He said:"Many strange things hast thou told me that I could not understand;yea,some my wit so failed to compass,that I cannot so much as ask thee questions concerning them;but of some matters would I ask thee,and I must hasten,for in very sooth the night is worn old and grey.Whereas thou sayest that in the days to come,when there shall be no labouring men who are not thralls after their new fashion,that their lords shall be many and very many,it seemeth to me that these same lords,if they be many,shall hardly be rich,or but very few of them,since they must verily feed and clothe and house their thralls,so that that which they take from them,since it will have to be dealt out amongst many,will not be enough to make many rich;since out of one man ye may get but one man's work;and pinch him never so sorely,still as aforesaid ye may not pinch him so sorely as not to feed him.Therefore,though the eyes of my mind may see a few lords and many slaves,yet can they not see many lords as well as many slaves;and if the slaves be many and the lords few,then some day shall the slaves make an end of that mastery by the force of their bodies.How then shall thy mastership of the latter days endure?""John Ball,"said I,"mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world.And now hear a marvel:whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work,in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men--yea,of a thousand or more:and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men."John Ball laughed."Great is my harvest of riddles to-night,"said he;"for even if a man sleep not,and eat and drink while he is a-working,ye shall but make two men,or three at the most,out of him."Said I:"Sawest thou ever a weaver at his loom?""Yea,"said he,"many a time."
He was silent a little,and then said:"Yet I marvelled not at it;but now I marvel,because I know what thou wouldst say.Time was when the shuttle was thrust in and out of all the thousand threads of the warp,and it was long to do;but now the spring-staves go up and down as the man's feet move,and this and that leaf of the warp cometh forward and the shuttle goeth in one shot through all the thousand warps.Yea,so it is that this multiplieth a man many times.But look you,he is so multiplied already;and so hath he been,meseemeth,for many hundred years.""Yea,"said I,"but what hitherto needed the masters to multiply him more?For many hundred years the workman was a thrall bought and sold at the cross;and for other hundreds of years he hath been a villein--that is,a working-beast and a part of the stock of the manor on which he liveth;but then thou and the like of thee shall free him,and then is mastership put to its shifts;for what should avail the mastery then,when the master no longer owneth the man by law as his chattel,nor any longer by law owneth him as stock of his land,if the master hath not that which he on whom he liveth may not lack and live withal,and cannot have without selling himself?"He said nothing,but I saw his brow knitted and his lips pressed together as though in anger;and again I said: