down and, turning his face upon the couch, began crying,
while little Pauline sat looking seriously at him.

"Why dost thou cry, Otto?" said she, after a while.

"Because," said he, "I am so sick, and I want my father to come and take
me away from here."

"But why dost thou want to go away?" said Pauline. "If thy father takes
thee away, thou canst not tell me any more stories."

"Yes, I can," said Otto, "for when I grow to be a man I will come
again and marry thee, and when thou art my wife I can tell thee all the
stories that I know. Dear Pauline, canst thou not tell my father where I
am, that he may come here and take me away before I die?"

"Mayhap I could do so," said Pauline, after a little while, "for
sometimes I go with Casper Max to see his mother, who nursed me when I
was a baby. She is the wife of Fritz, the swineherd, and she will make
him tell thy father; for she will do whatever I ask of her, and Fritz
will do whatever she bids him do."

"And for my sake, wilt thou tell him, Pauline?" said Otto.

"But see, Otto," said the little girl, "if I tell him, wilt thou promise
to come indeed and marry me when thou art grown a man?"

"Yes," said Otto, very seriously, "I will promise."

"Then I will tell thy father where thou art," said she.

"But thou wilt do it without the Baron Henry knowing, wilt thou not,
Pauline?"

"Yes," said she, "for if my father and my mother knew that I did such
a thing, they would strike me, mayhap send me to my bed alone in the
dark."

IX. How One-eyed Hans came to Trutz-Drachen.

Fritz, the swineherd, sat eating his late supper of porridge out of a
great, coarse, wooden bowl; wife Katherine sat at the other end of the
table, and the half-naked little children played upon the earthen floor.
A shaggy dog lay curled up in front of the fire, and a grunting pig
scratched against a leg of the rude table close beside where the woman
sat.

"Yes, yes," said Katherine, speaking of the matter of which they had
already been talking. "It is all very true that the Drachenhausens are a
bad lot, and I for one am of no mind to say no to that; all the same it
is a sad thing that a simple-witted little child like the young Baron
should be so treated as the boy has been; and now that our Lord Baron
has served him so that he, at least, will never be able to do us 'harm,
I for one say that he should not be left there to die alone in that
black cell."

Fritz, the swineherd, gave a grun