The boy of Castle Schonburg was three years old, when he was allowed to play on the battlements, sporting with a wooden sword and imagining himself as great a warrior as his father had ever been. He was a brave little fellow whom nothing could frighten but the stories his nurse told him of the gnomes and goblins who infested the Rhine, and he longed for the time when he would be a man and wear a real sword. One day just before he had completed his fourth year, a man came slinking out of the forest to the foot of the wall, for the watch was now slack as the Outlaw had not been heard of for months, and then was far away in the direction of Mayence. The nurse was holding a most absorbing conversation with the man-at-arms, who should, instead, have been pacing up and down the terrace while she should have been watching her charge. The man outside gave a low whistle which attracted the attention of the child and then beckoned him to come further along the wall until he had passed the west tower. “Well, little coward,” said the man, “I did not think you would have the courage to come so far away from the women.” “I am not a coward,” answered the lad, stoutly, “and I do not care about the women at all.” “Your father was a coward.” “He is not. He is the bravest man in the world.” “He did not dare to jump off the wall after the Baron.” “He will cut the Baron in pieces if he ever comes near our castle.” “Yet he dared not jump as the Baron did.” “The Baron was afraid of my father; that’s why he jumped.” “Not so. It was your father who feared to follow him, though he had a sword and the Baron had none. You are all cowards in Castle Schonburg. I don’t believe you have the courage to jump even though I held out my arms to catch you, but if you do I will give you the sword I wear.” The little boy had climbed on the parapet, and now stood hovering on the brink of the precipice, his childish heart palpitating through fear of the chasm before him, yet beneath its beatings was an insistent command to prove his impugned courage. For some moments there was deep silence, the man below gazing aloft and holding up his hands. At last he lowered his outstretched arms and said in a sneering tone: “Good-bye, craven son of a craven race. You dare not jump.”