ot that I am afraid of the dogs, father," I made answer to him.
"I would quickly enough go among them, if only you would let me go
without this scarlet cloak."

My father laughed heartily and loudly--that is, for him. A quick ear
might have heard him quite three feet away.

"Silly one!" he exclaimed, "do you not know that even the Duke Casimir
dares not set foot in the kennels--no, nor I myself, save in the garb
they know and fear--as indeed do all men in this state."

Still I hung my head down and scraped the gravel with my foot.

"Haste thee," said my father, roughly. "Once it is permitted to a man to
be afraid; to fear twice, and fear the same thing, is to be a coward. And
no Gottfried ever yet was a coward. Let not my Hugo be the first."

Then I took courage and spoke to him.

"I do not wish to be executioner," I said; "I would rather ride
a-soldiering far away, and be in the drive of battle and the front of
danger. Let me be a soldier and a man-at-arms, my father. I am sure I
could become a war-captain and a great man!"

Gottfried Gottfried stared blankly at me, and his blue-black hair rose in
a crest--not with anger, of which he never showed any to me, but in sheer
astonishment. He continued to rub it with his hand, as if in this manner
he might possibly reach an explanation of the mystery.

"Not wish to be Hereditary Executioner? Why, are you not a Gottfried, the
only son of a Gottfried, the only son of his father, who also was a
Gottfried and Hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark? Why, lad, before there
was a Duke at all in the Wolfsberg, before he and his folk came out of
the land of the Poles to fight with the Ritterdom of the North, we, the
Gottfrieds of Thorn, wore the sign of the Red Axe and dwelt apart from
all the men of the Mark. For fourteen generations have we worn it!"

"But," said I, sadly, "the very children on the street hate me and spit
on me as I pass; the maids will not so much as speak to me. They scyrry
in-doors and slam the wicket in my face. Think you that is pleasant? And
when as a lad of older years I set out to woo, whither shall I betake me?
For what door is open to a Gottfried, to him who carries the sign of
the Red Axe?"

"Ah, lad," said my father, patiently, "life comes and life goes. It is
nigh on to forty years since even thus my father held out the curt mantle
for me. And even so said I. Time eats up all things but the hearts of
men. And they abide ever the same--yearning fo