"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.

"Hast been taught to ride a horse by the priests up yonder on
Michaelsburg?" asked the Baron, when they had reached the level road.

"Nay," said Otto; "we had no horse to ride, but only to bring in the
harvest or the grapes from the further vineyards to the vintage."

"Prut," said the Baron, "methought the abbot would have had enough of
the blood of old days in his veins to have taught thee what is fitting
for a knight to know; art not afeared?"

"Nay," said Otto, with a smile, "I am not afeared."

"There at least thou showest thyself a Vuelph," said the grim Baron. But
perhaps Otto's thou