THEY MEET AT THE CROSS
The street was pretty full of men by then we were out in it, and all
faces turned toward the cross. The song still grew nearer and louder,
and even as we looked we saw it turning the corner through the hedges
of the orchards and closes, a good clump of men, more armed, as it
would seem, than our villagers, as the low sun flashed back from many
points of bright iron and steel. The words of the song could now be
heard, and amidst them I could pick out Will Green's late challenge to
me and my answer; but as I was bending all my mind to disentangle more
words from the music, suddenly from the new white tower behind us
clashed out the church bells, harsh and hurried at first, but presently
falling into measured chime; and at the first sound of them a great
shout went up from us and was echoed by the new-comers, "John Ball hath
rung our bell!" Then we pressed on, and presently we were all mingled
together at the cross.
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.