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.
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