will I turn back from London Bridge but will press on, for I do what is meet and right.' 4 Nay,' said I, 'did I not tell thee e'en now that I knew life but not death ? I am not dead ; and as to who hath sent me, I say not that I am come by my own will ; for I know not ; yet also I know not the will that hath sent me hither. And this I say to thee, moreover, that if I know more than 112 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL thou, I do far less ; therefore thou art my captain and I thy minstrel.' 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 me how deemest thou of our adventure : shall we come to London, and how shall we fare there ? ' Said I, 'What shall hinder you to come to London, and to fare there as ye 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 ; nor hath the Court any great force to meet you in the field ; ye shall cast fear 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 the soldiers be slain, and of them most not on the field, but by the lawyers, how shall the captains escape ? Surely thou goest to thy death.' He smiled very sweetly, yet proudly, as he 113 H A DREAM OF JOHN BALL said : ' Yea, the road is long, but the end cometh at last. Friend, many a day have I been dying ; for my sister, with whom I have played and been merry in the autumn tide about the edges of the stubble-fields ; and we gathered the nuts and bramble -berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush, and wondered at his voice and thought him big ; and the sparrow-hawk wheeled 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 sat happy on the grass ; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she pined from famine after the years of the great sickness ; and my brother was slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying save he that stripped him of his gear ; and my unwedded wife with whom I dwelt in love after I had taken the tonsure, and all men said she was good and fair, and true she was and lovely; she also is dead and gone from the earth; and why should I abide save for the deeds of the flesh which must be done ? Truly, friend, this is but an old tale that men must die ; and I will 114 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL tell thee another, to wit, that they live : and I live now 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, and the 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 great way before their own noses. The victory shall they have and shall not know what to do with it; they shall fight and overcome, because of their lack of knowledge, and because of their lack of knowledge shall they be cozened and betrayed when their captains are slain, and all shall 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 for them. And yet when the lords have vanquished, and all England lieth under them again, yet shall their victory be fruitless ; for the free men that hold unfree lands shall they not bring under the collar again, and villeinage shall slip from their hands, A DREAM OF JOHN BALL till there be, and not long after ye are dead, but few unfree men in England ; so that your lives and your deaths both shall bear fruit.' * Said I not,' quoth John Ball, * that thou wert a sending from other times ? Good is thy mes- sage, for the land shall be free Tell on now.' He spoke eagerly, and I went on somewhat sadly : ' The times shall better, though the king and lords shall worsen, the Gilds of Craft shall wax and become mightier ; more recourse shall there be of foreign merchants. There shall be plenty in the land and not famine. Where a man now earneth two pennies he shall earn three.' ' Yea,' said he, * then shall those that labour become strong and stronger, and so soon shall it come about that all men shall work and none make to work, and so shall none be robbed, and at last shall all men labour and live and be happy, and have the goods of the earth without money and without price.' * Yea,' said I, ' that shall indeed come to pass, but not yet for a while, and belike a long while.' 116 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL And I sat for long without speaking, and the church grew darker as the moon waned yet more. Then I said : ' Bethink thee that these men shall yet have masters over them, 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 they shall suffer poor people to thrive just so long as their thriv- ing shall profit the mastership and no longer ; and so shall it be in those days I tell of; for there shall be king and lords and knights and squires still, with servants to do their bidding, and make honest men afraid ; and all these will make nothing and eat much as aforetime, and the more that is made in the land the more shall they crave.' ' Yea,' said he, * that wot I well, that these are of the kin of the daughters of the horse-leech ; but how shall they slake their greed, seeing that as thou sayest villeinage shall be gone ? Belike their men shall pay them quit-rents and do them service, as free men may, but all this according to law and not beyond it ; so that though the 117 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL workers shall be richer than they now be, the lords shall be no richer, and so all shall be on the road to being free and equal.' Said I, 'Look you, friend; aforetime the lords, for the most part, held the land and all that was on it, and the men that were on it worked for them as their horses worked, and after they were fed and housed all was the lords' ; but in the time to come the lords shall see their men thriving on the land and shall say once more, "These men have more than they need, why have we not the surplus since we are their lords ? " Moreover, in those days shall betide much chaf- fering for wares between man and man, and country and country ; and the lords shall note that if there were less corn and less men on their lands there would be more sheep, that is to say more wool for chaffer, and that thereof they should have abundantly more than afore- time ; since all the land they own, and it pays them quit-rent or service, save here and there a croft or a close of a yeoman ; and all this might grow wool for them to sell to the Easterlings. 118 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL Then shall England see a new thing, for whereas hitherto men have lived on the land and by it, the land shall no longer need them, but many sheep and a few shepherds shall make wool grow to be sold for money to the Easterlings, and that money shall the lords pouch : for, look you, they shall set the lawyers a-work and the strong hand moreover, and the land they shall take to themselves and their sheep ; and except for these lords of land few shall be the free men that shall hold a rood of land whom the word of their lord may not turn adrift straight- way.' * 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 few shall be thralls to be bought and sold at the cross.' ' Good friend,' said I, ' it shall not be so ; all men shall be free even as ye would have it ; yet, as I say, few indeed shall have so much land as 119 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL they can stand upon save by buying such a grace of their masters.' ' And now,' said he, ' I wot not what thou say- est. I know a thrall, and he 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 nought whereby to make his livelihood ? Or shall he be a thief and take from others ? Then is he an outlaw. Wonderful is this thou tellest of a free man with nought whereby to live ! ' ' Yet so shall it be,' said I, ' and by such free men shall all wares be made.' 'Nay, that cannot be; thou art talkingriddles,' said he ; ' for how shall a wood-wright make a chest without the wood and the tools ? ' Said I, * He must needs buy leave to labour of them that own all things except himself and such as himself.' ' Yea, but wherewith shall he buy it ? ' said John Ball. * What hath he except himself? ' 'With himself then shall he buy it,' quoth I, 120 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL 'with his body and the power of labour that lieth therein ; with the price of his labour shall he buy leave to labour.' ' Riddles again ! ' said he; ' how can he sell his labour for aught else but his daily bread ? He must win by his labour meat and drink and cloth- ing 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 to work, and that master shall give to him from out of the wares he maketh enough to keep him alive, and to beget children and nourish them till they be old enough to be sold like himself, and the resi- due shall the rich man keep to himself.' John Ball laughed aloud, and said : ' Well, I perceive we are not yet out of the land of riddles. The man may well do what thou sayest and live, but he may not do it and live a free man/ ' Thou sayest sooth,' said I. 121 CHAPTER XI HARD IT IS FOR THE OLD WORLD TO SEE THE NEW 1TTE held his peace awhile, and then he said : *- * ' But no man selleth himself and his chil- dren into thraldom uncompelled; nor is any fool so great a fool as willingly to take the name of freeman and the life of a thrall as payment for the very life of a freeman. Now would I ask thee somewhat else ; and I am the readier to do so since I perceive that thou art a wondrous seer ; for surely no man could of his own wit have ima- gined a tale of such follies as thou hast told me. Now well I wot that men having once shaken themselves clear of the burden of villeinage, as thou sayest we shall do (and I bless thee for the word), shall never bow down to this worser tyr- anny without sore strife in the world ; and surely 122 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL so sore shall it be, before our valiant sons give way, that maids and little lads shall take the sword and the spear, and in many a field men's blood and not water shall turn the grist-mills of England. But when all this is over, and the tyr- anny is established, because there are but few men in the land after the great war, how shall it be with you then ? Will there not be many soldiers and sergeants and few workers ? Surely in every parish ye shall have the constables to see that the men work ; and they shall be saying every day, " Such an one, hast thou yet sold thy- self for this day or this week or this year ? Go to now, and get thy bargain done, or it shall be the worse for thee." And wheresoever work is going on there shall be constables again, and those that labour shall labour under the whip like the Heb- rews in the land of Egypt. And every man that may, will steal as a dog snatches at a bone ; and there again shall ye need more soldiers and more constables till the land is eaten up by them ; nor shall the lords and the masters even be able to bear the burden of it ; nor will their gains be so 123 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL great, since that which each man may do in a day is not right great when all is said.' * Friend,' said I, ' from thine own valiancy and high heart thou speakest, when thou sayest that they who fall under this tyranny shall fight to the death against it. Wars indeed there shall be in the world, great and grievous, and yet few on this score ; rather shall men fight as they have been fighting in France at the bidding of some lord of the manor, or some king, or at last at the bid- ding of some usurer and forestaller of the mar- ket. Valiant men, forsooth, shall arise in the beginning of these evil times, but though they shall die as ye shall, 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 againstusury which is waxing. And, moreover, I have been telling thee how it shall be when the measure of the time is full ; and we, looking at these things from afar, can see them as they are indeed ; but they who live at the beginning of those times and amidst them, shall not know what is doing around them ; they 124 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL shall indeed feel the plague and yet not know the remedy ; by little and by little they shall fall from their better livelihood, and weak and helpless shall they grow, and have no might to withstand the evil of this tyranny ; and then again when the times mend somewhat and they have but a little more ease, then shall it be to them like the kingdom of heaven, and they shall have no will to withstand any tyranny, but shall think themselves happy that they be pinched somewhat less. Also whereas thou sayest that there shall be for ever constables and sergeants going to and fro to drive men to work, and that they will not work save under the lash, thou art wrong and it shall not be so ; for there shall ever be more workers than the masters may set to work, so that men shall strive eagerly for leave to work ; and when one says, I will sell my hours at such and such a price, then another will say, and I for so much less ; so that never shall the lords lack slaves willing to work, but often the slaves shall lack lords to buy them.' * Thou tellest marvels indeed,' said he ; * but 125 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL how then ? if all the churls work not, shall there not be famine and lack of wares ? ' ' Famine enough,' said I, ' yet not from lack of wares ; it shall be clean contrary. What wilt thou say when I tell thee that in the latter days there shall be such traffic and such speedy travel across the seas that most wares shall be good cheap, and bread of all things the cheapest ? ' Quoth he : ' I should say that then there would be better livelihoodfor men, for in times of plenty it is well; for then men eat that which their own hands have harvested, and need not to spend of their substance in buying of others. Truly, it is well for honest men, but not so well for fore- stallers and regraters ; x but who heeds what be- falls such foul swine, who filch the money from 1 Forestaller, one who buys up goods when they are cheap, and so raises the price for his own benefit ; forestalls the due and real demand. Regrater, one who both buys and sells in the same market, or within five miles thereof ; buys, say a ton of cheese at 10 A.M. and sells it at 5 P.M. a penny a pound dearer without moving from his chair. The word ' monopo- list ' will cover both species of thief. 126 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL people's purses, and do not one hair's turn of work to help them ? ' ' Yea, friend,' I said, ' but in those latter days all power shall be in the hands of these foul swine, and they shall be the rulers of all ; there- fore, hearken, for I tell thee that times of plenty shall in those days be the times of famine, and all shall pray for the prices of wares to rise, so that the forestallers and regraters may thrive, and that some 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 there may be fewer and fewer folk in the land ; as may well be, if life is then so foul and wretched.' ' Alas, poor man ! ' I said ; ' nor mayst thou imagine how foul and wretched it may be for many of the folk ; and yet I tell thee that men shall increase and multiply, till where there is one man in the land now, there shall be twenty in those days yea, in some places ten times twenty.' * I have but little heart to ask thee more ques- 127 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL tions,' said he ; ' and when thou answerest, thy words are plain, but the things they tell of I may scarce understand. But tell me this : in those days will men deem that 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, but the 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 about that which thy life has striven for : thinkest thou that the thing which thou strivest for is worth the labour ? or dost thou believe in the tale I have told thee of the days to come ? ' He said : ' I tell thee once again that I trust thee for a seer ; because no man could make up such a tale as thou ; the things which thou tellest are too wonderful for a minstrel, the tale too 128 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL grievous. And whereas thou askest as to whether I count my labour lost, I say nay ; if so be that in those latter times (and worser than ours they will be) men shall yet seek a remedy : therefore again I ask thee, is it so that they shall ? ' ' Yea,' said I, ' and their remedy shall be the same as thine, although the days be different : for if the folk be enthralled, what remedy save that they be set free ? and if they have tried many roads towards freedom, and found that they led nowhither, then shall they try yet another. Yet in the days to come they shall be slothful to try it, because their masters shall be so much mightier than thine, that they shall not need to show the high hand, and until the days get to their evilest, men shall be cozened into thinking that it is of their own free will that they must needs buy leave to labour by pawning their labour that is to be. Moreover, your lords and masters seem very mighty to you, each one of them, and so they are, but they are few ; and the masters of the days to come shall not each one of them seem very mighty to the men of 129 I A DREAM OF JOHN BALL those days, but they shall be very many, and they shall be of one intent in these matters without knowing it ; like as one sees the oars of a galley when the rowers are hidden, that rise and fall as it were with one will.' ' And yet,' he said, ' shall it not be the same with those that these men devour? shall not they also have one will ? ' ' Friend,' I said, ' they shall have the will to live, as the wretchedest thing living has : there- fore shall they sell themselves that they may live, as I told thee ; and their hard need shall be their lord's easy livelihood, and because of it he shall sleep without fear, since their need com- pelleth them not to loiter by the way to lament with friend or brother that they are pinched in their servitude, or to devise means for ending it. And yet indeed thou sayest it : they also shall have one will if they but knew it; but for a long while they shall have but a glimmer of know- ledge of it : yet doubt it not that in the end they shall come to know it clearly, and then shall they bring about the remedy; and in those days 130 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL shall it be seen that thou hast not wrought for nothing, 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 twi- light was gaining on the night, though slowly. I looked at the poppy which I still held in my hand, and bethought me of Will Green, and said : * Lo, how the light is spreading : now must I get me back to Will Green's house as I promised.' ' Go, then,' said he, ' if thou wilt. Yet me- seems before long he shall come to us ; and then mayst thou sleep among the trees on the green grass till the sun is high, for the host shall not be on foot very early ; and sweet it is to sleep in shadow by the sun in the full morning when one has been awake and troubled through the night-tide.' * Yet I will go now,' said I ; ' I bid thee good- night, or rather good-morrow.' Therewith I half rose up ; but as I did so the will to depart left me as though I had never had A DREAM OF JOHN BALL it, and I sat down again, and heard the voice of John Ball, at first as one speaking from far away, but little by little growing nearer and more fa- miliar to me, and as if once more it were com- ing from the man himself whom I had got to know. 132 CHAPTER XII ILL WOULD CHANGE BE AT WHILES WERE IT NOT FOR THE CHANGE BEYOND THE CHANGE HE said : ' Many strange things hast them told me that I could not understand ; yea, some my wit so failed to compass, that I cannot so much as ask thee questions concerning them; but of some matters would I ask thee, and I must hasten, for in very sooth the night is worn old and grey. Whereas thou sayest that in the days to come, when there shall be no labouring men who are not thralls after their new fash- ion, their lords shall be many and very many, it seemeth to me that these same lords, if they be many, shall hardly be rich, or but very few of them, since they must verily feed and clothe and house their thralls, so that that which they take 133 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL from them, since it will have to be dealt out amongst many, will not be enough to make many rich ; since out of one man ye may get but one man's work; and pinch him never so sorely, still as aforesaid ye may not pinch him so sorely as not to feed him. Therefore, though the eyes of my mind may see a few lords and many slaves, yet can they not see many lords as well as many slaves; and if the slaves be many and the lords few, then some day shall the slaves make an end of that mastery by the force of their bodies. How then shall thy mastership of the latter days endure?' ' John Ball,' said I, ' mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel : whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, 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 shall make many masters and many rich men.' John Ball laughed. ' Great is my harvest of A DREAM OF JOHN BALL riddles to-night,' said he ; ' for even if a man sleep not, and eat and drink while he is a-work- ing, 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 ; but now I marvel, because I know what thou wouldst say. Time was when the shuttle was thrust in and out of all the thou- sand threads of the warp, and it was long to do ; but now the spring-staves go up and down as the man's feet move, and this and that leaf of the warp cometh forward and the shuttle goeth in one shot through all the thousand warps. Yea, so it is that this multiplieth a man many times. But look you, he is so multiplied already ; and so hath he been, meseemeth, for many hundred years.' ' Yea,' said I, ' but what hitherto needed the masters to multiply him more ? For many hun- dred years the workman was a thrall bought and '35 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL sold at 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 which he liveth ; but then thou and the like of thee shall free him, and then is mastership put to its shifts ; for what should avail the mastery then, 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 master hath not that which he on whom he liveth may not lack and live withal, and cannot have without selling him- self?' He said nothing, but I saw his brow knitted and his lips pressed together as though in anger ; and again I said : ' Thou hast seen the weaver at his loom : think how it should be if he sit no longer before the web and cast the shuttle and draw home the sley, but if the shed open of itself and the shuttle of itself speed through it as swift as the eye can fol- low, and the sley come home of itself; and the weaver standing by and whistling The Hunt's Up! the while, or looking to half-a-dozen looms and 136 bidding them what to do. And as with the wea- ver so with the potter, and the smith, and every worker in metals, and all other crafts, that it shall be for them looking on and tending, as with the man that sitteth in the cart while the horse draws. Yea, at last so shall it be even with those who are mere husbandmen ; and no longer shall o the reaper fare afield in the morning with his hook over his shoulder, and smite and bind and smite again till the sun is down and the moon is up ; but he shall draw a thing made by men into the field with one or two horses, and shall say the word and the horses shall go up and down, and the thing shall reap and gather and bind, and do the work of many men. Imagine all this in thy mind if thou canst, at least as ye may imagine a tale of enchantment told by a minstrel, and then tell me what shouldst thou deem that the life of men would be amidst all this, men such as these men of the township here, or the men of the Can- terbury gilds.' ' Yea,' said he ; ' but before I tell thee my thoughts of thy tale of wonder, I would ask thee 137 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL this : In those days when men work so easily, surely they shall make more wares than they can use in one country-side, or one good town, where- as in another, where things have not gone as well, they shall have less than they need ; and even so it is with us now, and thereof cometh scarcity and famine ; and if people may not come at each other's goods, it availeth the whole land little that one country-side hath more than enough while another hath less ; for the goods shall a- bide there in the storehouses of the rich place till they perish. So if that be so in the days of wonder ye tell of (and I see not how it can be otherwise), then shall men be but little holpen by making all their wares so easily and with so little labour.' I smiled again and said : ' Yea, but it shall not be so ; not only shall men be multiplied a hun- dred and a thousand fold, but the distance of one place from another shall be as nothing ; so that the wares which lie ready for market in Durham in the evening may be in London on the morrow morning ; and the men of Wales may eat corn of Essex and the men of Essex wear wool of Wales; 138 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL so that, so far as the flitting of goods to 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 far countries of which thou knowest not, shall be, so to say, at every man's door, and wares which now ye account pre- cious and dear-bought, shall then be common things bought and sold for little price at every huckster's stall. Say then, John, shall not those days be merry, and plentiful of ease and content- ment for all men ? ' ' Brother,' said he, ' meseemeth some doleful mockery liethunderthese joyful tidings of thine; since thou hast already partly told me to my sad bewilderment what the life of man shall be in those days. Yet will I now for a little set all that aside to consider thy strange tale as of a minstrel from over sea, even as thou biddest me. There- fore I say, that if men still abide men as I have known them, and unless these folk of England change as the land changeth and forsooth of the men, for good and for evil, I can think no other than I think now, or behold them other 139 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL than I have known them and loved them I say if the men be still men, what will happen except that there should be all plenty in the land, and not one poor man therein, unless of his own free will he choose to lack and be poor, as a man in religion or such like ; for there would then be such abundance of all good things, that, as greedy as the lords might be, there would be enough to satisfy their greed and yet leave good living for all who laboured with their hands ; so that these should labour far less than now, and they would have time to learn knowledge, so that there should soon be no learned or unlearned, for all should be learned ; and they would have time also to learn how to order the matters of the parish and the hundred, and of the parliament of the realm, so that the king should take no more than his own ; and to order the rule of the realm, so that all men, rich and unrich, should have part therein ; and so by undoing of evil laws and making of good ones, that fashion would come to an end whereof thou speakest, that rich men make laws for their own behoof; for they 140 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL should no longer be able to do thus when all had part in making the laws ; whereby it would soon come about that there would be no men rich and tyrannous, but all should have enough and to spare of the increase of the earth and the work of their own hands. Yea surely, brother, if ever it cometh about that men shall be able to make things, and not men, work for their superfluities, and that the length of travel from one place to another be 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 shall perish. For then shall we have conquered the earth and it shall be enough ; and then shall the kingdom of heaven be come down to the earth in very deed. Why lookest thou so sad and sorry ? what sayest thou ? ' I said : ' Hast thou forgotten already what I told thee, that in those latter days a man who hath nought save his own body (and such men shall be 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 ? ' 141 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL ' Yea,' he said ; ' but how could I deem that such things could be when those 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 be with the making of things as with the carter in the cart, that there he sitteth 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 wretched always, year by year, as they are with thee when there is famine in the land ; nor shall any have plenty and surety of livelihood save those that shall sit by and look on while others labour ; and these, I tell thee, shall be a many, so that they shall see to the making of all laws, and in their hands shall be all power, and the labourers shall think that they cannot do without these men that live by rob- bing them, and shall praise them and wellnigh pray to them as ye pray to the saints, and the best worshipped man in the land shall be he who by forestalling and regrating hath gotten to him the most money.* 142 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL ' Yea,' said he, * and shall they who see them- selves robbed worship the robber ? Then indeed shall men be changed from what they are now, and they shall be sluggards, dolts, and cowards beyond all the earth hath yet borne. Such are not the men I have known in my life-days, and that now I love in my death.' ' Nay,' I said, * but the robbery shall they not see ; for have I not told thee that they shall hold themselves to be free men ? And for why ? I will tell thee : but first tell me how it fares with men now ; may the labouring man become a lord ? ' He said : 'The thing hath been seen that churls have risen from the dortoir of the monastery to the abbot's chair and the bishop's throne ; yet not often ; and whiles hath a bold sergeant be- come a wise captain, and they have made him squire and knight ; and yet but very seldom. And now I suppose thou wilt tell me that the Church will open her arms wider to this poor people, and that many through her shall rise into lordship. But what availeth that ? Nought were A DREAM OF JOHN BALL it to me if the Abbot of St. Alban's with his golden mitre sitting guarded by his knights and sergeants, or the Prior of Merton with his hawks and his hounds, had once been poor men, if they were now tyrants of poor men ; nor would it better the matter if there were ten times as many Houses of Religion in the land as now are, and each with a churl's son for abbot or prior over it.' I smiled and said : ' Comfort thyself ; for in those days shall there be neither abbey nor priory in the land, nor monks nor friars, nor any reli- gious.' (He started as I spoke.) ' But thou hast told me that hardly in these days may a poor man rise to be a lord : now I tell thee that in the days to come poor men shall be able to become lords and masters 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 to the robbing of themselves by others, because they shall hope in their souls that they may each Jive to rob others : and this shall be the very safe- guard of all rule and law in those days.' 144 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL ' Now am I sorrier than thou hast yet made me,' said he ; ' for when once this is established, how then can it be changed ? Strong shall be the tyranny of the latter days. And now meseems, if thou sayest sooth, this time of the conquest of the earth shall not bring heaven down to the earth, as erst I deemed it would, but rather that it shall bring hell up on to the earth. Woe's me, brother, for thy sad and weary foretelling ! And yet saidst thou that the men of those days would seek a 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 the pictures on wall and in window ; and as well as I could see through the varied glazing of these last (and one window be- fore me had as yet nothing but white glass in it), the ruddy glow, which had but so little a while quite died out in the west, was now beginning to gather in the east the new day was beginning. 145 K A DREAM OF JOHN BALL I looked at the poppy that I still carried in my hand, and it seemed to me to have withered and dwindled. I felt anxious to speak to my com- panion and tell him much, and withal I felt that I must hasten, or for some reason or other I should be too late ; 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 it may have to wear through. Look you, a while ago was the light bright about us ; but it was be- cause of the moon, and the night was deep not- withstanding, and when the moonlight waned and died and there was but a little glimmer in place of the bright light, yet was the world glad because all things knew that the glimmer was of day and not of night. Lo you, an image of the times to betide the hope of the Fellowship of Men. Yet forsooth, it may well be that this bright day of summer which is now dawning upon us is no image of the beginning of the day that shall be ; but rather shall that day-dawn be 146 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL cold and grey and surly ; 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 gla- mour of the dreamtide. By such grey light shall wise men and valiant souls see the remedy, and deal with it, a real thing that may be touched and handled, and no glory of the heavens to be wor- shipped from afar off. And what shall it be, as I told thee before, save that men shall be deter- mined to be free ; yea, free as thou wouldst have them, when thine hope 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 of all, when men shall have the fruits of the earth and the fruits of their toil thereon, with- out money and without price. The time shall come, 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 to come about, as even with thee they talk of the villeins becoming tenants paying their lord quit-rent ; therefore, hast thou done well to hope it ; and, if thou heedest this also, as I suppose thou heedest 147 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL it little, thy name shall abide by the hope in those days to come, and thou shalt not be for- gotten.' I heard his voice come out of the twilight, O ' scarcely seeing him, though now the light was growing fast, as he said : 'Brother, thou givest me heart again ; yet since now I wot well that thou art a sending from far- off times and far-off things ; tell thou, if thou mayest, to a man who is going to his death how this shall come about.' ' Only this may I tell thee,' said I ; ' to thee, when thou didst try to conceive of them, the ways of the days to come seemed follies scarce to be thought of ; yet shall they come to be fa- miliar things, and an order by which every man liveth, ill as he liveth, so that men shall deem of them, that thus it hath been since the be- ginning of the world, and that thus it shall be while the world endureth ; and in this wise so shall they be thought of a long while ; and the complaint of the poor the rich man shall heed, even as much and no more as he who lieth in 148 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL pleasure under the lime-trees in the summer heedeth the murmur of his toiling bees. 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 the complaint of the poor shall be hearkened, no longer as a tale not ut- terly grievous, but as a threat of ruin, and a fear. Then shall those things, which to thee seem fol- lies, and to the men between thee and me mere wisdom and the bond of stability, seem follies once again ; yet, whereas men have so long lived by them, they shall cling to them yet from blind- ness and from fear ; and those that see, and that have thus much conquered fear that they are furthering the real time that cometh and not the dream that faileth, these men shall the blind and the fearful mock and missay, and torment and murder ; and great and grievous shall 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 the hubbub to understand each other, shall grieve 149 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL many hearts and hinder the Host of the Fellow- ship : yet shall all bring about the end, till thy deeming of folly and ours shall be one, and thy hope and our hope; and then the Day will have come.' Once more I heard the voice of John Ball : ' Now, brother, I say farewell ; for now verily hath the Day of the Earth come, and thou and I are lonely of each other again ; thou hast been a dream to me as I to thee, and sorry and glad have we made each other, as tales of old time and the longing of times to come shall ever make men to be. I go to life and to death, and leave thee ; and scarce do I know whether to wish thee some dream of the days beyond thine to tell what shall be, as thou hast told me, for I know not if that shall help or hinder thee ; but since we have been kind and very friends, I will not leave thee without a wish of good-will, so at least I wish thee what thou thyself wishest for thyself, and that is hopeful strife and blameless peace, which is to say in one word, life. Farewell, friend.' 150 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL For some little time, although I had known that the daylight was growing and what was around me, I had scarce seen the things I had before noted so keenly ; but now in a flash I saw all the east crimson with sunrise through the white window on my right hand ; the richly- carved stalls and gilded screen work, the pictures on the walls, the loveliness of the faultless colour of the mosaic window lights, the altar and the red light over it looking strange in the daylight, and the biers with the hidden dead men upon them that lay before the high altar. 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 the porch, and the loud whistle of a sweet old tune therewith ; then the foot- steps stopped at the door; I heard the latch rattle, and knew that Will Green's hand was on the ring of it. Then I strove to rise up, but fell back again ; a white light, empty of all sights, broke upon me for a moment, and lo ! behold, I was lying in my familiar bed, the south-westerly gale rattling A DREAM OF JOHN BALL the Venetian blinds and making their hold-fasts squeak. I got up presently, and going to the window looked out on the winter morning; the river was before me broad between outer bank and bank, but it was nearly dead ebb, and there was a wide space of mud on each side of the hurrying stream, driven on the faster as it seemed by the push of the south-west wind. On the other side of the water the few willow-trees left us by the Thames Conservancy looked doubtfully alive against the bleak sky and the row of wretched-looking blue- slated houses, although, by the way, the latter were the backs of a sort of street of ' villas ' and not a slum ; the road in front of the house was sooty and muddy at once, and in the air was that sense of dirty discomfort which one is never quit of in London. The morning was harsh too, and though the wind was from the south-west it was as cold as a north wind ; and yet amidst it all, I thought of the corner of the next bight of the river which I could not quite see from where I was, but over which one can see clear 152 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL of houses and into Richmond Park, looking like the open country ; and dirty as the river was, and harsh as was 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 will carry on a day-dream of the friends I had made in the dream of the night and against my will. But as I turned away shivering and down- hearted, on a sudden came the frightful noise of the ' hooters,' one after the other, that call the workmen to the factories, this one the after- breakfast one, more by token. So I grinned surlily, and dressed and got ready for my day's ' work ' as I call it, but which many a man be- sides John Ruskin (though not many in his posi- tion) would call l play.' 153 A KING'S LESSON A KING'S LESSON TT is told of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hun- gary the Alfred the Great of his time and people that he once heard (once only .?) that some (only some, my lad ?) of his peasants were over-worked and under-fed. So he sent for his Council, and bade come thereto also some of the mayors of the good towns, and some of the lords of land and their bailiffs, and asked them of the truth thereof ; and in diverse ways they all told one and the same tale, how the peasant carles were stout and well able to work and had enough and to spare of meat and drink, seeing that they were but churls ; and how if they worked not at the least as hard as they did, it would be ill for them and ill for their lords ; for that the more the churl hath the more he asketh ; and that when he knoweth wealth, he knoweth the lack of 157 A KING'S LESSON it also, as it fared with our first parents in the Garden of God. The King sat and said but little while they spake, but he misdoubted them that they were liars. So the Council brake up with nothing done ; but the King took the matter to heart, being, as kings go, a just man, besides be- ing more valiant than they mostly were, even in the old feudal time. So within two or three days, says the tale, he called together such lords and councillors as he deemed fittest, and bade busk them for a ride ; and when they were ready he and they set out, over rough and smooth, decked out in all the glory of attire which was the wont of those days. Thus they rode till they came to some village or thorpe of the peasant folk, and through it to the vineyards where men were working on the sunny southern slopes that went up from the river : my tale does not say whether that wereTheiss,orDonau,orwhat river. Well, I judge it was late spring or early 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 not gathered till the first 158 A KING'S LESSON frosts have touched them, whereby the wine made from them is the stronger and sweeter. Anyhow there were the peasants, men and women, boys and young maidens, toiling and swinking ; some hoeing between the vine-rows, some bearing bas- kets of dung up the steep slopes, some in one way, some in another, labouring for the fruit they should never eat, and the wine they should never drink. Thereto turned the King and got off his horse and began to climb up the stony ridges of the vineyard, and his lords in like manner fol- lowed him, wondering in their hearts what was toward ; but to the one who was following next after him he turned about and said with a smile, ' Yea, lords, this is a new 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 golden lords. I judge that they did not know the King, since it was little likely that any one of them had seen his face; and they knew of him but as the Great Father, the mighty war- rior who kept the Turk from harrying their 159 A KING'S LESSON thorpe. Though, forsooth, little matter was it to any man there whether Turk or Magyar was their over-lord, since to one master or another they had to pay the due tale of labouring days in the year, and hard was the livelihood that they earned for themselves on the days when they worked for themselves and their wives and chil- dren. Well, belike they knew not the King ; but amidst those rich lords they saw and knew their own lord, and of him they were sore afraid. But nought it availed them to flee away from those strong men and strong horses 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 the King and lords was a guard of crossbowmen, who were left the other side of the vineyard wall, keen-eyed Italians of the mountains, straight shooters of the bolt. So the poor folk fled not ; nay they made as if all this were none of their business, and went on with their work. For indeed each man said to him- self, ' If I be the one that is not slain, to-morrow 160 A KING'S LESSON I shall lack bread if I do not work my hardest to-day ; and maybe 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 you is the headman ? ' Spake a man, sturdy and sunburnt, well on in years and grizzled : ' I am the headman, lord.' ' Give me thy hoe, then,' says the King ; ' for now shall I order this matter myself, since these lords desire a new game, and are fain to work under me at vine-dressing. But do thou stand by me and set me right 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 hand stretched out, while he looked askance at his own lord and baron, who wagged 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 King falls to, and orders his lords for vine-dressing, to each his due share of the work : and whiles the carle said yea and whiles nay to his ordering. And then ye should 161 L A KING'S LESSON have seen velvet cloaks cast off, and mantles of fine Flemish scarlet go to the dusty earth ; as the lords and knights busked them to the work. So they buckled to ; and to most of them it seemed good game to play at vine-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 as men make not now, worth a hundred florins the Bremen ell. Unto him the King with no smile on his face gave the job of to- ing and froing up and down the hill with the big- gest and the frailest dung-basket that there was ; and thereat the silken lord screwed up a grin, that was sport to see, and all the lords laughed ; and as he turned away he said, yet so that none heard him, * Do I serve this son's son of a whore that he should bid me carry dung ? ' For you must know that the King's father, John Hunyad, one of the great warriors of the world, the Ham- mer of the Turks, 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 laughter as the hoes smote the 162 A KING'S LESSON earth and the flint stones tinkled and the cloud of dust rose up ; the brocaded dung-bearer went up and down, cursing and swearing by the White God and the Black ; and one would say to another, ' See ye how gentle blood outgoes churls' blood, even when the gentle does the churls' work : these lazy loons smote but one stroke to our three.' But the King, who worked no worse than any, laughed not at all ; and meanwhile the poor folk stood by, not daring to speak a word one to the other ; for they were still sore afraid, not now of being slain on the spot, but this rather was in their hearts: 'These great and strong lords and knights have come to see what work a man may do with- out dying : if we are to have yet more days added to our year's tale of lords' labour, then are we lost without remedy.' And their hearts sank within them. So sped the work ; and the sun rose yet higher in the heavens, and it was noon and more. And now there was no more laughter among those toiling lords, and the strokes of the hoe and mat- tock came far slower, while the dung-bearer sat 163 A KING'S LESSON down at the bottom of the hill and looked out on the river; but the King yet worked on doggedly, so for shame the other lords yet kept at it. Till at last the next man to the King let his hoe drop with a clatter, and swore a great oath. Now he was a strong black-bearded man in the prime of life, a valiant captain of that famous Black Band that had so often rent the Turkish array ; and the King loved him for his sturdy valour ; so he says to him, ' Is aught wrong, Captain ? ' 'Nay, lord,' says he, 'ask the headman carle yonder what ails us.' 'Headman,' says the King, 'what ails these strong knights? Have I ordered them wrongly?' ' Nay, but shirking ails them, lord,' says he, 'for they are weary; and no wonder, for they have been playing hard, and are of gentle blood.' ' Is that so, lords,' says the King, ' that ye are weary already ? ' Then the rest hung their heads and said nought, all save that captain of war ; and he said, being a bold man and no liar : ' King, I see what thou wouldst be at ; thou hast brought us here 164 A KING'S LESSON to preach us a sermon from that Plato of thine ; and to say sooth, so that I may swink no more, and go eat my dinner, now preach thy worst ! Nay, if thou wilt be priest I will be thy deacon. Wilt thou that I ask this labouring carle a thing or two ? ' ' Yea,' said the King. And there came, as it were, a cloud of thought over his face. Then the captain straddled his legs and looked big, and said to the carle: '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 the captain, and winks his eye at him withal. * Lord,' says the carle, grinning a little despite himself, ' be not wroth with my word. In the first half-hour ye did five-and -forty minutes' work of ours, and in the next half-hour scant a thirty minutes' work, and the third half-hour a fifteen minutes' work, and in the fourth half- hour two minutes' work.' The grin now had I^S L2 A KING'S LESSON faded from his face, but a gleam came into his eyes as he said : * And now, as I suppose, your day's work is done, and ye will go to your dinner, and eat the sweet and drink the strong ; and we shall eat a little rye-bread, and then be working here till after the sun has set and the moon has begun to cast shadows. Now for you, I wot not how ye shall sleep nor where, nor what white body ye shall hold in your arms while the night flits and the stars shine; but for us, while the stars yet shine, shall we be at it again, and bethink ye for what ! I know not what game and play ye shall be devising for to-morrow as ye ride back home ; but for us when we come back here to- morrow, it shall be as if there had been no yester- day and nothing done therein, and that work of that to-day shall be nought to us also, for we shall win no respite from our toil thereby, and the morrow of to-morrow will all be to begin again once more, and so on and on till no to- morrow abideth us. Therefore, if ye are think- ing to lay some new tax or tale upon us, think twice of it, for we may not bear it. And all this 166 A KING'S LESSON I say with the less fear, because I perceive this man here beside me, in the black velvet jerkin and the gold chain on his neck, is the King ; nor do I think he will slay me for my word since he hath so many a Turk before him and his mighty sword ! ' Then said the captain : ' Shall I smite the man, O king ? or hath he preached thy sermon for thee ? ' ' Smite not, for he hath preached it,' said the King. * Hearken to the carle's sermon, lords and councillors of mine ! Yet when another hath spoken our thought, other thoughts are born therefrom, and now have I another sermon to preach ; but I will refrain me as now. Let us down and to our dinner.' So they went, the King and his gentles, and sat down by the river under the rustle of the poplars, and they ate and drank and were merry. And the King bade bear up the broken meats to the vine-dressers, and a good draught of the arch- er's wine, and to the headman he gave a broad gold piece, and to each man three silver pennies. 167 A KING'S LESSON But when the poor folk had all that under their hands, it was to them as though the kingdom of heaven had come down to earth. In the cool of the evening home rode the King and his lords. The King was distraught and si- lent; but at last the captain, who rode beside him, said to him : ' Preach me now thine after-sermon, king ! ' 'I think thou knowest it already,* said the king, ' else hadst thou not spoken in such wise to the carle ; but tell me what is thy craft and the craft of all these, whereby ye live, as the potter by making pots, and so forth ? * Said the captain : ' As the potter lives by mak- ing pots, so we live by robbing the poor.' Again said the King : * And my trade ? ' Said he, ' Thy trade is to be a king of such thieves, yet no worser than the rest.' The king laughed. ' Bear that in mind/ said he, c and then shall 1 tell thee my thought while yonder carle spake. ' Carle,' I thought, ' were I thou or such as thou, then would I take in my hand a sword or a spear, 168 A KING'S LESSON or were it only a hedge-stake, and bid others do the like, and forth would we go ; and since we would be so many, and with nought to lose save a miserable life, we would do battle and prevail, and make an end of the craft of kings and of lords and of usurers, and there should be but one craft in the world, to wit, to work merrily for ourselves and to live merrily thereby.' Said the captain : 'This then is thy sermon. Who will heed it if thou preach it ? ' Said the King : ' They who will take the mad king and put him in a king's madhouse, there- fore do I forbear to preach it. Yet it shall be preached.' ' And not heeded,' said the captain, ' save by those who head and hang the setters forth of new things that are good for the world. Our trade is safe for many and many a generation.' And therewith they came to the King's palace, and they ate and drank and slept, and the world went on its ways. *Afcy<7- Printed by RAI.I ANTYNE, HAN-SON c*r* Ca Edinburgh &* London UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000137611 o