It was three of the clock and the sun was very fierce on the dusty, unslaked yard of the Wolfsberg, glaring down upon us like the mouth of a wide smelter's oven. Fat Fritz, the porter, in his arm-chair of a cell, had well-nigh dissolved into lard and running out at his own door. The Playmate's window was open, and I caught the waft of a fan to and fro. I judged therefore that my lady knew well that I was working out there in the heat, and was glad of it—being a spiteful pretty minx.
Then I began to wonder who had given her that fan, for it was not like my father to do it, and she knew no other. "Ah!" I said to myself, as a thought struck me, "could it possibly be Michael Texel? He is rich, and Helene may have known him before. The cunning, dark-eyed little vagabond—to take my introduction yester-even as if she had never set eyes on the fellow before, while here it is as clear as daylight that he had all the time been giving her presents—fans and such like."
So I raved within me, half because I believed it, and half because she seemed so comfortable up there, with her feet on a stool and a cool jug of curds at her elbow, while I sweated and labored in the sun.
Very decidedly it must be Texel; devil fly up with him and scratch him among the gargoyles of the minster!
The fan wagged on. It looked distractingly cool within. But then my father—filial obedience was very distinctly a duty, and, also, Gottfried Gottfried, though kind, was a man not to be disobeyed—even at nineteen, and after defying the White Wolf.
It was, as I have said, about three by the sundial on the wall, the arch of which cast a shadow like jet on the scale, that my father came out through the narrow door from the Judgment Hall, opening it with his own key. For he had the right of entrance and outgoing of every door in the palace, not even excepting the bedchamber of Duke Casimir.
"Hugo," he said, "come hither, lad. I did not mean to keep you so long at work in the sun. You must have filled all the cisterns in the place by this time!"
I thanked him sincerely, but did not pursue the subject. For, indeed, I had not worked quite so hard as in his haste my father had supposed from my appearance.
"Go within," he said; "don quickly your saint's-day dress, and betake yourself down to the house of Master Gerard von Sturm, the city chamberlain, and tell him all that he asks of you—readily and truly."
"But, father," said I, "suppose he asks of me that which might condemn one who has trusted me, what am I to say?"