CHAPTER X.
TWO TALK OF THE DAYS TO COME "Brother," said John Ball, "how deemest thou of our adventure?
I do not ask thee if thou thinkest we are right to play the play like men, but whether playing like men we shall fail like men." "Why dost thou ask me ?" said I; "how much further than beyond this church can I see ?" "Far further," quoth he, "for I wot that thou art a scholar and hast read books; and withal, in some way that I cannot name, thou knowest more than we; as though with thee the world had lived longer than with us.

Hide not, therefore, what thou hast in thine heart, for I think after this night I shall see thee no more, until we meet in the heavenly Fellowship." "Friend," I said, "ask me what thou wilt; or rather ask thou the years to come to tell thee some little of their tale; and yet methinks thou thyself mayest have some deeming thereof." He raised himself on the elbow of the stall and looked me full in the face, and said to me: "Is it so after all that thou art no man in the flesh, but art sent to me by the Master of the Fellowship, and the King's Son of Heaven, to tell me what shall be?
If that be so tell me straight out, since I had some deeming hereof before; whereas thy speech is like ours and yet unlike, and thy face hath something in it which is not after the fashion of our day.

And yet take heed, if thou art such an one, I fear thee not, nay, nor him that sent thee; nor for thy bidding, nor for his, will I turn back from London Bridge but will press on, for I do what is meet and right." "Nay," said I, "did I not tell thee e'en now that I knew life but not death?
I am not dead; and as to who hath sent me, I say not that I am come by my own will; for I know not; yet also I know not the will that hath sent me hither.

And this I say to thee, moreover, that if I know more than thou, I do far less; therefore thou art my captain and I thy minstrel." He sighed as one from whom a weight had been lifted, and said: "Well, then, since thou art alive on the earth and a man like myself, tell me how deemest thou of our adventure: shall we come to London, and how shall we fare there ?" Said I, "What shall hinder you to come to London, and to fare there as ye will?
For be sure that the Fellowship in Essex shall not fail you; nor shall the Londoners who hate the king's uncles withstand you; nor hath the Court any great force to meet you in the field; ye shall cast fear and trembling into their hearts." "Even so, I thought," said he; "but afterwards what shall betide ?" Said I, "It grieves my heart to say that which I think.

Yet hearken; many a man's son shall die who is now alive and happy, and if the soldiers be slain, and of them most not on the field, but by the lawyers, how shall the captains escape?
Surely thou goest to thy death." He smiled very sweetly, yet proudly, as he said: "Yea, the road is long, but the end cometh at last.