lay there, and the heart that I had strung up to bear all
things because of the fellowship of men and the blessed saints and the
angels and those that are, and those that are to be, this heart, that I
had strung up like a strong bow, fell into feebleness, so that I lay
there a-longing for the green fields and the white-thorn bushes and the
lark singing over the corn, and the talk of good fellows round the
ale-house bench, and the babble of the little children, and the team on
the road and the beasts afield, and all the life of earth; and I alone
all the while, near my foes and afar from my friends, mocked and
flouted and starved with cold and hunger; and so weak was my heart that
though I longed for all these things yet I saw them not, nor knew them
but as names; and I longed so sore to be gone that I chided myself that
I had once done well; and I said to myself:

"Forsooth, hadst thou kept thy tongue between thy teeth thou mightest
have been something, if it had been but a parson of a town, and
comfortable to many a poor man; and then mightest thou have clad here
and there the naked back, and filled the empty belly, and holpen many,
and men would have spoken well of thee, and of thyself thou hadst
thought well; and all this hast thou lost for lack of a word here and
there to some great man, and a little winking of the eyes amidst murder
and wrong and unruth; and now thou art nought and helpless, and the
hemp for thee is sown and grown and heckled and spun, and lo there, the
rope for thy gallows-tree!--all for nought, for nought.

"Forsooth, my friends, thus I thought and sorrowed in my feebleness
that I had not been a traitor to the Fellowship of the Church, for e'en
so evil was my foolish imagination.

"Yet, forsooth, as I fell a-pondering over all the comfort and help
that I might have been and that I might have had, if I had been but a
little of a trembling cur to creep and crawl before abbot and bishop
and baron and bailiff, came the thought over me of the evil of the
world wherewith I, John Ball, the rascal hedge-priest, had fought and
striven in the Fellowship of the saints in heaven and poor men upon
earth.

"Yea, forsooth, once again I saw as of old, the great treading down the
little, and the strong beating down the weak, and cruel men fearing
not, and kind men daring not, and wise men caring not; and the saints
in heaven forbearing and yet bidding me not to forbear; forsooth, I
knew once more that he who