He had been a young man fair and comely, with hair flaxen almost to whiteness; he lay there in his clothes as he had fallen, the hands crossed over his breast and holding a rush cross.

His bow lay on one 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: "What sayest thou, scholar?
feelest thou sorrow of heart when thou lookest on this, either for the man himself, or for thyself and the time when thou shalt be as he is ?" I said, "Nay, I feel no sorrow for this; for the man is not here: this is an empty house, and the master has gone from it.

Forsooth, this to me is but as a waxen image of a man; nay, not even that, for if it were an 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 more life in them than in him." "Thou sayest sooth," said he; "but sorrowest thou not for thine own death when thou lookest on him ?" I said, "And how can I sorrow for that which I cannot so much as think of?
Bethink thee that while I am alive I cannot think that I shall die, or believe in death at all, although I know well that I shall die--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 even that I look for; and that hereafter I shall see all the deeds that I have done in the body, and what they really were, and what shall come of them; and ever shall I be a member of the Church, and that is the Fellowship; then, even as now." I sighed as he spoke; then I said, "Yea, somewhat in this fashion have most 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 word for 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 something betwixt 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, good friend; or at the least even so thou doest, since now thou art ready to die in grief and torment rather than be unfaithful to the Fellowship, yea rather than fail to work thine utmost for it; whereas, as thou thyself saidst at the cross, with a few words spoken and a little huddling-up of the truth, with a few pennies paid, and a few masses sung, thou mightest have had a good place on this earth and in that heaven.

And as thou doest, so now doth many a poor man unnamed and unknown, and shall do while the world lasteth: and they that do less than this, fail because of fear, and are ashamed of their cowardice, and make many tales to themselves to deceive themselves, lest they should grow too much ashamed to live.

And trust me if this were not so, the world would not live, but would die, smothered by its own stink.