A DREAM OF JOHN BALL
AND
A KING'S LESSON
BY
WILLIAM MORRIS
CONTENTS
I. The Men of Kent II. The Man from Essex III. They Meet at the Cross IV. The Voice of John Ball V. They hear Tidings of Battle and make them Ready VI. The Battle at the Township's End VII. More Words at the Cross VIII. Supper at Will Green's IX. Betwixt the Living and them Dead X. Those Two Talk of the Days to Come XI. Hard it is for the Old World to see the New XII. Ill would Change be at Whiles were it not for the Change beyond the Change
A KING'S LESSON
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL
CHAPTER I
THE MEN OF KENT
Sometimes I am rewarded for fretting myself so much about presentmatters by a quite unasked-for pleasant dream. I mean when I amasleep. This dream is as it were a present of an architecturalpeep-show. I see some beautiful and noble building new made, as itwere for the occasion, as clearly as if I were awake; not vaguely orabsurdly, as often happens in dreams, but with all the detail clear andreasonable. Some Elizabethan house with its scrap of earlierfourteenth-century building, and its later degradations of Queen Anneand Silly Billy and Victoria, marring but not destroying it, in an oldvillage once a clearing amid the sandy woodlands of Sussex. Or an oldand unusually curious church, much churchwardened, and beside it afragment of fifteenth-century domestic architecture amongst the notunpicturesque lath and plaster of an Essex farm, and looking naturalenough among the sleepy elms and the meditative hens scratching aboutin the litter of the farmyard, whose trodden yellow straw comes up tothe very jambs of the richly carved Norman doorway of the church. Orsometimes 'tis a splendid collegiate church, untouched by restoringparson and architect, standing amid an island of shapely trees andflower-beset cottages of thatched grey stone and cob, amidst the narrowstretch of bright green water-meadows that wind between the sweepingWiltshire downs, so well beloved of William Cobbett. Or some new-seenand yet familiar cluster of houses in a grey village of the upperThames overtopped by the delicate tracery of a fourteenth-centurychurch; or even sometimes the very buildings of the past untouched bythe degradation of the sordid utilitarianism that cares not and knowsnot of beauty and history: as once, when I was journeying (in a dreamof the night) down the well-remembered reaches of the Thames betwixtStreatley and Wallingford, where the foothills of the White Horse fallback from the broad stream, I came upon a clear-seen mediaeval townstanding up with roof and tower and spire within its walls, grey andancient, but untouched from the days of its builders of old. All this Ihave seen in the dreams of the night clearer than I can force myself tosee them in dreams of the day. So that it would have been nothing newto me the other night to fall into an architectural dream if that wereall, and yet I have to tell of things strange and new that befell meafter I had fallen asleep. I had begun my sojourn in the Land of Nod bya very confused attempt to conclude that it was all right for me tohave an engagement to lecture at Manchester and Mitcham Fair Green athalf-past eleven at night on one and the same Sunday, and that I couldmanage pretty well. And then I had gone on to try to make the best ofaddressing a large open-air audience in the costume I was really thenwearing--to wit, my night-shirt, reinforced for the dream occasion by apair of braceless trousers. The consciousness of this fact so botheredme, that the earnest faces of my audience--who would NOT notice it, butwere clearly preparing terrible anti-Socialist posers for me--began tofade away and my dream grew thin, and I awoke (as I thought) to findmyself lying on a strip of wayside waste by an oak copse just outside acountry village.
I got up and rubbed my eyes and looked about me, and the landscapeseemed unfamiliar to me, though it was, as to the lie of the land, anordinary English low-country, swelling into rising ground here andthere. The road was narrow, and I was convinced that it was a piece ofRoman road from its straightness. Copses were scattered over thecountry, and there were signs of two or three villages and hamlets insight besides the one near me, between which and me there was someorchard-land, where the early apples were beginning to redden on thetrees. Also, just on the other side of the road and the ditch whichran along it, was a small close of about a quarter of an acre, neatlyhedged with quick, which was nearly full of white poppies, and, as faras I could see for the hedge, had also a good few rose-bushes of thebright-red nearly single kind, which I had heard are the ones fromwhich rose-water used to be distilled. Otherwise the land was quiteunhedged, but all under tillage of various kinds, mostly in smallstrips. From the other side of a copse not far off rose a tall spirewhite and brand-new, but at once bold in outline and unaffectedlygraceful and also distinctly English in character. This, together withthe unhedged tillage and a certain unwonted trimness and handinessabout the enclosures of the garden and orchards, puzzled me for aminute or two, as I did not understand, new as the spire was, how itcould have been designed by a modern architect; and I was of courseused to the hedged tillage and tumbledown bankrupt-looking surroundingsof our modern agriculture. So that the garden-like neatness andtrimness of everything surprised me. But after a minute or two thatsurprise left me entirely; and if what I saw and heard afterwards seemsstrange to you, remember that it did not seem strange to me at thetime, except where now and again I shall tell you of it. Also, oncefor all, if I were to give you the very words of those who spoke to meyou would scarcely understand them, although their language was Englishtoo, and at the time I could understand them at once.
Well, as I stretched myself and turned my face toward the village, Iheard horse-hoofs on the road, and presently a man and horse showed onthe other end of the stretch of road and drew near at a swinging trotwith plenty of clash of metal. The man soon came up to me, but paid meno more heed than throwing me a nod. He was clad in armour of mingledsteel and leather, a sword girt to his side, and over his shoulder along-handled bill-hook.
His armour was fantastic in form and well wrought; but by this time Iwas quite used to the strangeness of him, and merely muttered tomyself, "He is coming to summon the squire to the leet;" so I turnedtoward the village in good earnest. Nor, again, was I surprised at myown garments, although I might well have been from their unwontedness.I was dressed in a black cloth gown reaching to my ankles, neatlyembroidered about the collar and cuffs, with wide sleeves gathered inat the wrists; a hood with a sort of bag hanging down from it was on myhead, a broad red leather girdle round my waist, on one side of whichhung a pouch embroidered very prettily and a case made of hard leatherchased with a hunting scene, which I knew to be a pen and ink case; onthe other side a small sheath-knife, only an arm in case of direnecessity.
Well, I came into the village, where I did not see (nor by this timeexpected to see) a single modern building, although many of them werenearly new, notably the church, which was large, and quite ravished myheart with its extreme beauty, elegance, and fitness. The chancel ofthis was so new that the dust of the stone still lay white on themidsummer grass beneath the carvings of the windows. The houses werealmost all built of oak frame-work filled with cob or plaster wellwhitewashed; though some had their lower stories of rubble-stone, withtheir windows and doors of well-moulded freestone. There was muchcurious and inventive carving about most of them; and though some wereold and much worn, there was the same look of deftness and trimness,and even beauty, about every detail in them which I noticed before inthe field-work. They were all roofed with oak shingles, mostly grownas grey as stone; but one was so newly built that its roof was yet paleand yellow. This was a corner house, and the corner post of it had acarved niche wherein stood a gaily painted figure holding ananchor--St. C
lement to wit, as the dweller in the house was ablacksmith. Half a stone's throw from the east end of the churchyardwall was a tall cross of stone, new like the church, the headbeautifully carved with a crucifix amidst leafage. It stood on a setof wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, where three roads from othervillages met and formed a wide open space on which a thousand people ormore could stand together with no great crowding.
All this I saw, and also that there was a goodish many people about,women and children, and a few old men at the doors, many of themsomewhat gaily clad, and that men were coming into the village streetby the other end to that by which I had entered, by twos and threes,most of them carrying what I could see were bows in cases of linenyellow with wax or oil; they had quivers at their backs, and most ofthem a short sword by their left side, and a pouch and knife on theright; they were mostly dressed in red or brightish green or blue clothjerkins, with a hood on the head generally of another colour. As theycame nearer I saw that the cloth of their garments was somewhat coarse,but stout and serviceable. I knew, somehow, that they had beenshooting at the butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a noise of menthereabout, and even now and again when the wind set from that quarterthe twang of the bowstring and the plump of the shaft in the target.
I leaned against the churchyard wall and watched these men, some ofwhom went straight into their houses and some loitered about still;they were rough-looking fellows, tall and stout, very black some ofthem, and some red-haired, but most had hair burnt by the sun into thecolour of tow; and, indeed, they were all burned and tanned andfreckled variously. Their arms and buckles and belts and thefinishings and hems of their garments were all what we should now callbeautiful, rough as the men were; nor in their speech was any of thatdrawling snarl or thick vulgarity which one is used to hear fromlabourers in civilisation; not that they talked like gentlemen either,but full and round and bold, and they were merry and good-temperedenough; I could see that, though I felt shy and timid amongst them.
One of them strode up to me across the road, a man some six feet high,with a short black beard and black eyes and berry-brown skin, with ahuge bow in his hand bare of the case, a knife, a pouch, and a shorthatchet, all clattering together at his girdle.
"Well, friend," said he, "thou lookest partly mazed; what tongue hastthou in thine head?"
"A tongue that can tell rhymes," said I.
"So I thought," said he. "Thirstest thou any?"
"Yea, and hunger," said I.
And therewith my hand went into my purse, and came out again with but afew small and thin silver coins with a cross stamped on each, and threepellets in each corner of the cross. The man grinned.
"Aha!" said he, "is it so? Never heed it, mate. It shall be a songfor a supper this fair Sunday evening. But first, whose man art thou?"
"No one's man," said I, reddening angrily; "I am my own master."
He grinned again.
"Nay, that's not the custom of England, as one time belike it will be.Methinks thou comest from heaven down, and hast had a high place theretoo."
He seemed to hesitate a moment, and then leant forward and whispered inmy ear: "John the Miller, that ground small, small, small," andstopped and winked at me, and from between my lips without my mindforming any meaning came the words, "The king's son of heaven shall payfor all."
He let his bow fall on to his shoulder, caught my right hand in his andgave it a great grip, while his left hand fell among the gear at hisbelt, and I could see that he half drew his knife.
"Well, brother," said he, "stand not here hungry in the highway whenthere is flesh and bread in the Rose yonder. Come on."
And with that he drew me along toward what was clearly a tavern door,outside which men were sitting on a couple of benches and drinkingmeditatively from curiously shaped earthen pots glazed green andyellow, some with quaint devices on them.