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.
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