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 for that which they cannot have, but nevertheless accepting with a sharp relish the things which are decreed to them; even as do the Duke’s carrion-eaters yonder, which, by-the-way, are waiting most impatiently for their meal while we thus stand arguing.”

He was about to move away when his eye fell on Helene.  At sight of her he seemed to remember my last words, about going a-wooing.

He considered a moment and then said:  “You are young yet to think of courting, Hugo, but have no fear either for the love-making or the wedding.  Sweet maids a many shall surely come hither.  Why, there is one growing up yonder that will prove as fair as any.  I tell you the Gottfrieds have married great ladies in their time—­dames and dainty damsels.  They have had princesses to be their sweethearts ere now.  Come, then, lad—­no more words, but follow me.”

And for that time I went after him obediently enough, but all the same my heart was rebellious within me.  And I determined that if I had to ran to the ends of the earth, I should never be Hereditary Executioner nor yet handle the broadaxe on the bared necks of my fellow-men.