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