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.
As for the peasants, great was their fear of those gay and golden
lords. I judge that they did not know the King, since it was little
likely that any one of them had seen his face; and they knew of him but
as the Great Father, the mighty warrior who kept the Turk from harrying
their thorpe. Though, forsooth, little matter was it to any man there
whether Turk or Magyar was their over-lord, since to one master or
another they had to pay the due tale of labouring days in the year, and
hard was the livelihood that they earned for themselves on the days
when they worked for themselves and their wives and children.
Well, belike they knew not the King; but amidst those rich lords they
saw and knew their own lord, and of him they were sore afraid. But
nought it availed them to flee away from those strong men and strong
horses--they who had been toiling from before the rising of the sun,
and now it wanted little more than an hour of noon: besides, with the
King and lords was a guard of crossbowmen, who were left the other side
of the vineyard wall,--keen-eyed Italians of the mountains, straight
shooters of the bolt. So the poor folk fled not; nay they made as if
all this were none of their business, and went on with their work. For
indeed each man said to himself, "If I be the one that is not slain,
to-morrow I shall lack bread if I do not work my hardest to-day; and
maybe I shall be headman if some of these be slain and I live."
Now comes the King amongst them and says: "Good fellows, which of you
is the headman?"
Spake a man, sturdy and sunburnt, well on in years and grizzled: "I am
the headman, lord."
"Give me thy hoe, then," says the King; "for now shall I order this
matter myself, since these lords desire a new game, and are fain to
work under me at vine-dressing. But do thou stand by me and set me
right if I order them wrong: but the rest of you go play!"
The carle knew not what to think, and let the King stand with his hand
stretched out, while he looked askance at his own lord and baron, who
wagged his head at him grimly as one who says, "Do it, dog!"
Then the carle lets the hoe come into the King's hand; and the King
falls to, and orders his lords for vine-dressing, to each his due share
of the work: and whiles the carle said yea and whiles nay to his
ordering. And then ye should have seen velvet cloaks cast off, and
mantles of fine Flemish scarlet go to the dusty earth; as the lords and
knights busked them to the work.
So they buckled to; and to most of them it seemed good game to play at
vine-dressing. But one there was who, when his scarlet cloak was off,
stood up in a doublet of glorious Persian web of gold and silk, such as
men make not now, worth a hundred florins the Bremen ell. Unto him the
King with no smile on his face gave the job of toing and froing up and
down the hill with the biggest and the frailest dung-basket that there
was; and thereat the silken lord screwed up a grin, that was sport to
see, and all the lords laughed; and as he turned away he said, yet so
that none heard him, "Do I serve this son's son of a whore that he
should bid me carry dung?" For you must know that the King's father,
John Hunyad, one of the great warriors of the world, the Hammer of the
Turks, was not gotten in wedlock, though he were a king's son.
Well, they sped the work bravely for a while, and loud was the laughter
as the hoes smote the earth and the flint stones tinkled and the cloud
of dust rose up; the brocaded dung-bearer went up and down, cursing and
swearing by the White God and the Black; and one would say to another,
"See ye how gentle blood outgoes churls' blood, even when the gentle
does the churl's work: these lazy loons smote but one stroke to our
three." But the King, who worked no worse than any, laughed not at
all; and meanwhile the poor folk stood by, not daring to speak a word
one to the other; for they were still sore afraid, not now of being
slain on the spot, but this rather was in their hearts: "These great
and strong lords and knights have come to see what work a man may do
without dying: if we are to have yet more days added to our year's tale
of lords' labour, then are we lost without remedy." And their hearts
sank within them.
So sped the work; and the sun rose yet higher in the heavens, and it
was noon and more. And now there was no more laughter among those
toiling lords, and the strokes of the hoe and mattock came far slower,
while the dung-bearer sat down at the bottom of the hill and looked out
on the river; but the King yet worked on doggedly, so for shame the
other lords yet kept at it. Till at last the next man to the King let
his hoe drop with a clatter, and swore a great oath. Now he was a
strong black-bearded man in the prime of life, a valiant captain of
that famous Black Band that had so often rent the Turkish array; and
the King loved him for his sturdy valour; so he says to him, "Is aught
wrong, Captain?"
"Nay, lord," says he, "ask the headman carle yonder what ails us."
"Headman," says the King, "what ails these strong knights? Have I
ordered them wrongly?"
"Nay, but shirking ails them, lord," says he, "for they are weary; and
no wonder, for they have been playing hard, and are of gentle blood."
"Is that so, lord," says the King, "that ye are weary already?"
Then the rest hung their heads and said nought, all save that captain
of war; and he said, being a bold man and no liar: "King, I see what
thou wouldst be at; thou hast brought us here to preach us a sermon
from that Plato of thine; and to say sooth, so that I may swink no
more, and go eat my dinner, now preach thy worst! Nay, if thou wilt be
priest I will be thy deacon. Wilt thou that I ask this labouring carle
a thing or two?"
"Yea," said the King. And there came, as it were, a cloud of thought
over his face.
Then the captain straddled his legs and looked big, and said to the
carle: "Good fellow, how long have we been working here?"
"Two hours or thereabout, judging by the sun above us," says he.
"And how much of thy work have we done in that while?" says the
captain, and winks his eye at him withal.
"Lord," says the carle, grinning a little despite himself, "be not
wroth with my word. In the first half-hour ye did five-and-forty
minutes' work of ours, and in the next half-hour scant a thirty
minutes' work, and the third half-hour a fifteen minutes' work, and in
the fourth half-hour two minutes' work." The grin now had faded from
his face, but a gleam came into his eyes as he said: "And now, as I
suppose, your day's work is done, and ye will go to your dinner, and
eat the sweet and drink the strong; and we shall eat a little
rye-bread, and then be working here till after the sun has set and the
moon has begun to cast shadows. Now for you, I wot not how ye shall
sleep nor where, nor what white body ye shall hold in your arms while
the night flits and the stars shine; but for us, while the stars yet
shine, shall we be at it again, and bethink ye for what! I know not
what game and play ye shall be devising for to-morrow as ye ride back
home; but for us when we come back here to-morrow, it shall be as if
there had been no yesterday and nothing done therein, and that work of
that to-day shall be nought to us also, for we shall win no respite
from our toil thereby, and the morrow of to-morrow will all be to begin
again once more, and so on and on till no to-morrow abideth us.
Therefore, if ye are thinking to lay some new tax or tale upon us,
think twice of it, for we may not bear it. And all this I say with the
less fear, because I perceive this man here beside me, in the black
velvet jerkin and the gold chain on his neck, is the King; nor do I
think he will slay me for my word since he hath so many a Turk before
him and his mighty sword!"
Then said the captain: "Shall I smite the man, O King? or hath he
preached thy sermon for thee?"
"Smite not, for he hath preached it," said the King. "Hearken to the
carle's sermon, lords and councillors of mine! Yet when another hath
spoken our thought, other thoughts are born therefrom, and now have I
another sermon to preach; but I will refrain me as now. Let us down
and to our dinner."
So they went, the King and his gentles, and sat down by the river under
the rustle of the poplars, and they ate and drank and were merry. And
the King bade bear up the broken meats to the vine-dressers, and a good
draught of the archer's wine, and to the headman he gave a broad gold
piece, and to each man three silver pennies. But when the poor folk
had all that under their hands, it was to them as though the kingdom of
heaven had come down to earth.
In the cool of the evening home rode the King and his lords. The King
was distraught and silent; but at last the captain, who rode beside
him, said to him: "Preach me now thine after-sermon, O King!"
"I think thou knowest it already," said the King, "else hadst thou not
spoken in such wise to the carle; but tell me what is thy craft and the
craft of all these, whereby ye live, as the potter by making pots, and
so forth?"
Said the captain: "As the potter lives by making pots, so we live by
robbing the poor."
Again said the King: "And my trade?"
Said he, "Thy trade is to be a king of such thieves, yet no worser than
the rest."
The King laughed.
"Bear that in mind," said he, "and then shall I tell thee my thought
while yonder carle spake. 'Carle,' I thought, 'were I thou or such as
thou, then would I take in my hand a sword or a spear, or were it only
a hedge-stake, and bid others do the like, and forth would we go; and
since we would be so many, and with nought to lose save a miserable
life, we would do battle and prevail, and make an end of the craft of
kings and of lords and of usurers, and there should be but one craft in
the world, to wit, to work merrily for ourselves and to live merrily
thereby.'"
Said the captain: "This then is thy sermon. Who will heed it if thou
preach it?"
Said the King: "They who will take the mad king and put him in a
king's madhouse, therefore do I forbear to preach it. Yet it SHALL be
preached."
"And not heeded," said the captain, "save by those who head and hang
the setters forth of new things that are good for the world. Our trade
is safe for many an many a generation."
And therewith they came to the King's palace, and they ate and drank
and slept and the world went on its ways.