A Dream of John Ball; and, A King's Lesson, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  THEY MEET AT THE CROSS

  The street was pretty full of men by then we were out in it, and allfaces turned toward the cross. The song still grew nearer and louder,and even as we looked we saw it turning the corner through the hedgesof the orchards and closes, a good clump of men, more armed, as itwould seem, than our villagers, as the low sun flashed back from manypoints of bright iron and steel. The words of the song could now beheard, and amidst them I could pick out Will Green's late challenge tome and my answer; but as I was bending all my mind to disentangle morewords from the music, suddenly from the new white tower behind usclashed out the church bells, harsh and hurried at first, but presentlyfalling into measured chime; and at the first sound of them a greatshout went up from us and was echoed by the new-comers, "John Ball hathrung our bell!" Then we pressed on, and presently we were all mingledtogether at the cross.

  Will Green had good-naturedly thrust and pulled me forward, so that Ifound myself standing on the lowest step of the cross, his seventy-twoinches 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 arttall across thy belly and not otherwise, and thy wind, belike, is noneof the best, and but for me thou wouldst have been amidst the thickestof the throng, and have heard words muffled by Kentish bellies and seenlittle but swinky woollen elbows and greasy plates and jacks. Look nomore on the ground, as though thou sawest a hare, but let thine eyesand thine ears be busy to gather tidings to bear back to Essex--orheaven!"

  I grinned good-fellowship at him but said nothing, for in truth my eyesand ears were as busy as he would have them to be. A buzz of generaltalk 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 byhands, but were living creatures making that noise of their own wills.

  I looked around and saw that the newcomers mingled with us must havebeen a regular armed band; all had bucklers slung at their backs, fewlacked a sword at the side. Some had bows, some "staves"--that is,bills, pole-axes, or pikes. Moreover, unlike our villagers, they haddefensive arms. Most had steel-caps on their heads, and some had bodyarmour, generally a "jack," or coat into which pieces of iron or hornwere quilted; some had also steel or steel-and-leather arm or thighpieces. There were a few mounted men among them, their horses beingbig-boned hammer-headed beasts, that looked as if they had been takenfrom plough or waggon, but their riders were well armed with steelarmour on their heads, legs, and arms. Amongst the horsemen I notedthe man that had ridden past me when I first awoke; but he seemed to bea 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 meansill-at-ease, however, but was laughing and talking with the men whostood 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 womanhalf-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 doneenough, but yet with a certain spirit and much meaning; and underneaththis symbol of the early world and man's first contest with nature werethe 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 westood for its passage, and the banner-bearer turned and faced thethrong 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 weshould call it to-day) and a book in a bag. The man was tall andbig-boned, a ring of dark hair surrounded his priest's tonsure; hisnose was big but clear cut and with wide nostrils; his shaven faceshowed a longish upper lip and a big but blunt chin; his mouth was bigand the lips closed firmly; a face not very noteworthy but for his greyeyes well opened and wide apart, at whiles lighting up his whole facewith a kindly smile, at whiles set and stern, at whiles resting in thatlook as if they were gazing at something a long way off, which is thewont of the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.

  He went slowly up the steps of the cross and stood at the top with onehand laid on the shaft, and shout upon shout broke forth from thethrong. When the shouting died away into a silence of the humanvoices, the bells were still quietly chiming with that far-away voiceof theirs, and the long-winged dusky swifts, by no means scared by theconcourse, swung round about the cross with their wild squeals; and theman stood still for a little, eyeing the throng, or rather lookingfirst at one and then another man in it, as though he were trying tothink 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 smilespread over his face, but faded off it into the sternness and sadnessof a man who has heavy and great thoughts hanging about him. But whenJohn Ball first mounted the steps of the cross a lad at some one'sbidding had run off to stop the ringers, and so presently the voice ofthe bells fell dead, leaving on men's minds that sense of blankness oreven disappointment which is always caused by the sudden stopping of asound one has got used to and found pleasant. But a great expectationhad fallen by now on all that throng, and no word was spoken even in awhisper, and all men's hearts and eyes were fixed upon the dark figurestanding straight up now by the tall white shaft of the cross, hishands 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 Ihad never yet felt.