A Dream of John Ball; and, A King's Lesson

rlour. 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 cha

ng 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,

and he called out in his rough, good-tempered voice, "Here, my masters, I bring

tidings, Will

joke once more in a bigger company: "It seemeth from h

grizzled beard, amidst the laughter that followed, "unle

come not from heav

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 collar on their necks again, and make their day's work longer and their bever-time shorter, as t

on the point of rising, and word had gone how that at St. Albans they were wellnigh at 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

t, 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 kn

rank, and the fire of the good Kentish mead ran through my veins and deepened my dream of things past, present, and to come, as I said: "Now hearken a tale, since ye will have it so. For last autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town of Dunwich, and

d grow, so that I knew not the sound of my own voice, and they ran almost into rhyme and measure

th summer and winter; and if the trees grew ill and the corn throve not, yet

been and will be, and belike are n

e freedom of life, how that the wildwood and the heath, despite of wind and weather, were better for a free man than the court and 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 refra

the same strain, but singing more of a song than

is made a

gold he

ergeant girt

ill we and

d the bow on

thorn and th

lime is the b

rison are sta

true man th

ight man doo

all we and

writ never the

en walk

the houses

nd as fine as

our heels the

th the bow to

thorn and th

d bows I and

bout on th

their compa

se wing shal

the bow in t

s writ knowet

mead and ove

he wild-wood

we yeomen bo

iff's word is

e bow on t

thorn and th

ound of another song, gradually swelling as though sung by men on the march. This time the melody was a piece of the plain-song of the

went to the corner where the bills leaned against the wall and handed them round to the first-comers as far as they would go, and out we all went gravely and quietly into the village street and the fair sunlight of the calm afternoon, now beginning to turn