Chapter 180 Go home for the New Year
The snow-covered village looks so peaceful, a vast expanse of white, with no people around. Occasionally there will be a few rabbits digging through the snow in the farmland looking for something to eat. .
Hoffman walked forward in the snow with heavy steps, sinking into knee-deep snow with every step. The white air puffed out from his mouth and nose made him look like a steam engine.
A fence appeared in front of him. He took a deep breath and finally returned to his hometown.
This is an extremely ordinary village in the south of the Principality of Franconia, less than ten kilometers away from Weisen.
Even with such a small distance, Hoffman did not dare to take it lightly, but he had never learned martial arts and could only rely on a dagger and a slingshot to defend himself.
Beside the fence, a rabbit just emerged from the gap. It curiously looked at the large moving object in front of it. It looked a bit like a human, but there was a big bulge on the back.
Hoffman took out a slingshot and a stone ball from his pocket, and pointed it at the rabbit's head.
The farmland, mountains and animals here belong to the knight. If you want to hunt, you have to pay for the skin.
Hoffman carried the rabbit with a broken hind leg towards the village. The whole village was quiet, with only the footprints around the well and beside the firewood piles of each house, and the faint smell of fireworks proving that there had been recent fires here. Haunted by the living.
An old man happened to come out to fetch water. He was wearing a red thick linen skirt with hay and rags exposed from the cuffs. When he saw Hoffman, he asked: "Are you back?"
Hoffman just replied He made a sound, struggled to lift his tired and disobedient legs, and walked quickly towards his home.
"Dang, Deng, Deng!!!!"
The knock on the door was a bit urgent.
The door opened, and an old woman with a large piece of linen wrapped around her body to protect herself from the cold was stunned for a moment when she saw her son. The smile on her ravaged face gradually became brighter than the sun in the sky.
She excitedly turned back and shouted towards the house: "Master, my son is back."
Shouting, she pulled her son into the house, then quickly walked to the altar of the God of Light next to the fireplace and knelt down. , thanking the gods for blessing his son’s safe return.
After closing the door, an indescribable smell rushed straight into his nose and poured into his forehead, making Hoffman suffocate.
For him, he had been accustomed to this smell before, but after living in the clean and tidy brother-in-law's house and the carriage factory dormitory for so long this year, he found that he was no longer used to it when he came back.
The room was very dark, and the palm-sized flame in the fireplace brought some light to the room. Two pigs and a few chickens were sleeping in a dark place beside the door.
Hoffman walked over to the fireplace and set down his backpack, stirring up some dust.
Hoffman's father was sitting in front of the fireplace in a daze, his clothes and pants stuffed with rags, and the cuffs were tightly tied around his thin wrists with a strip of cloth to prevent the rags from leaking out.
He raised his head and glanced at his son's blacksmith uniform and the backpack as big as a bucket on the ground, frowned and asked, "Are you spending your sister's money again?"
Hoff Man proudly said to his father: "I bought these with my own wages."
His father looked at them carefully for a while and said with satisfaction: "They are promising."
His mother knelt by the fireplace and prayed to restore the altar of the God of Light. After standing up, she said to him: "You go to the master first. The housekeeper came yesterday to ask if you were back."
Huo Fuman didn't dare to neglect, so he immediately opened his backpack, took his things and left the house, arriving at a nice-looking two-story house in the north of the village.
He used to think that this was the most luxurious building in the world. Even the house that Grand Duke Franken lived in had at most one more floor than this one. However, on the way to Weissenburg Castle, he stopped at Nuremberg. I was shocked when I stayed one night.
When he went to his brother-in-law's house, he found that the master's house was nothing more than that.
As soon as Hoffman entered the gate, he handed the rabbit he shot to the lord's steward and whispered: "This is for you." The steward saw that there was a rabbit in its mouth. The silver-coined rabbit was laughing so hard that the corners of his mouth were about to burst into his ears. He kept nodding his head and said: "I've been to the city for a while, and I'll be promising when I come back."
Hoffman hunched over, his face full of flattery, and replied: "Thank you, sir, for letting me out at that time."
As he said that, he didn't know how many silver coins he had in his pocket. Why did it go into the butler's pocket, and then continued: "Sir, my brother-in-law's place is very short of people recently. Just look..."
The butler didn't seem to hear it, because he felt a little unhappy and didn't care. In addition, just because Old Birch is someone who can speak in front of Duke Wesson, whose money and status are much higher than his own, and Hoffman's sister, a woman from a serf family, was raped by the passing old man because her butt was particularly big. Birch fell in love with her and became his wife.
As for why the prestigious old birch fell in love with a serf woman, I can only say that love is magical.
The State of Weisen has no control over the Principality of Franconia, but Old Birch brings some medicinal materials to the lord every year when he comes to purchase trees. In the eyes of the lord, his status is a little higher than that of the housekeeper.
Hoffman saw that the butler was unhappy, so he said: "I heard that Duke Wesson's carriage factory is recruiting people. Apprentices can earn 6 florins a year. If they can read, If you work well for two years, it won't be a problem to get 10 florins. My brother-in-law is very familiar with the carriage factory, so he can start working after saying hello."
"Really?" The steward was immediately interested. "You're not lying to me, are you?"
"Really." Hoffman nodded firmly. This is how the carriage factory recruits workers. You can go there without being introduced.
His words touched the butler's heart. The butler's family has a son who is about the same age as him. Now the children in the knight's family are not living up to expectations. Once the master dies, his title will definitely be gone. This place will definitely be destroyed. Grand Duke Rankin conferred the title of knight to a new knight. By then he would have a new butler and he would be unemployed.
But the housekeeper was still a little worried and said: "What if you take too many people away and no one will farm?"
Hoffman replied: "This is easy to handle. Now the grain supply in Weisen State is The price is very cheap, just use the money to buy it.”
This village has more mountains and less land, and the grain output is only slightly higher than that of Wesenling before. The rent is 60%, and the landlords and serfs are doing their own thing. Everyone in the class is miserable.
Hoffman was a serf like everyone else in the village. He had to pay a tax of 15 silver coins a year when he went to live with his brother-in-law. Otherwise, he was a runaway slave.
The steward thought for a while and realized that the money bought more food than they could grow in the fields, so he said, "Okay, as long as there aren't too many people, the taxes will come back even if the people don't come back."
Hoffman immediately thanked the butler, then took out a fresh cucumber from his arms and presented it, saying: "My brother-in-law picked this from Duke Wesson's vegetable garden, a good thing he got from the peach stone, and there are two more Give it to the master.”
“Don’t say anything. If Duke Wesson finds out, we will be whipped, and even after we finish the beating, we will turn over and continue.”
The housekeeper suddenly became confused. The legs tightened. I had heard about this before. When Weisen led the arrest of gangsters a while ago, he was beaten on the back for theft, robbery and extortion, and he was beaten on the other side for rape and the like.
"Wait a minute." He said to Hoffman, "I'll take it and put it away first, and I'll take you to see the master later."
The lord here is the Grand Duke of Franconia A knight who had been seriously injured several times when he was young. Now that he is older, even though he is wearing a thick cotton coat and the fire in the fireplace is crackling, he still feels cold.
The lord was sitting in the rocking chair in front of the fireplace as usual, half asleep and half awake when he met Hoffman.
It was just that the butler repeated everything Hoffman said in the master's ear, nodding or humming from time to time.
Hoffman felt that the master might not be able to eat the cucumbers he sent.
When he was about to leave, the lady called him away and asked what women's clothing was popular recently in Weissenburg, how much it cost, and which store was good.
Fortunately, before he came back, he went shopping with his brother-in-law and sister. When his brother-in-law bought a winter skirt, he spent half an hour vividly describing to his wife the clothing street in the city and his sister's skirt.
(End of this chapter)