A KING'S LESSON
It is told of Matthias Corvinus,king of Hungary--the Alfred the Great of his time and people--that he once heard (once ONLY?)that some (only SOME,my lad?)of his peasants were over-worked and under-fed.So he sent for his Council,and bade come thereto also some of the mayors of the good towns,and some of the lords of land and their bailiffs,and asked them of the truth thereof;and in diverse ways they all told one and the same tale,how the peasant carles were stout and well able to work and had enough and to spare of meat and drink,seeing that they were but churls;and how if they worked not at the least as hard as they did,it would be ill for them and ill for their lords;for that the more the churl hath the more he asketh;and that when he knoweth wealth,he knoweth the lack of it also,as it fared with our first parents in the Garden of God.The King sat and said but little while they spake,but he misdoubted them that they were liars.So the Council brake up with nothing done;but the King took the matter to heart,being,as kings go,a just man,besides being more valiant than they mostly were,even in the old feudal time.So within two or three days,says the tale,he called together such lords and councillors as he deemed fittest,and bade busk them for a ride;and when they were ready he and they set out,over rough and smooth,decked out in all the glory of attire which was the wont of those days.Thus they rode till they came to some village or thorpe of the peasant folk,and through it to the vineyards where men were working on the sunny southern slopes that went up from the river:my tale does not say whether that were Theiss,or Donau,or what river.Well,I judge it was late spring or early summer,and the vines but just beginning to show their grapes;for the vintage is late in those lands,and some of the grapes are not gathered till the first frosts have touched them,whereby the wine made from them is the stronger and sweeter.Anyhow there were the peasants,men and women,boys and young maidens,toiling and swinking;some hoeing between the vine-rows,some bearing baskets of dung up the steep slopes,some in one way,some in another,labouring for the fruit they should never eat,and the wine they should never drink.
Thereto turned the King and got off his horse and began to climb up the stony ridges of the vineyard,and his lords in like manner followed him,wondering in their hearts what was toward;but to the one who was following next after him he turned about and said with a smile,"Yea,lords,this is a new game we are playing to-day,and a new knowledge will come from it."And the lord smiled,but somewhat sourly.
As for the peasants,great was their fear of those gay and golden lords.I judge that they did not know the King,since it was little likely that any one of them had seen his face;and they knew of him but as the Great Father,the mighty warrior who kept the Turk from harrying their thorpe.Though,forsooth,little matter was it to any man there whether Turk or Magyar was their over-lord,since to one master or another they had to pay the due tale of labouring days in the year,and hard was the livelihood that they earned for themselves on the days when they worked for themselves and their wives and children.
Well,belike they knew not the King;but amidst those rich lords they saw and knew their own lord,and of him they were sore afraid.But nought it availed them to flee away from those strong men and strong horses--they who had been toiling from before the rising of the sun,and now it wanted little more than an hour of noon:besides,with the King and lords was a guard of crossbowmen,who were left the other side of the vineyard wall,--keen-eyed Italians of the mountains,straight shooters of the bolt.So the poor folk fled not;nay they made as if all this were none of their business,and went on with their work.For indeed each man said to himself,"If I be the one that is not slain,to-morrow I shall lack bread if I do not work my hardest to-day;and maybe I shall be headman if some of these be slain and I live."Now comes the King amongst them and says:"Good fellows,which of you is the headman?"Spake a man,sturdy and sunburnt,well on in years and grizzled:
"I am the headman,lord."
"Give me thy hoe,then,"says the King;"for now shall I order this matter myself,since these lords desire a new game,and are fain to work under me at vine-dressing.But do thou stand by me and set me right if I order them wrong:but the rest of you go play!"The carle knew not what to think,and let the King stand with his hand stretched out,while he looked askance at his own lord and baron,who wagged his head at him grimly as one who says,"Do it,dog!"Then the carle lets the hoe come into the King's hand;and the King falls to,and orders his lords for vine-dressing,to each his due share of the work:and whiles the carle said yea and whiles nay to his ordering.And then ye should have seen velvet cloaks cast off,and mantles of fine Flemish scarlet go to the dusty earth;as the lords and knights busked them to the work.
So they buckled to;and to most of them it seemed good game to play at vine-dressing.But one there was who,when his scarlet cloak was off,stood up in a doublet of glorious Persian web of gold and silk,such as men make not now,worth a hundred florins the Bremen ell.Unto him the King with no smile on his face gave the job of toing and froing up and down the hill with the biggest and the frailest dung-basket that there was;and thereat the silken lord screwed up a grin,that was sport to see,and all the lords laughed;and as he turned away he said,yet so that none heard him,"Do I serve this son's son of a whore that he should bid me carry dung?"For you must know that the King's father,John Hunyad,one of the great warriors of the world,the Hammer of the Turks,was not gotten in wedlock,though he were a king's son.
