A Dream of John Ball; and, A King's Lesson

by William Morris

  CHAPTER IX

  BETWIXT THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

  We entered the church through the south porch under a round-arched doorcarved very richly, and with a sculpture over the doorway and under thearch, which, as far as I could see by the moonlight, figured St.Michael and the Dragon. As I came into the rich gloom of the nave Inoticed for the first time that I had one of those white poppies in myhand; I must have taken it out of the pot by the window as I passed outof Will Green's house.

  The nave was not very large, but it looked spacious too; it wassomewhat old, but well-built and handsome; the roof of curved woodenrafters with great tie-beams going from wall to wall. There was nolight in it but that of the moon streaming through the windows, whichwere by no means large, and were glazed with white fretwork, with hereand there a little figure in very deep rich colours. Two largerwindows near the east end of each aisle had just been made so that thechurch grew lighter toward the east, and I could see all the work onthe great screen between the nave and chancel which glittered bright innew paint and gilding: a candle glimmered in the loft above it, beforethe huge rood that filled up the whole space between the loft and thechancel arch. There was an altar at the east end of each aisle, theone on the south side standing against the outside wall, the one on thenorth against a traceried gaily-painted screen, for that aisle ran onalong the chancel. There were a few oak benches near this secondaltar, seemingly just made, and well carved and moulded; otherwise thefloor of the nave, which was paved with a quaint pavement of glazedtiles like the crocks I had seen outside as to ware, was quite clear,and the shafts of the arches rose out of it white and beautiful underthe moon as though out of a sea, dark but with gleams struck over it.

  The priest let me linger and look round, when he had crossed himselfand given me the holy water; and then I saw that the walls were figuredall over with stories, a huge St. Christopher with his black beardlooking like Will Green, being close to the porch by which we entered,and above the chancel arch the Doom of the last Day, in which thepainter had not spared either kings or bishops, and in which a lawyerwith his blue coif was one of the chief figures in the group which theDevil was hauling off to hell.

  "Yea," said John Ball, "'tis a goodly church and fair as you may see'twixt Canterbury and London as for its kind; and yet do I misdoubt mewhere those who are dead are housed, and where those shall house themafter they are dead, who built this house for God to dwell in. Godgrant they be cleansed at last; forsooth one of them who is now aliveis a foul swine and a cruel wolf. Art thou all so sure, scholar, thatall such have souls? and if it be so, was it well done of God to makethem? I speak to thee thus, for I think thou art no delator; and ifthou be, why should I heed it, since I think not to come back from thisjourney."

  I looked at him and, as it were, had some ado to answer him; but I saidat last, "Friend, I never saw a soul, save in the body; I cannot tell."

  He crossed himself and said, "Yet do I intend that ere many days aregone by my soul shall be in bliss among the fellowship of the saints,and merry shall it be, even before my body rises from the dead; forwisely I have wrought in the world, and I wot well of friends that arelong ago gone from the world, as St. Martin, and St. Francis, and St.Thomas of Canterbury, who shall speak well of me to the heavenlyFellowship, and I shall in no wise lose my reward."

  I looked shyly at him as he spoke; his face looked sweet and calm andhappy, and I would have said no word to grieve him; and yet belike myeyes looked wonder on him: he seemed to note it and his face grewpuzzled. "How deemest thou of these things?" said he: "why do men dieelse, if it be otherwise than this?"

  I smiled: "Why then do they live?" said I.

  Even in the white moonlight I saw his face flush, and he cried out in agreat voice, "To do great deeds or to repent them that they ever wereborn." "Yea," said I, "they live to live because the world liveth." Hestretched out his hand to me and grasped mine, but said no more; andwent on till we came to the door in the rood-screen; then he turned tome with his hand on the ring-latch, and said, "Hast thou seen many deadmen?"

  "Nay, but few," said I.

  "And I a many," said he; "but come now and look on these, our friendsfirst and then our foes, so that ye may not look to see them while wesit and talk of the days that are to be on the earth before the Day ofDoom cometh."

  So he opened the door, and we went into the chancel; a light burned onthe high altar before the host, and looked red and strange in themoonlight that came through the wide traceried windows unstained by thepictures and beflowerings of the glazing; there were new stalls for thepriests and vicars where we entered, carved more abundantly andbeautifully than any of the woodwork I had yet seen, and everywhere wasrich and fair colour and delicate and dainty form. Our dead lay justbefore the high altar on low biers, their faces all covered with linencloths, for some of them had been sore smitten and hacked in the fray.We went up to them and John Ball took the cloth from the face of one;he had been shot to the heart with a shaft and his face was calm andsmooth. He had been a young man fair and comely, with hair flaxenalmost to whiteness; he lay there in his clothes as he had fallen, thehands crossed over his breast and holding a rush cross. His bow lay onone side of him, his quiver of shafts and his sword on the other.

  John Ball spake to me while he held the corner of the sheet: "Whatsayest thou, scholar? feelest thou sorrow of heart when thou lookest onthis, either for the man himself, or for thyself and the time when thoushalt be as he is?"

  I said, "Nay, I feel no sorrow for this; for the man is not here: thisis an empty house, and the master has gone from it. Forsooth, this tome is but as a waxen image of a man; nay, not even that, for if it werean image, it would be an image of the man as he was when he was alive.But here is no life nor semblance of life, and I am not moved by it;nay, I am more moved by the man's clothes and war-gear--there is morelife in them than in him."

  "Thou sayest sooth," said he; "but sorrowest thou not for thine owndeath when thou lookest on him?"

  I said, "And how can I sorrow for that which I cannot so much as thinkof? Bethink thee that while I am alive I cannot think that I shalldie, or believe in death at all, although I know well that I shalldie--I can but think of myself as living in some new way."

  Again he looked on me as if puzzled; then his face cleared as he said,"Yea, forsooth, and that is what the Church meaneth by death, and eventhat I look for; and that hereafter I shall see all the deeds that Ihave done in the body, and what they really were, and what shall comeof them; and ever shall I be a member of the Church, and that is theFellowship; then, even as now."

  I sighed as he spoke; then I said, "Yea, somewhat in this fashion havemost of men thought, since no man that is can conceive of not being;and I mind me that in those stories of the old Danes, their common wordfor a man dying is to say, 'He changed his life.'"

  "And so deemest thou?"

  I shook my head and said nothing.

  "What hast thou to say hereon?" said he, "for there seemeth somethingbetwixt us twain as it were a wall that parteth us."

  "This," said I, "that though I die and end, yet mankind yet liveth,therefore I end not, since I am a man; and even so thou deemest, goodfriend; or at the least even so thou doest, since now thou art ready todie in grief and torment rather than be unfaithful to the Fellowship,yea rather than fail to work thine utmost for it; whereas, as thouthyself saidst at the cross, with a few words spoken and a littlehuddling-up of the truth, with a few pennies paid, and a few massessung, thou mightest have had a good place on this earth and in thatheaven. And as thou doest, so now doth many a poor man unnamed andunknown, and shall do while the world lasteth: and they that do lessthan this, fail because of fear, and are ashamed of their cowardice,and make many tales to themselves to deceive themselves, lest theyshould grow too much ashamed to live. And trust me if this were notso, the world would not live, but would die, smothered by its ownstink. Is the wall betwixt us gone, friend?"

  He smiled as he looked at me, kindly, b
ut sadly and shamefast, andshook his head.

  Then in a while he said, "Now ye have seen the images of those who wereour friends, come and see the images of those who were once our foes."

  So he led the way through the side screen into the chancel aisle, andthere on the pavement lay the bodies of the foemen, their weapons takenfrom them and they stripped of their armour, but not otherwise of theirclothes, and their faces mostly, but not all, covered. At the east endof the aisle was another altar, covered with a rich cloth beautifullyfigured, and on the wall over it was a deal of tabernacle work, in themidmost niche of it an image painted and gilt of a gay knight onhorseback, cutting his own cloak in two with his sword to give a cantleof it to a half-naked beggar. "Knowest thou any of these men?" said I.

  He said, "Some I should know, could I see their faces; but let them be."

  "Were they evil men?" said I.

  "Yea," he said, "some two or three. But I will not tell thee of them;let St. Martin, whose house this is, tell their story if he will. Asfor the rest they were hapless fools, or else men who must earn theirbread somehow, and were driven to this bad way of earning it; God resttheir souls! I will be no tale-bearer, not even to God."

  So we stood musing a little while, I gazing not on the dead men, but onthe strange pictures on the wall, which were richer and deeper colouredthan those in the nave; till at last John Ball turned to me and laidhis hand on my shoulder. I started and said, "Yea, brother; now must Iget me back to Will Green's house, as I promised to do so timely."

  "Not yet, brother," said he; "I have still much to say to thee, and thenight is yet young. Go we and sit in the stalls of the vicars, and letus ask and answer on matters concerning the fashion of this world ofmenfolk, and of this land wherein we dwell; for once more I deem ofthee that thou hast seen things which I have not seen, and could nothave seen." With that word he led me back into the chancel, and we satdown side by side in the stalls at the west end of it, facing the highaltar and the great east window. By this time the chancel was gettingdimmer as the moon wound round the heavens; but yet was there atwilight of the moon, so that I could still see the things about me forall the brightness of the window that faced us; and this moon twilightwould last, I knew, until the short summer night should wane, and thetwilight of the dawn begin to show us the colours of all things aboutus.

  So we sat, and I gathered my thoughts to hear what he would say, and Imyself was trying to think what I should ask of him; for I thought ofhim as he of me, that he had seen things which I could not have seen.