"'Also themselves suffer much hunger,
And woe in winter-time with waking of nights,
To rise 'twixt the bed and the wall and rock the cradle:
Both to card and to comb, to patch and to wash,
To tub and to reel, rushes to peel;
That pity 't is to read or to show in rhyme
The woe of these women that dwell in cots.'"
“Natheless,” said Richard, “I have heard mine uncle, the Duke, say that the people do not feel these hardships, for that they know naught else.”
“Think you I feel, O my lord?” Calote answered him. “Yet I am of these people. 'T is to-day the first day ever I sat on a cushion.”
The boy stared.
“But thou shalt hereafter,” he said. “Etienne will clothe thee in silk, and feed thee dainties. I will give thee a girdle with a blue stone in it.”
“Nay, not so!” she cried. “How can I take mine ease if the people suffer? Oh, sweet child, wilt thou walk in silk, and the half of thy kingdom go naked? 'T is for thee they suffer. The white bread thou dost eat, the people harvested. They gathered it into thy barns. And yet thou wilt let them go hungry.”
“No, surely I will not when I am King,” he answered with trouble in his voice.
“Hearken!” said Calote; and mindful only that he was a little child who must be made to pity and to love, she took his two hands in her own and so compelled his eyes to hers. “Didst mark, that day thou wentest to the Abbey, how the people cheered thee, and blessed thee, and smiled on thee?”
“Yea,” answered Richard.
“And didst mark how they that were nighest the great Duke in that throng were silent, or else they muttered?”