"'"I am Hermann Billing's oldest son, and my name is Hermann too, and this field is my father's, and you must not ride over it." "'"But I will, boy," answered the rider with threatening sternness. "Get out of the way, or I throw you down"--and with that he lifts his spear. The boy, however, stands fearlessly still, looks up at the horseman with eyes of fire and says-- "'"Right is right; and you have no business to ride over this field, you shall ride over me if you do." "'"What do you know about the right, boy?" "'"My father is the Billing, and I shall be Billing after him," answered the boy, "and nobody may do a wrong before a Billing." "'Then still more threateningly the rider called out--"Is _this_ right then, boy, to refuse obedience to your king? I am your king, Otto." "'"You Otto? our king? the shield of Germany and the flower of the Saxons, that my father tells us so much about? Otto the son of Heinrich the Saxon? No, that you are not. Otto the king guards the right, and you are doing the wrong. Otto don't do that, my father says." "'"Take me to your father, my good boy," answered the king, and an unwonted gentleness and kindliness beamed upon his stern face. "'"Yonder is my father's dwelling-house, you can see it," said Hermann, "but my father has trusted the cattle here to me and I cannot leave them, so I cannot bring you there. But if you are King Otto, turn off out of the field into the road, for the king guards the law." "'And King Otto the first, surnamed the Great, obeyed the boy's voice, for the boy was in the right, and rode back to the road. Presently Hermann was fetched from the field. The king had gone into his father's house and had said to him, "Billing, give me your oldest son and let him go with me, I will have him brought up at court, he is going to be a true man, and I have need of true men." And what true Saxon could refuse anything to a king like Otto? "'So the brave boy was to journey forward with his king, and when Otto asked him, "Hermann, will you go with me?" the boy answered gladly, "I will go with you; you are the king, for you protect the right."