But as I turned away shivering and downhearted, on a sudden came the
frightful noise of the "hooters," one after the other, that call the
workmen to the factories, this one the after-breakfast one, more by
token. So I grinned surlily, and dressed and got ready for my day's
"work" as I call it, but which many a man besides John Ruskin (though
not many in his position) would call "play."
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.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134