nd son sat together beside the roaring fire in
the great ball. "Tell me, Otto," said the Baron, "dost thou hate me for
having done what Ursela told thee today that I did?"

Otto looked for a while into his father's face. "I know not," said he at
last, in his quaint, quiet voice, "but methinks that I do not hate thee
for it."

The Baron drew his bushy brows together until his eyes twinkled out of
the depths beneath them, then of a sudden he broke into a great loud
laugh, smiting his horny palm with a smack upon his thigh.

VII. The Red Cock Crows on Drachenhausen.

There was a new emperor in Germany who had come from a far away Swiss
castle; Count Rudolph of Hapsburg, a good, honest man with a good,
honest, homely face, but bringing with him a stern sense of justice and
of right, and a determination to put down the lawlessness of the savage
German barons among whom he had come as Emperor.

One day two strangers came galloping up the winding path to the gates
of the Dragon's house. A horn sounded thin and clear, a parley was held
across the chasm in the road between the two strangers and the porter
who appeared at the little wicket. Then a messenger was sent running to
the Baron, who presently came striding across the open court-yard to the
gateway to parley with the strangers.

The two bore with them a folded parchment with a great red seal
hanging from it like a clot of blood; it was a message from the Emperor
demanding that the Baron should come to the Imperial Court to answer
certain charges that had been brought against him, and to give his bond
to maintain the peace of the empire.

One by one those barons who had been carrying on their private wars, or
had been despoiling the burgher folk in their traffic from town to
town, and against whom complaint had been lodged, were summoned to the
Imperial Court, where they were compelled to promise peace and to swear
allegiance to the new order of things. All those who came willingly were
allowed to return home again after giving security for maintaining the
peace; all those who came not willingly were either brought in chains
or rooted out of their strongholds with fire and sword, and their roofs
burned over their heads.

Now it was Baron Conrad's turn to be summoned to the Imperial Court,
for complaint had been lodged against him by his old enemy of
Trutz-Drachen--Baron Henry--the nephew of the old Baron Frederick
who had been slain while kneeling in the dus