“But you try to learn them, I hope!” said the Duke.
“Yes, father, I do, but they are very hard, and the words are so long, and Father Lucas will always come when the sun is so bright, and the wood so green, that I know not how to bear to be kept poring over those black hooks and strokes.”
“Poor little fellow,” said Duke William, smiling and Richard, rather encouraged, went on more boldly. “You do not know this reading, noble father?”
“To my sorrow, no,” said the Duke.
“And Sir Eric cannot read, nor Osmond, nor any one, and why must I read, and cramp my fingers with writing, just as if I was a clerk, instead of a young Duke?” Richard looked up in his father’s face, and then hung his head, as if half-ashamed of questioning his will, but the Duke answered him without displeasure.
“It is hard, no doubt, my boy, to you now, but it will be the better for you in the end. I would give much to be able myself to read those holy books which I must now only hear read to me by a clerk, but since I have had the wish, I have had no time to learn as you have now.”
“But Knights and Nobles never learn,” said Richard.
“And do you think it a reason they never should? But you are wrong, my boy, for the Kings of France and England, the Counts of Anjou, of Provence, and Paris, yes, even King Hako of Norway, [4] can all read.”
“I tell you, Richard, when the treaty was drawn up for restoring this King Louis to his throne, I was ashamed to find myself one of the few crown vassals who could not write his name thereto.”
“But none is so wise or so good as you, father,” said Richard, proudly. “Sir Eric often says so.”