labouring men who are not thralls after their new fashion,
that their lords shall be many and very many, it seemeth to me that
these same lords, if they be many, shall hardly be rich, or but very
few of them, since they must verily feed and clothe and house their
thralls, so that that which they take from them, since it will have to
be dealt out amongst many, will not be enough to make many rich; since
out of one man ye may get but one man's work; and pinch him never so
sorely, still as aforesaid ye may not pinch him so sorely as not to
feed him. Therefore, though the eyes of my mind may see a few lords
and many slaves, yet can they not see many lords as well as many
slaves; and if the slaves be many and the lords few, then some day
shall the slaves make an end of that mastery by the force of their
bodies. How then shall thy mastership of the latter days endure?"

"John Ball," said I, "mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth
to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou
sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's
work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men--yea,
of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall
make many masters and many rich men."

John Ball laughed. "Great is my harvest of riddles to-night," said he;
"for even if a man sleep not, and eat and drink while he is a-working,
ye shall but make two men, or three at the most, out of him."

Said I: "Sawest thou ever a weaver at his loom?"

"Yea," said he, "many a time."

He was silent a little, and then said: "Yet I marvelled not at it; but
now I marvel, because I know what thou wouldst say. Time was when the
shuttle was thrust in and out of all the thousand threads of the warp,
and it was long to do; but now the spring-staves go up and down as the
man's feet move, and this and that leaf of the warp cometh forward and
the shuttle goeth in one shot through all the thousand warps. Yea, so
it is that this multiplieth a man many times. But look you, he is so
multiplied already; and so hath he been, meseemeth, for many hundred
years."

"Yea," said I, "but what hitherto needed the masters to multiply him
more? For many hundred years the workman was a thrall bought and sold
at the cross; and for other hundreds of years he hath been a villein--
that is, a working-beast and a part of the stock of the manor on which
he liveth; but then thou and the like of