o at
such times is the rich man become fearful, and so waxeth in cruelty,
and of that cruelty do people misdeem that it is power and might
waxing. Forsooth, ye are stronger than your fathers, because ye are
more grieved than they, and ye should have been less grieved than they
had ye been horses and swine; and then, forsooth, would ye have been
stronger to bear; but ye, ye are not strong to bear, but to do.

"And wot ye why we are come to you this fair eve of holiday? and wot ye
why I have been telling of fellowship to you? Yea, forsooth, I deem ye
wot well, that it is for this cause, that ye might bethink you of your
fellowship with the men of Essex."

His last word let loose the shout that had been long on all men's lips,
and great and fierce it was as it rang shattering through the quiet
upland village. But John Ball held up his hand, and the shout was one
and no more.

Then he spoke again:

"Men of Kent, I wot well that ye are not so hard bested as those of
other shires, by the token of the day when behind the screen of leafy
boughs ye met Duke William with bill and bow as he wended Londonward
from that woeful field of Senlac; but I have told of fellowship, and ye
have hearkened and understood what the Holy Church is, whereby ye know
that ye are fellows of the saints in heaven and the poor men of Essex;
and as one day the saints shall call you to the heavenly feast, so now
do the poor men call you to the battle.

"Men of Kent, ye dwell fairly here, and your houses are framed of stout
oak beams, and your own lands ye till; unless some accursed lawyer with
his false lying sheepskin and forged custom of the Devil's Manor hath
stolen it from you; but in Essex slaves they be and villeins, and worse
they shall be, and the lords swear that ere a year be over ox and horse
shall go free in Essex, and man and woman shall draw the team and the
plough; and north away in the east countries dwell men in poor halls of
wattled reeds and mud, and the north-east wind from off the fen
whistles through them; and poor they be to the letter; and there him
whom the lord spareth, the bailiff squeezeth, and him whom the bailiff
forgetteth, the Easterling Chapman sheareth; yet be these stout men and
valiant, and your very brethren.

"And yet if there be any man here so base as to think that a small
matter, let him look to it that if these necks abide under the yoke,
Kent shall sweat for it ere it be long; and ye shall lose acre and