"Yes, you saw the castle of the Baron von Weifach. The whole country belongs to him; but we are free peasants. As long as we made any thing, we paid him our tithes. But we have nothing now."
And with a groan he sank down upon the wooden settle that stood behind him.
"The baron does nothing for you, then?"
"Why should he?" said the man, with a bitter laugh. "We pay no more tithes, and we are of no use to him. He prays every day for the famine to last, and God hears his prayers, for God forsakes the poor and loves the rich."
"But how does he profit by the famine?" asked Lacy.
"We have been profitable laborers to him, my lord. For several years past, his corn-fields have been weighed down with golden tassels that made the heart leap with joy at sight of their beauty. He had so much that his barns would not hold it, and he had to put up other great barns, thatched with straw, to shelter it. This year, it is true, he has reaped nothing, but what of that? His barns are still full to overflowing."
"But how comes there such famine, when his barns are full of corn?" asked the emperor, who was listening with intense interest.
"That is a question which does little honor to your head, sir," said the peasant, with a grating laugh. "The famine in Bohemia is terrible precisely because the extortioners hold back their grain and will not sell it."
"But there is a law against the hoarding of grain."
"Yes, there are laws made so that the poor may be punished by them and the rich protected," said the peasant, with a sinister look. "Oh, yes, there are laws! The rich have only to say that they have no corn, and there the law ends."