, the g

En the harvest was at last gathered, then came the procession of robbers to levy their blackmail
upon it: first the Church carted off its fat tenth, then the king's commissioner took his twentieth, then my lord's people

made a mighty inroad upon the remainder; after which, the skinned freeman had
liberty to bestow the remnant in his barn, in case it was worth the trouble; there were taxes, and taxes, and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes again, and yet other taxes--upon this free and independent pauper, but none upon his lord
the baron or

the bishop, none upon the wasteful nobility or
the all-devouring Church; if the baron would sleep unvexed, the freeman must sit up all night
after his day's work and whip the ponds to keep the frogs quiet; if the freeman's daughter--but no, that la st infamy of monarchical government is unprintable; and finally, if the freeman, grown desperate with his tortures, found his life unendurable under such conditions, and sacrificed it and
fled to death for mercy and refuge,
the gentle Church condemned him to eternal fire, the gentle law buried him at midnight at the cross-roads with a stake through his back, and his master the baron or the bishop confiscated all his property
and turned his widow and his orphans
out of doors. And here were these freemen assembled in the early morning
to work