Red Axe

Red Axe, by Samuel Rutherford
Crockett

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Title: Red Axe
Author: Samuel Rutherford Crockett
Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12191]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE RED AXE
By S.R. Crockett

1900

CONTENTS
I. DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE
II. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME
III. THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK
IV. THE PRINCESS HELENE
V. THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED
VI. DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR
VII. I BECOME A TRAITOR
VIII. AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF
IX. A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN
X. THE LUBBER FIEND
XI. THE VISION IN THE CRYSTAL
XII. EYES OF EMERALD
XIII. CHRISTIAN'S ELSA
XIV. SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF
XV. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS
XVI. TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN
XVII. THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE

XVIII. THE PRIME OF THE MORNING
XIX. WENDISH WIT
XX. THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND
XXI. I STAND SENTRY
XXII. HELENE HATES ME
XXIII. HUGO OF THE BROADAXE
XXIV. THE SORTIE
XXV. MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE
XXVI. PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON
XXVII. ANOTHER MAN'S COAT
XXVIII. THE PRINCE'S COMPACT
XXIX. LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT
XXX. INSULT AND CHALLENGE
XXXI. I FIND A SECOND
XXXII. THE WOLVES OF THE MARK
XXXIII. THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE
XXXIV. THE GOLDEN NECKLACE
XXXV. THE DECENT SERVITOR
XXXVI. YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL
XXXVII. CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON

XXXVIII. THE BLACK RIDERS
XXXIX. THE FLAG ON THE RED TOWER
XL. THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH
XLI. THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER
XLII. PRINCESS PLAYMATE
XLIII. THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT
XLIV. SENTENCE OF DEATH
XLV. THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE
XLVI. A WOMAN SCORNED
XLVII. THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP
XLVIII. HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK
XLIX. THE SERPENT'S STRIFE
L. THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG
LI. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN
LII. THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT
LIII. THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN
LIV. THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO
LV. THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL
LVI. HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG

THE RED AXE
CHAPTER I
DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE
Well do I, Hugo Gottfried, remember the night of snow and moonlight
when first they brought the Little Playmate home. I had been
sleeping--a sturdy, well-grown fellow I, ten years or so as to my age--in
a stomacher of blanket and a bed-gown my mother had made me before
she died at the beginning of the cold weather. Suddenly something
awoke me out of my sleep. So, all in the sharp chill of the night, I got
out of my bed, sitting on the edge with my legs dangling, and looked
curiously at the bright streams of moonlight which crossed the wooden
floor of my garret. I thought if only I could swim straight up one of
them, as the motes did in the sunshine, I should be sure to come in time
to the place where my mother was--the place where all the pretty white
things came from--the sunshine, the moonshine, the starshine, and the
snow.
And there would be children to play with up there--hundreds of
children like myself, and all close at hand. I should not any longer have
to sit up aloft in the Red Tower with none to speak to me--all alone on
the top of a wall--just because I had a crimson patch sewn on my
blue-corded blouse, on my little white shirt, embroidered in red wool
on each of my warm winter wristlets, and staring out from the front of
both my stockings. It was a pretty enough pattern, too. Yet whenever
one of the children I so much longed to play with down on the paved
roadway beneath our tower caught sight of it he rose instantly out of
the dust and hurled oaths and ill-words at me--aye, and oftentimes other
missiles that hurt even worse--at a little lonely boy who was breaking
his heart with loving him up there on the tower.
"Come down and be killed, foul brood of the Red Axe!" the children
cried. And with that they ran as near as they dared, and spat on the wall
of our house, or at least on the little wooden panel which opened
inward in the great trebly spiked iron door of the Duke's court-yard.

But this night of the first home-coming of the Little Playmate I awoke
crying and fearful in the dead vast of the