A Dream of John Ball
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William Morris >> A Dream of John Ball
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"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 no-whither,
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 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: therefore 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 compelleth 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 knowledge 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 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 twilight 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 meseems 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 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 familiar to me, and
as if once more it were coming from the man himself whom I had
got to know.
CHAPTER XII
ILL WOULD CHANGE BE AT WHILES WERE
IT NOT FOR THE CHANGE BEYOND THE
CHANGE
He said: "Many strange things hast thou told me that I could 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 fashion, that 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 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 riddles to-night,"
said he; "for even if a man sleep not, and eat and drink while he
is a-working, ye shall but make two men, or three at the most,
out of him."
Said I: "Sawest thou ever a weaver at his loom?"
"Yea," said he, "many a time."
He was silent a little, and then said: "Yet I marvelled not at
it; but now I marvel, because I know what thou wouldst say. Time
was when the shuttle was thrust in and out of all the thousand
threads of the warp, and it was long to do; but now the spring-
staves go up and down as 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 hundred years the workman was a thrall bought
and 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 himself?"
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 follow, 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 bidding them what to do. And as with the weaver 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 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 Canterbury gilds."
"Yea," said he; "but before I tell thee my thoughts of thy tale
of wonder, I would ask thee this: In those days when men work so
easily, surely they shall make more wares than they can use in
one countryside, or one good town, whereas in another, where
things have not gone 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 abide 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 hundred 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; 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 precious 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 contentment for all men?"
"Brother," said he, "meseemeth some doleful mockery lieth under
these 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. Therefore 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
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 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 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?"
"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 robbing 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."
"Yea," said he, "and shall they who see themselves 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
become 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 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 religious." (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 live to rob others: and this shall be the very
safeguard of all rule and law in those days."
"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 before
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. 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 companion 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 because of the moon,
and the night was deep notwithstanding, 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 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 glamour of the dream-tide. 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 worshipped from afar off. And what shall it be, as I told
thee before, save that men shall be determined 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, without 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 it little, thy
name shall abide by thy hope in those days to come, and thou
shalt not be forgotten."
I heard his voice come out of the twilight, 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
familiar 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 beginning 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 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 utterly grievous, but as a threat of ruin, and a fear.
Then shall these things, which to thee seem follies, 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 blindness 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
many hearts and hinder the Host of the Fellowship: 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."
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
footsteps 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 I behold,
I was lying in my familiar bed, the south-westerly gale rattling
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 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 daydream of
the friends I had made in the dream of the night and against my
will.
But as I turned away shivering and downhearted, 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
besides John Ruskin (though not many in his position) would call
"play."
A KING'S LESSON
It is told of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary--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 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 being 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 were Theiss, or Donau, or what 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
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 baskets 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
followed 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.
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