Part 7

As they crossed the court-yard Otto stared to see a group of mail-clad men-at-arms, some sitting upon their horses, some standing by the saddle-bow. “Yonder is the young baron,” he heard one of them say in a gruff voice, and thereupon all turned and stared at him.

A stranger was in the refectory, standing beside the good old Abbot, while food and wine were being brought and set upon the table for his refreshment; a great, tall, broad-shouldered man, beside whom the Abbot looked thinner and slighter than ever.

The stranger was clad all in polished and gleaming armor, of plate and chain, over which was drawn a loose robe of gray woollen stuff, reaching to the knees and bound about the waist by a broad leathern sword-belt. Upon his arm he carried a great helmet which he had just removed from his head. His face was weather-beaten and rugged, and on lip and chin was a wiry, bristling beard; once red, now frosted with white.

Brother Ignatius had bidden Otto to enter, and had then closed the door behind him; and now, as the lad walked slowly up the long room, he gazed with round, wondering blue eyes at the stranger.

“Dost know who I am, Otto? said the mail-clad knight, in a deep, growling voice.

“Methinks you are my father, sir,” said Otto.

“Aye, thou art right,” said Baron Conrad, “and I am glad to see that these milk-churning monks have not allowed thee to forget me, and who thou art thyself.”

“An’ it please you,” said Otto, “no one churneth milk here but Brother Fritz; we be makers of wine and not makers of butter, at St. Michaelsburg.”

Baron Conrad broke into a great, loud laugh, but Abbot Otto’s sad and thoughtful face lit up with no shadow of an answering smile.

“Conrad,” said he, turning to the other, “again let me urge thee; do not take the child hence, his life can never be your life, for he is not fitted for it. I had thought,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “I had thought that thou hadst meant to consecrate him--this motherless one--to the care of the Universal Mother Church.”

“So!” said the Baron, “thou hadst thought that, hadst thou? Thou hadst thought that I had intended to deliver over this boy, the last of the Vuelphs, to the arms of the Church? What then was to become of our name and the glory of our race if it was to end with him in a monastery? No, Drachenhausen is the home of the Vuelphs, and there the last of the race shall live as his sires have lived before him, holding to his rights by the power and the might of his right hand.”

The Abbot turned and looked at the boy, who was gaping in simple wide-eyed wonderment from one to the other as they spoke.

“And dost thou think, Conrad,” said the old man, in his gentle, patient voice, “that that poor child can maintain his rights by the strength of his right hand?”

The Baron’s look followed the Abbot’s, and he said nothing.

In the few seconds of silence that followed, little Otto, in his simple mind, was wondering what all this talk portended. Why had his father come hither to St. Michaelsburg, lighting up the dim silence of the monastery with the flash and ring of his polished armor? Why had he talked about churning butter but now, when all the world knew that the monks of St. Michaelsburg made wine.

It was Baron Conrad’s deep voice that broke the little pause of silence.

“If you have made a milkmaid of the boy,” he burst out at last, “I thank the dear heaven that there is yet time to undo your work and to make a man of him.”

The Abbot sighed. “The child is yours, Conrad,” said he, “the will of the blessed saints be done. Mayhap if he goes to dwell at Drachenhausen he may make you the better instead of you making him the worse.”

Then light came to the darkness of little Otto’s wonderment; he saw what all this talk meant and why his father had come hither. He was to leave the happy, sunny silence of the dear White Cross, and to go out into that great world that he had so often looked down upon from the high windy belfry on the steep hillside.

VI. How Otto Lived in the Dragon’s House.

The gates of the Monastery stood wide open, the world lay beyond, and all was ready for departure. Baron Conrad and his men-at-arms sat foot in stirrup, the milk-white horse that had been brought for Otto stood waiting for him beside his father’s great charger.

“Farewell, Otto,” said the good old Abbot, as he stooped and kissed the boy’s cheek.

“Farewell,” answered Otto, in his simple, quiet way, and it brought a pang to the old man’s heart that the child should seem to grieve so little at the leave-taking.

“Farewell, Otto,” said the brethren that stood about, “farewell, farewell.”

Then poor brother John came forward and took the boy’s hand, and looked up into his face as he sat upon his horse. “We will meet again,” said he, with his strange, vacant smile, “but maybe it will be in Paradise, and there perhaps they will let us lie in the father’s belfry, and look down upon the angels in the court-yard below.”

“Aye,” answered Otto, with an answering smile.

“Forward,” cried the Baron, in a deep voice, and with a clash of hoofs and jingle of armor they were gone, and the great wooden gates were shut to behind them.

Down the steep winding pathway they rode, and out into the great wide world beyond, upon which Otto and brother John had gazed so often from the wooden belfry of the White Cross on the hill.