A Dream of John Ball
W >>
William Morris >> A Dream of John Ball
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7
Will Green had good-naturedly thrust and pulled me forward, so
that I found myself standing on the lowest step of the cross, his
seventy-two inches 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
art tall across thy belly and not otherwise, and thy wind,
belike, is none of the best, and but for me thou wouldst have
been amidst the thickest of the throng, and have heard words
muffled by Kentish bellies and seen little but swinky woollen
elbows and greasy plates and jacks. Look no more on the ground,
as though thou sawest a hare, but let thine eyes and thine
ears be busy to gather tidings to bear back to Essex--or heaven!"
I grinned good-fellowship at him but said nothing, for in truth
my eyes and ears were as busy as he would have them to be. A
buzz of general talk 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 by hands, but were living creatures
making that noise of their own wills.
I looked around and saw that the newcomers mingled with us must
have been a regular armed band; all had bucklers slung at their
backs, few lacked a sword at the side. Some had bows, some
"staves"--that is, bills, pole-axes, or pikes. Moreover, unlike
our villagers, they had defensive arms. Most had steel-caps on
their heads, and some had body armour, generally a "jack," or
coat into which pieces of iron or horn were quilted; some had
also steel or steel-and-leather arm or thigh pieces. There were
a few mounted men among them, their horses being big-boned
hammer-headed beasts, that looked as if they had been taken from
plough or waggon, but their riders were well armed with steel
armour on their heads, legs, and arms. Amongst the horsemen I
noted the man that had ridden past me when I first awoke; but he
seemed to be a 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 means ill-at-ease, however, but was
laughing and talking with the men who stood 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 woman half-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 done enough, but yet with a certain
spirit and much meaning; and underneath this symbol of the
early world and man's first contest with nature were the 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 we stood for its passage, and the banner-bearer turned and
faced the throng 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 we should call it to-day) and a book in a bag. The
man was tall and big-boned, a ring of dark hair surrounded his
priest's tonsure; his nose was big but clear cut and with wide
nostrils; his shaven face showed a longish upper lip and a big
but blunt chin; his mouth was big and the lips closed firmly; a
face not very noteworthy but for his grey eyes well opened and
wide apart, at whiles lighting up his whole face with a
kindly smile, at whiles set and stern, at whiles resting in that
look as if they were gazing at something a long way off, which is
the wont of the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.
He went slowly up the steps of the cross and stood at the top
with one hand laid on the shaft, and shout upon shout broke forth
from the throng. When the shouting died away into a silence of
the human voices, the bells were still quietly chiming with that
far-away voice of theirs, and the long-winged dusky swifts, by no
means scared by the concourse, swung round about the cross with
their wild squeals; and the man stood still for a little, eyeing
the throng, or rather looking first at one and then another man
in it, as though he were trying to think 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 smile spread over his
face, but faded off it into the sternness and sadness of a man
who has heavy and great thoughts hanging about him.
But when John Ball first mounted the steps of the cross a lad at
some one's bidding had run off to stop the ringers, and so
presently the voice of the bells fell dead, leaving on men's
minds that sense of blankness or even disappointment which is
always caused by the sudden stopping of a sound one has got used
to and found pleasant. But a great expectation had fallen by now
on all that throng, and no word was spoken even in a whisper, and
all men's hearts and eyes were fixed upon the dark figure
standing straight up now by the tall white shaft of the cross,
his hands 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 I had 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 it cometh that I should tell you what ye should do, and what
ye should forbear doing, and to that end I am come hither: yet
first, if I myself have 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
he smiled as in a kind of pride, and again he spoke:
"Wherefore did ye take me out of the archbishop's prison but
three days agone, when ye lighted the archbishop's house for
the candle of Canterbury, but that I might speak to you and
pray you: therefore I will not keep silence, whether I have done
ill, or whether I have done well. And herein, good fellows and
my very brethren, I would have you to follow me; and if there be
such here, as I know full well there be some, and may be a good
many, who have been robbers of their neighbours (`And who is my
neighbour?' quoth the rich man), or lechers, or despiteful
haters, or talebearers, or fawners on rich men for the hurt of
the poor (and that is the worst of all)--Ah, my poor brethren who
have gone astray, I say not to you, go home and repent lest you
mar our great deeds, but rather come afield and there repent.
Many a day have ye been fools, but hearken unto me and I shall
make you wise above the wisdom of the earth; and if ye die in
your wisdom, as God wot ye well may, since the fields ye wend to
bear swords for daisies, and spears for bents, then shall ye be,
though men call you dead, a part and parcel of the living
wisdom of all things, very stones of the pillars that uphold the
joyful earth.
"Forsooth, ye have heard it said that ye shall do well in this
world that in the world to come ye may live happily for ever; do
ye well then, and have your reward both on earth and in heaven;
for I say to you that earth and heaven are not two but one; and
this one is that which ye know, and are each one of you a part
of, to wit, the Holy Church, and in each one of you dwelleth the
life of the Church, unless ye slay it. Forsooth, brethren, will
ye murder the Church any one of you, and go forth a wandering man
and lonely, even as Cain did who slew his brother? Ah, my
brothers, what an evil doom is this, to be an outcast from the
Church, to have none to love you and to speak with you, to be
without fellowship! Forsooth, brothers, fellowship is heaven,
and lack of fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack
of fellowship is death: and the deeds that ye do upon the earth,
it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them, and the life that is
in it, that shall live on and on for ever, and each one of you
part of it, while many 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
ye must, 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,
shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when
his heart failed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his
wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn
in arms, and how that his 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, and shall find that
therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every
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 in sorrow he thinketh of fellowship, his sorrow is
soon but a story of sorrow--a little change in the life that
knows not ill."
He left off for a little; and indeed for some time his voice had
fallen, 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. His eyes fell down to the crowd as he stopped speaking,
since for some little while they had been looking far away into
the blue distance of summer; and the kind eyes of the man had a
curious sight before him in that crowd, for amongst them were
many who by this time were not dry-eyed, and some wept outright
in spite of their black beards, while all had that look as if
they were ashamed of themselves, and did not want others to
see how deeply they were moved, after the fashion of their race
when they are strongly stirred. I looked at Will Green beside
me: his right hand clutched his bow so tight, that the knuckles
whitened; he was staring straight before him, and the tears were
running out of his eyes and down his big nose as though without
his will, for his face was stolid and unmoved all the time till
he caught my eye, and then he screwed up the strangest face, of
scowling brow, weeping eyes, and smiling mouth, while he dealt me
a sounding thump in the ribs with his left elbow, which, though
it would have knocked me down but for the crowd, I took as an
esquire does the accolade which makes a knight of him.
But while I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose
the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in
spite of their 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 same soft and dear voice with which he had
left off.
"Good fellows, it was your fellowship and your kindness that took
me out of the archbishop's prison three days agone, though God
wot ye had nought to gain by it save outlawry and the gallows;
yet lacked I not your fellowship before ye drew near me in the
body, and when between me and Canterbury street was yet a strong
wall, and the turnkeys and sergeants and bailiffs.
"For hearken, my friends and helpers; many days ago, when April
was yet young, I lay there, and the heart that I had strung up to
bear all things because of the fellowship of men and the blessed
saints and the angels and those that are, and those that are to
be, this heart, that I had strung up like a strong bow, fell into
feebleness, so that I lay there a-longing for the green
fields and the white-thorn bushes and the lark singing over
the corn, and the talk of good fellows round the ale-house bench,
and the babble of the little children, and the team on the road
and the beasts afield, and all the life of earth; and I alone all
the while, near my foes and afar from my friends, mocked and
flouted and starved with cold and hunger; and so weak was my
heart that though I longed for all these things yet I saw them
not, nor knew them but as names; and I longed so sore to be gone
that I chided myself that I had once done well; and I said to
myself:
"Forsooth, hadst thou kept thy tongue between thy teeth thou
mightest have been something, if it had been but a parson of a
town, and comfortable to many a poor man; and then mightest thou
have clad here and there the naked back, and filled the empty
belly, and holpen many, and men would have spoken well of thee,
and of thyself thou hadst thought well; and all this hast
thou lost for lack of a word here and there to some great
man, and a little winking of the eyes amidst murder and wrong and
unruth; and now thou art nought and helpless, and the hemp for
thee is sown and grown and heckled and spun, and lo there, the
rope for thy gallows-tree!--all for nought, for nought.
"Forsooth, my friends, thus I thought and sorrowed in my
feebleness that I had not been a traitor to the Fellowship of the
Church, for e'en so evil was my foolish imagination.
"Yet, forsooth, as I fell a-pondering over all the comfort and
help that I might have been and that I might have had, if I had
been but a little of a trembling cur to creep and crawl before
abbot and bishop and baron and bailiff, came the thought over me
of the evil of the world wherewith I, John Ball, the rascal
hedge-priest, had fought and striven in the Fellowship of the
saints in heaven and poor men upon earth.
"Yea, forsooth, once again I saw as of old, the great treading
down the little, and the strong beating down the weak, and cruel
men fearing not, and kind men daring not, and wise men caring
not; and the saints in heaven forbearing and yet bidding me not
to forbear; forsooth, I knew once more that he who doeth well in
fellowship, and because of fellowship, shall not fail though he
seem to fail to-day, but in days hereafter shall he and his work
yet be alive, and men be holpen by them to 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 and down my prison what I could for my hopples, and into my
mouth came words of good cheer, even such as we to-day have sung,
and stoutly I sang them, even as we now have sung them; and then
did I rest me, and once more thought of those pleasant fields
where I would be, and all the life of man and beast about
them, and I said to myself that I should see them once more
before I died, if but once it were.
"Forsooth, this was strange, that whereas before I longed for
them and yet 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 of Canterbury street and amidst the
green meadows of April; and therewithal along with me folk that I
have known and who are dead, and folk that are living; yea, and
all those of the Fellowship on earth and in heaven; yea, and all
that are here this day. Overlong were the tale to 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 there were ye, my fellows, in the door--your faces
glad, your hearts light with hope, and your hands heavy with
wrath; then I saw and understood what was to do. Now, therefore,
do ye understand it!"
His voice was changed, and grew louder than loud now, as he cast
his hands abroad towards that company with those last words of
his; and I could feel that all shame and fear was falling from
those men, and that mere fiery manhood was shining through their
wonted English shamefast stubbornness, and that they were moved
indeed and saw the road before them. 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 swifts wheeled about shriller and
louder than before.
Then again John Ball spoke and said, "In good sooth, I deem ye
wot no worse 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,
the oppressor, who scorneth fellowship, and himself is a world to
himself and needeth no helper nor helpeth any, but, heeding no
law, layeth law on other men because he is rich; and surely every
one that is rich is such an one, nor may be other.
"Forsooth, in the belly of every rich man dwelleth a devil of
hell, and when the man would give his goods to the poor, the
devil within him gainsayeth it, and saith, `Wilt thou then be of
the poor, and suffer cold and hunger and mocking as they suffer,
then give thou thy goods to them, and keep them not.' And when
he would be compassionate, again saith the devil to him, `If thou
heed these losels and turn on them a face like to their faces,
and deem of them as men, then shall they scorn thee, and evil
shall come of it, and even one day they shall fall on thee to
slay thee when they have learned that thou art but as they be.'
"Ah, woe worth the while! too oft he sayeth sooth, as the wont of
the devil is, that lies may be born of the barren truth; and
sooth it is that the poor deemeth the rich to be other than he,
and meet to be his master, as though, forsooth, the poor were
come of Adam, and the rich of him that made Adam, that is God;
and thus the poor man oppresseth the poor man, because he feareth
the oppressor. Nought such are ye, my brethren; or else why are
ye gathered here in harness to bid all bear witness of you that
ye are the sons of one man and one mother, begotten of 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 yet which seemed gathering in their bosoms.
And again he said:
"Forsooth, too many rich men there are in this realm; and yet if
there were but one, there would be one too many, for all should
be his thralls. Hearken, then, ye men of Kent. For overlong
belike have I held you with words; but the love of you
constrained me, and the joy that a man hath to babble to his
friends and his fellows whom he hath not seen for a long season.
"Now, hearken, I bid you: To the rich men that eat up a realm
there cometh a time when they whom they eat up, that is the poor,
seem poorer than of wont, and their complaint goeth up louder to
the heavens; yet it is no riddle to say that oft at such times
the fellowship of the poor is waxing stronger, else would no man
have heard his cry. Also at such times is the rich man become
fearful, and so waxeth in cruelty, and of that cruelty do people
misdeem that it is power and might waxing. Forsooth, ye are
stronger than your fathers, because ye are more grieved than
they, and ye should have been less grieved than they had ye been
horses and swine; and then, forsooth, would ye have been stronger
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 ye why I have been telling of fellowship to you? Yea,
forsooth, I deem ye wot well, that it is for this cause, that ye
might bethink you of your fellowship 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 quiet upland village. But John Ball held up his hand, and
the shout was one and no more.
Then he spoke again:
"Men of Kent, I wot well that ye are not so hard bested as those
of other shires, by the token of the day when behind the screen
of leafy boughs ye met Duke William with bill and bow as he
wended Londonward from that woeful field of Senlac; but I have
told of fellowship, and ye have hearkened and understood what the
Holy Church is, whereby ye know that 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 now do the poor
men call you to the battle.
"Men of Kent, ye dwell fairly here, and your houses are framed of
stout oak beams, and your own lands ye till; unless some accursed
lawyer with his false lying sheepskin and forged custom of the
Devil's Manor hath stolen it from you; but in Essex slaves they
be and villeins, and worse they shall be, and the lords swear
that ere a year be over ox and horse shall go free in Essex, and
man and woman shall draw the team and the plough; and north away
in the east countries dwell men in poor halls of wattled reeds
and mud, and the north-east wind from off the fen whistles
through them; and poor they be to the letter; and there him whom
the lord spareth, the bailiff squeezeth, and him whom the bailiff
forgetteth, the Easterling Chapman sheareth; yet be these
stout men and valiant, and your very brethren.
"And yet if there be any man here so base as to think that a
small matter, 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 and close and woodland, and be servants in your own
houses, and your sons shall be the lords' lads, and your
daughters their lemans, and ye shall buy a bold word with many
stripes, and an honest deed with a leap from the 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 a wise warrior; but cruel are these, and
headstrong, yea, thieves and fools 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 lack when 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 these shall be yours, and whatso ye will of all
that the earth beareth; then shall no man mow the deep grass for
another, while his own kine lack cow-meat; and he that soweth
shall reap, and the reaper shall eat in fellowship the harvest
that in fellowship he hath won; and he that buildeth a house
shall dwell in it with those that he biddeth of his free will;
and the tithe barn shall garner the wheat for all men to eat of
when the seasons are untoward, and the rain-drift hideth the
sheaves in August; and all shall be without money and without
price. Faithfully and merrily then shall all men keep the
holidays of the Church in peace of body and joy of heart. And
man shall help man, and the saints in heaven shall be glad,
because men no more fear each other; and the churl shall be
ashamed, and shall hide his churlishness till it be gone, and he
be no more a churl; and fellowship shall be established 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, I thought he would give us some word as to the trysting-
place, and whither the army was to go from it; because it was now
clear to me that this gathering was but a band of an army. But
much happened before John 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 a while ago, I thought I heard a thin sharp noise far
away, somewhat to the north of the cross, which I took rather for
the sound of a trumpet or horn, than for the voice of a man or
any beast. Will Green also seemed to have heard it,
for he turned his head sharply and then back again, and looked
keenly into the crowd as though seeking to catch some one's eye.
There was a very tall man standing by the prisoner on the horse
near the outskirts of the crowd, and holding his bridle. This
man, who was well-armed, I saw look up and say something to the
prisoner, who stooped down and seemed to whisper him in turn.
The tall man nodded his head and the prisoner got off his horse,
which was a cleaner-limbed, better-built beast than the others
belonging to the band, 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, and settled 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 was silence again, and as the priest addressed himself to
speaking once more, he paused and turned his head towards the
wind, as if he heard something, which certainly I heard, and
belike every one in the throng, though it was not over-loud, far
as sounds carry in clear quiet evenings. It was the thump-a-
thump of a horse drawing near at a hand-gallop along the grassy
upland road; and I knew well it was the tall man coming back with
tidings, the purport of which I could well guess.
I looked up at Will Green's face. He was smiling as one pleased,
and said softly as he nodded to me, "Yea, shall we see the grey-
goose fly this eve?"
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7