"Earth from earth has got dignity of naught."
When the last stanza was reached, six hundred voices trolled it
defiantly forth:--
"Earth upon earth would be a king;
But how that earth shall be earth's thinks he no thing:
Earth upon earth wins castles and towers,
Then says earth unto earth 'this is all ours.'"
Then a thin boyish treble started a mocking song on the great state
of the priests. They did not suffer him to sing alone, but took it up
eagerly with him:--
"Priestes high on horse willeth ride
In glitterande gold of great array,
Ipainted and portred all in pride
No common knight may go so gay;
Change of clothing every day,
With golden girdles great and small;
As boisterous as is beare at bay."
But now John Ball was seen making his way through the throng. As the
people pressed together to let him pass, benedictions and glances of
true affection followed him; and he, catching sight here and there of
some known face, nodded cheerily, first on one side and the other.
For the people loved him, and called him "Saviour"; it was only the
Churchmen that spoke of him as "the mad priest of Kent."
In the centre of the square stood a great tall cross of stone with the
head very beautifully carved with a crucifix in the middle of leafage
work, and with wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, leading to it.
When Ball reached these steps, he mounted to the very top and stood
there looking down with a quiet smile upon the upturned faces before
him. He stood there, a powerfully built, tall, big-boned figure in the
well-known, reddish brown, coarse garb of his order, a veritable tower
of strength physical as well as spiritual, and looking as if he knew
his own strength and gloried in it. A ring of dark hair surrounded
his priest's tonsure; his nose was big, but clean-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 the gray eyes, well opened and wide apart, at
times lighting up his whole face with a kindly smile, at times set and
stern, or now and then resting in that look as if they were gazing at
something a long way off, as do the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.
Shout after shout broke from the throng as he stood there calmly
looking down upon them. When at last there was silence, he was not
suffered to speak, for of a sudden a man standing immediately next
to the cross unfurled a banner which swung out in the breeze. Only a
smallish banner with a peculiar device upon it: merely a picture of a
man and a woman rudely clad and with bare legs and feet seen against a
background of green trees, the man holding a spade, the woman a distaff
and spindle, rudely enough drawn, yet with great spirit and meaning.
Underneath were the written words:--
"When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?"
A tremulous murmur arose that soon swelled into a great huzza. The
thrill of enthusiasm ran like threads of fire from man to man. Again
and again, Huzza! Huzza!
A prosperous merchant, stopping curiously on the edge of the crowd,
pointed to the banner. "That comes," he said, "of putting Holy Writ
'twixt the fingers of every swineherd."
His companion, an alderman from Norwich, smiled. "Ah, can one wonder
that they cry Ball with Book and Bell? If they press the gospel into
daily life, there's no telling what will happen!"
Annys, coming from the dim twilight of the Cathedral, looked about him
at first in bewilderment. He stood on the outer edge of the throng,
apart and gazing with interest at the scene. He felt himself not yet
attuned to the bright picture before him, full of color and light and
life. But slowly the true significance of it all sank into him. The
very brightness and color of the scene was in itself symbolic. Here
all took place in the open air; the sun, although near the end of its
course, yet threw into sharp contrast the dark fringe of trees that
encircled the outskirts of the cross-roads. The air was pure and fresh
and smelled of the sea and the salt marshes, awakening every faculty
with a tingling sense of life and activity. It was so different, ah,
how different, from the heavy, incense-laden air of the dim Cathedral!
That was an atmosphere which dulled one's senses and soothed them to
sleep. The gay mass of moving color as the people swayed this way
and that, the goodly brown soil, the living green of the earth,--how
good it all was! He could look up and see, from where he stood, the
stately tower of Ely and the smaller tower of the Lantern etched
grandly against the sky. Beautiful as the proud Minster was, even as
he looked at it, he felt that its power must wane from the moment that
this new religion of the poor priests took firm hold of the people.
The Cathedral stood for a religion of secluded cloisters, a standard
of living for monks and priests; but Ball stood for a religion for the
whole broad earth, a standard of living for the men and women who did
the work of the world.