clash of armor, the ring of iron-shod hoofs, or the hoarse call
to arms.

All men were not wicked and cruel and fierce in that dark, far-
away age; all were not robbers and terror-spreading tyrants,
even in that time when men's hands were against their neighbors,
and war and rapine dwelt in place of peace and justice.

Abbot Otto, of St. Michaelsburg, was a gentle, patient, pale.
faced old man; his white hands were soft and smooth, and no one
would have thought that they could have known the harsh touch of
sword-hilt and lance. And yet, in the days of the Emperor
Frederick - the grandson of the great Red-beard - no one stood
higher in the prowess of arms than he. But all at once - for why,
no man could tell - a change came over him, and in the flower of
his youth and fame and growing power he gave up everything in
life and entered the quiet sanctuary of that white monastery on
the hill-side, so far away from the tumult and the conflict of
the world in which he had lived.

Some said that it was because the lady he had loved had loved
his brother, and that when they were married Otto of Wolbergen
had left the church with a broken heart.

But such stories are old songs that have been sung before.

Clatter! clatter! Jingle! jingle! It was a full-armed knight
that came riding up the steep hill road that wound from left to
right and right to left amid the vineyards on the slopes of St.
Michaelsburg. Polished helm and corselet blazed in the noon