SO now I heard John Ball;how he lifted up his voice and said:
"Ho,all ye good people!I am a priest of God,and in my day's work it cometh that I should tell you what ye should do,and what ye should forbear doing,and to that end I am come hither:yet first,if I myself have wronged any man here,let him say wherein my wrongdoing lieth,that I may ask his pardon and his pity."A great hum of good-will ran through the crowd as he spoke;then he smiled as in a kind of pride,and again he spoke:
"Wherefore did ye take me out of the archbishop's prison but three days agone,when ye lighted the archbishop's house for the candle of Canterbury,but that I might speak to you and pray you:therefore I will not keep silence,whether I have done ill,or whether I have done well.And herein,good fellows and my very brethren,I would have you to follow me;and if there be such here,as I know full well there be some,and may be a good many,who have been robbers of their neighbours (`And who is my neighbour?'quoth the rich man),or lechers,or despiteful haters,or talebearers,or fawners on rich men for the hurt of the poor (and that is the worst of all)--Ah,my poor brethren who have gone astray,I say not to you,go home and repent lest you mar our great deeds,but rather come afield and there repent.
Many a day have ye been fools,but hearken unto me and I shall make you wise above the wisdom of the earth;and if ye die in your wisdom,as God wot ye well may,since the fields ye wend to bear swords for daisies,and spears for bents,then shall ye be,though men call you dead,a part and parcel of the living wisdom of all things,very stones of the pillars that uphold the joyful earth.
"Forsooth,ye have heard it said that ye shall do well in this world that in the world to come ye may live happily for ever;do ye well then,and have your reward both on earth and in heaven;for I say to you that earth and heaven are not two but one;and this one is that which ye know,and are each one of you a part of,to wit,the Holy Church,and in each one of you dwelleth the life of the Church,unless ye slay it.Forsooth,brethren,will ye murder the Church any one of you,and go forth a wandering man and lonely,even as Cain did who slew his brother?Ah,my brothers,what an evil doom is this,to be an outcast from the Church,to have none to love you and to speak with you,to be without fellowship!Forsooth,brothers,fellowship is heaven,and lack of fellowship is hell:fellowship is life,and lack of fellowship is death:and the deeds that ye do upon the earth,it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them,and the life that is in it,that shall live on and on for ever,and each one of you part of it,while many a man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane.
"Therefore,I bid you not dwell in hell but in heaven,or while ye must,upon earth,which is a part of heaven,and forsooth no foul part.
"Forsooth,he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him,shall have memory of the merry days of earth,and how that when his heart failed him there,he cried on his fellow,were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms,and how that his fellow heard him and came and they mourned together under the sun,till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them.This shall he think on in hell,and cry on his fellow to help him,and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship,but every man for himself.Therefore,I tell you that the proud,despiteous rich man,though he knoweth it not,is in hell already,because he hath no fellow;and he that hath so hardy a heart that in sorrow he thinketh of fellowship,his sorrow is soon but a story of sorrow--a little change in the life that knows not ill."He left off for a little;and indeed for some time his voice had fallen,but it was so clear and the summer evening so soft and still,and the silence of the folk so complete,that every word told.His eyes fell down to the crowd as he stopped speaking,since for some little while they had been looking far away into the blue distance of summer;and the kind eyes of the man had a curious sight before him in that crowd,for amongst them were many who by this time were not dry-eyed,and some wept outright in spite of their black beards,while all had that look as if they were ashamed of themselves,and did not want others to see how deeply they were moved,after the fashion of their race when they are strongly stirred.I looked at Will Green beside me:his right hand clutched his bow so tight,that the knuckles whitened;he was staring straight before him,and the tears were running out of his eyes and down his big nose as though without his will,for his face was stolid and unmoved all the time till he caught my eye,and then he screwed up the strangest face,of scowling brow,weeping eyes,and smiling mouth,while he dealt me a sounding thump in the ribs with his left elbow,which,though it would have knocked me down but for the crowd,I took as an esquire does the accolade which makes a knight of him.
But while I pondered all these things,and how men fight and lose the battle,and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat,and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant,and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name--while I pondered all this,John Ball began to speak again in the same soft and dear voice with which he had left off.
"Good fellows,it was your fellowship and your kindness that took me out of the archbishop's prison three days agone,though God wot ye had nought to gain by it save outlawry and the gallows;yet lacked I not your fellowship before ye drew near me in the body,and when between me and Canterbury street was yet a strong wall,and the turnkeys and sergeants and bailiffs.
