Come with me to-day into the kennels of the blood-hounds." But I hung back, shifting the new mantle uneasily on my shoulders, yet not daring to throw it off.
"I do not want to go, father," said I, edging away in the direction of the Playmate.
"What, lad!" he cried, slapping me on the shoulder; "they will not hurt thee with that cloak on.

They know their masters better--as their fathers and mothers knew our fathers.

Have we, the Gottfrieds, been the Hereditary Justicers of the Wolfmark for six hundred years to be afraid now of the blood-hounds that are kept to hunt the Duke's enemies and to feed on the Duke's carrion ?" "It is not 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.