Said Ralph: "Yet a word on these Wheat-wearers; it seemeth that ye
never fail to overcome them in battle?"
"But seldom at least," quoth the Burgher.
Said Ralph: "Then it were no great matter for you to gather
a host overwhelming, and to take their towns and castles,
and forbid them weapons, and make them your thralls to till
the land for you which now they call theirs; so that ye might
have of their gettings all save what were needful for them
to live as thralls."
"I deem it were an easy thing," said the burgher.
Quoth Ralph: "Then why do ye not so?"
"It were but a poor game to play," said the burgher.
"Such of their wealth as we have a mind to, we can have now at
the cost of a battle or two, begun one hour and ended the next:
were we their masters sitting down amidst of their hatred,
and amidst of their plotting, yea, and in the very place where
that were the hottest and thickest, the battle would be to begin
at every sun's uprising, nor would it be ended at any sunset.
Hah! what sayest thou?"
Said Ralph: "This seemeth to me but the bare truth; yet it
is little after the manner of such masterful men as ye be.
But why then do ye slay all their carles that are taken;
whereas ye bear away the women and make thralls of them at home,
that is to say, foes in every house?"
"It may be," said the Burgher, "that this is not amongst the wisest
of our dealings. Yet may we do no otherwise; for thus we swore to do
by all the greatest oaths that we might swear, in the days when we
first cast off their yoke, and yet were not over strong at the first;
and now it hath so grown into a part of our manners, yea, and of our very
hearts and minds, that the slaying of a Wheat-wearer is to us a lighter
matter than the smiting of a rabbit or a fowmart.
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