of those days would seek
a remedy. Canst thou yet tell me, brother, what that remedy shall be,
lest the sun rise upon me made hopeless by thy tale of what is to be?
And, lo you, soon shall she rise upon the earth."

In truth the dawn was widening now, and the colours coming into the
pictures on wall and in window; and as well as I could see through the
varied glazing of these last (and one window before me had as yet
nothing but white glass in it), the ruddy glow, which had but so little
a while quite died out in the west, was now beginning to gather in the
east--the new day was beginning. I looked at the poppy that I still
carried in my hand, and it seemed to me to have withered and dwindled.
I felt anxious to speak to my companion and tell him much, and withal I
felt that I must hasten, or for some reason or other I should be too
late; so I spoke at last loud and hurriedly:

"John Ball, be of good cheer; for once more thou knowest, as I know,
that the Fellowship of Men shall endure, however many tribulations it
may have to wear through. Look you, a while ago was the light bright
about us; but it was because of the moon, and the night was deep
notwithstanding, and when the moonlight waned and died, and there was
but a little glimmer in place of the bright light, yet was the world
glad because all things knew that the glimmer was of day and not of
night. Lo you, an image of the times to betide the hope of the
Fellowship of Men. Yet forsooth, it may well be that this bright day of
summer which is now dawning upon us is no image of the beginning of the
day that shall be; but rather shall that day-dawn be cold and grey and
surly; and yet by its light shall men see things as they verily are,
and no longer enchanted by the gleam of the moon and the glamour of the
dream-tide. By such grey light shall wise men and valiant souls see
the remedy, and deal with it, a real thing that may be touched and
handled, and no glory of the heavens to be worshipped from afar off.
And what shall it be, as I told thee before, save that men shall be
determined to be free; yea, free as thou wouldst have them, when thine
hope rises the highest, and thou art thinking not of the king's uncles,
and poll-groat bailiffs, and the villeinage of Essex, but of the end of
all, when men shall have the fruits of the earth and the fruits of
their toil thereon, without money and without price. The time shall
come, John Ball, when that dream of thine tha