Right before their breasts to bear the weighty shield, In battle and in tournament quaintly the sword to wield; Strongly to lace the helmets on, when call'd to wage the fight, All to the royal brothers, Bechtung taught aright. He taught them o'er the plain far to hurl the weighty rock; Mighty was their strength, and fearful was the shock: When o'er the plain resounded the heavy stone aloud, Six furlongs threw beyond the rest Wolfdieterick the Proud."[212] [Sidenote: Cruelty of knights to their squires.] Though the education of the squire in Germany resembled the education of the squire in other countries, yet his state was not equally happy. The duties of the German youth were painful; and, though menial, as, indeed, were many of the duties of all squires, yet they were ungraced by those softening circumstances of manners which distinguished chivalric nurture in France and England.[213] The squires, too, were more frequently persons of humble birth than of gentle condition; and knighthood, therefore, was not always the reward of their toils. The knights were cruel and severe to their young attendants. It happened once, and the circumstance illustrates the general state of manners, that when a knight was in the midst of a baronial revelling, three of his squires rushed into the hall, with the wild action of fear, and stood trembling before him. He coldly demanded where were the rest. As soon as their fear allowed them to speak, they said that their whole band had been fighting with his enemies, and that eight of them had fallen. Totally unmoved by the fate of his brave and devoted young friends, and thinking only of the rigidness of discipline, he answered, "You are rightly served: who bade you ride without my orders?"[214] Well, indeed, then, may we say, with the old German authority for this story, that the man who hath held the office of squire has learnt what it is to feel the depths of pain and ignominy. No country was more desolated by private war in the middle ages than Germany; and chivalry, instead of ameliorating the mode of warfare, acquired a character of wildness from the perpetual scene of horror.[215] [Sidenote: Avarice of the Germans.]