Until men stop eating meat, my trade abides. In times of peace we butcher lamb and pig and cow, in war we butcher men. One’s more steady than the other, but that other is the jack of dreams, and Jack was the maker of the dream.
         To be revenged upon the lords who break our backs, who pull the houses from our heads, who ravish daughters as we watch—to drag their bodies through our towns, to burn the courts and drown the agents of the law. Abolish licences and dues, abolish history and money. In uniformity drink strong beer and gallop as we will along the lanes, up Fish Street, down Saint Magnus, to Cheapside and beyond. No wealth but all in common, all: We share our bread, we share our work and wives, and what will not be shared, we take. And all the conduits run not with piss but red with wine.
         Such the dream, God be our guide.
         But now I sleep in dirt and bathe in grass, pursued by maws, dine nightly on the worms and spiders. My brothers all are scattered, and poor Jack Cade stares sightless, bod’less top the castle gate, alone with none to kiss. The women shout, but not in terror, at my sight, and men appear with forks and fire—and poor Dick flees still farther.
         In the north, they say, live stranger kings and stranger meat and stranger women. Wishes, dreams, and power to be had, for those with will enough to dare, and on those blighted heaths, or so they tell, a butcher can become a prince. Why not? And weren’t Jack a carpenter? So there to I, shoeless, bootless, make my way, and I rest when rest might come. Three times tonight I heard a farm cat’s cry, and four a hedge-pig’s whine, and now the rain has made a river of this rut in which I lie. I freeze, I scream and starve, but tonight I dream Jack’s dream.
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