It was about a fortnight subsequent to this harangue at St. Albans, that John Ball, who had passed on through London, preaching and gaining proselytes in his journey, inhaled, once again, the air of his native valley. His heart bounded, and then sank coldly in his breast, as, on ascending a hill, Winchcombe, with its church, its habitations, and the abbey, that had once been his home, burst upon his sight. It was rather singular, that though the enfranchisement of the bondmen of Sudley had been his darling wish, nay, that even the thought of personal freedom beyond that barony had never crossed his mind until the night of his rude expulsion from Kennington, those very villeins should be the last into whose sluggish veins he should strive to enforce a portion of the warmth that inflamed his own. And yet it was not that the enfranchisement of Sudley was less dear to his heart than it had been; but it was because that little spot of earth was dear to him, that he shrunk from visiting it. He had been there respected and beloved; there, too, had he been degraded and insulted; and that degradation, and that insult, had not been wiped away, and he cared not to appear before his own people thus morally cast down. But the hour had now come. Leycester, the dyer of Norwich, had been appointed king of the commons of Norfolk. Other leaders, too, had been named; and his own native barony must not slumber inert while the rest were running the race.He always came away from these wrangles with a feeling as if he had been standing on his head. He was not used to mental scoutings and reconnoitrings. Also, he felt sometimes that Alice was laughing at him, which irritated him, not so much because she mocked as because he could never be really sure whether she mocked or not. Her laughter seemed to come from the remotest, most exalted part of her. The gulfs between their points of view never gaped so wide as when she laughed."YesI know he is ambitious, but surely he doesn't want unwilling helpers."She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She avoided Handshut, who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. He was terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely noticing her submission.