under them again, yet shall their victory be fruitless; for the free
men that hold unfree lands shall they not bring under the collar again,
and villeinage shall slip from their hands, till there be, and not long
after ye are dead, but few unfree men in England; so that your lives
and your deaths both shall bear fruit."

"Said I not," quoth John Ball, "that thou wert a sending from other
times? Good is thy message, for the land shall be free. Tell on now."

He spoke eagerly, and I went on somewhat sadly: "The times shall
better, though the king and lords shall worsen, the Gilds of Craft
shall wax and become mightier; more recourse shall there be of foreign
merchants. There shall be plenty in the land and not famine. Where a
man now earneth two pennies he shall earn three."

"Yea," said he, "then shall those that labour become strong and
stronger, and so soon shall it come about that all men shall work and
none make to work, and so shall none be robbed, and at last shall all
men labour and live and be happy, and have the goods of the earth
without money and without price."

"Yea," said I, "that shall indeed come to pass, but not yet for a
while, and belike a long while."

And I sat for long without speaking, and the church grew darker as the
moon waned yet more.

Then I said: "Bethink thee that these men shall yet have masters over
them, who have at hand many a law and custom for the behoof of masters,
and being masters can make yet more laws in the same behoof; and they
shall suffer poor people to thrive just so long as their thriving shall
profit the mastership and no longer; and so shall it be in those days I
tell of; for there shall be king and lords and knights and squires
still, with servants to do their bidding, and make honest men afraid;
and all these will make nothing and eat much as aforetime, and the more
that is made in the land the more shall they crave."

"Yea," said he, "that wot I well, that these are of the kin of the
daughters of the horse-leech; but how shall they slake their greed,
seeing that as thou sayest villeinage shall be gone? Belike their men
shall pay them quit-rents and do them service, as free men may, but all
this according to law and not beyond it; so that though the workers
shall be richer than they now be, the lords shall be no richer, and so
all shall be on the road to being free and equal."

Said I, "Look you, friend; aforetime the lords, for the most part, held
the la