rom 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.