[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)]@TWC D-Link bookA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court CHAPTER XXIX 14/17
They have naught to confess, being innocent, wherefore there will they remain until they die.
Ye know that right well, I ween.
Think how this left us; a man, a woman and two children, to gather a crop that was planted by so much greater force, yes, and protect it night and day from pigeons and prowling animals that be sacred and must not be hurt by any of our sort.
When my lord's crop was nearly ready for the harvest, so also was ours; when his bell rang to call us to his fields to harvest his crop for nothing, he would not allow that I and my two girls should count for our three captive sons, but for only two of them; so, for the lacking one were we daily fined. All this time our own crop was perishing through neglect; and so both the priest and his lordship fined us because their shares of it were suffering through damage.
In the end the fines ate up our crop--and they took it all; they took it all and made us harvest it for them, without pay or food, and we starving.
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