Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/455

 The People in Country and Town 419 adventure, as happens to so many. From her Helmbrecht's sister Gotelind had learned to embroider and to sew. The girl and her mother had well earned that from the nun, for they gave her in pay a calf, and many cheeses and eggs. Sister and mother dressed up the boy, too, with fine linen clothing and a chain doublet and a sword, with pouch and kerchief and a fine overcoat of blue cloth ; its buttons of gold and silver and glass gleamed bright as he went out to dance, and its seams were strung with bells which tinkled in the ears of the maidens as he tripped to the measure. When the proud boy was thus tricked out, he said to his father: "Now I want to go to court; do you too, dear father mine, give me something toward it." His father replied : " I might, to be sure, buy you a swift steed that would leap over hedge and ditch. But, my dear son, give up the journey to the court ; court etiquette is hard for one who is not used to it from his youth. Take the plow and till with me the field ; then you '11 live and die respected. See how I live, true, respectable, honest. Every year I pay my tithes, and my whole life long I have never known hate or envy. At court you '11 suffer hunger, your bed will be hard, and you must do without love; there you '11 be the butt of the genuine court folk; in vain you '11 try to do like them ; and, on the other hand, you will be just the one worst hated by the peasant, on you will he most gladly revenge himself for what the bluer-blooded robbers have taken from him." But the son said : " Stop, father ! Never shall your bags chafe my shoulders; never will I load dung upon your wagon : ill Would that befit my long curling locks, my handsome coat, and my embroidered cap. Shall I drudge three years for a colt or a calf, when I can have my plunder every day ? I '11 drive other people's cattle over the border, and haul the peasants by their hair through the hedges. Hurry up, father; I stay with you no longer." Then his father bought him the horse, and said: "Ah, me, wasted money!" But the boy shook his head and cried : " I could bite a stone in two, so fierce is my mood. Good- bye, father, mother, and sister ! "