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The Whistler at the Plough. Also, 'free Trade and the League'.
The Whistler at the Plough Also 'free Trade and the League' Author:Alexander Somerville Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECT. II. THEOimAS THE FEUDAL CHIEF. Hundreds of generations had lived and passed away, and mankind were not as they were in the days of Waub and Wassa. There... more » had been war always, and it still continued. Commerce there had been none ; nor had its time come. Yet civilisation had begun to track the forests with its footsteps. Theobras, a great warrior, was now chief of the boar forest where Waub had scratched for roots, and of the mountains where Wassa caught the wild goats. Upon a rock in one of the ravines in those mountains he had built a strong place of residence and defence. He had vassals under him, who for their fiefs in land, forest, and river, did him military service. They had serfs under them, and he himself yielded to the superiority of a suzerain, his cousin Theodoric. Said the fair lady, Brensa, to him one day when he returned in triumph from the conquest of other lordly chiefs whom he had reduced to vassalage, " Why is my Theobras not kind t. Is it well that I should be so many months alone within these walls, and have no men of craft left to make sandals for my feet, to tan the skins for my new robe, to carry fresh rushes to my chamber, and make me the garniture against your coming ? Is it well that all my lord's men of handicraft should be makers of bows and arrows, of clubs and spears, and hammerers and grinders of that black metal called iron, which they have found in the mountains, to make you swords of war? Is it well that my lord should be long absent, and be ungallant when he returns, and withhold from me my heart's desire ? Give me the freedom of John the hammerer of iron, Peter the tanner of skins, Joseph the plaiter of straw and flax, and his brother Gudge, the curious worker in wood, William also, the sandalmaker, and the expert fashioner of robes...« less