Then the abbot gave a sign to stop the singing.
"How do you do, Cousin Cralo?" flippantly cried the Duchess from her saddle. "I have not seen you for an age! Are you still limping?"
Cralo however replied with dignity: "It is better that the shepherd should limp than the flock. Be pleased to hear the monastery's decree." And forthwith he communicated the condition on which she was to enter.
Then Dame Hadwig replied smilingly: "During all the time that I have wielded the sceptre in Suabia, such a proposition has never been made to me. But the laws of your order shall be respected. Which of the brothers have you chosen to carry the Sovereign over the threshold?" but on casting her sparkling eyes over the ranks of the spiritual champions and beholding the dark fanatical face of Notker the stutterer, she whispered to Praxedis: "May be we shall turn back at once."
"There he stands," said the abbot.
Dame Hadwig following with her eyes the direction which the abbot's forefinger indicated, then beheld Ekkehard, and it was a long gaze, which she cast on his tall handsome figure, and noble countenance, glowing with youth and intellect. "We shall not turn back," was implied by a significant nod to Praxedis, and before the short-necked chamberlain, who in most cases was willing enough but was generally too slow, had dismounted, and approached her palfrey, she had gracefully alighted and approaching the custodian, she said: "Now then, perform your office."
Ekkehard had been trying meanwhile to compose an address, which in faultless Latin was intended to justify the strange liberty he was about to take,--but when she stood before him, proud and commanding, his voice failed him, and the speech remained where it had been conceived,--in his thoughts. Otherwise, however, he had not lost his courage, and so he lifted up his fair burden with his strong arms, who, putting her right arm round his shoulder, seemed not displeased with her novel position.
Cheerfully he thus stepped over the threshold which no woman's foot was allowed to touch; the abbot walking by his side, and the chamberlain and vassals following. The serving ministrants swung their censers gaily into the air, and the monks marching behind in a double file as before, sung the last verses of the unfinished hymn.
It was a wonderful spectacle, such as never occurred, either before or after in the monastery's history, and by those prone to useless moralising many a wise observation might be made, in connexion with the monk's carrying the duchess; on the relation of church and state in those times, and the changes which have occurred since,--but these reflections we leave each one to make for himself.--Natural philosophers affirm, that at the meeting of animate objects, invisible powers begin to act, streaming forth and passing from one to the other, thus creating strange affinities. This theory was proved true at least with regard to the Duchess and her bearer, for whilst she was being rocked in his arms, she thought inwardly: "Indeed, never the hood of St. Benedict has covered a more graceful head than this one," and when Ekkehard put down his burden with shy deference in the cool cross-passage, he was struck by the thought, that the distance from the gate had never appeared so short to him before. "I suppose that you found me very heavy?" said the Duchess.
"My liege lady, you may boldly say of yourself as it has been written, 'my yoke is easy and my burden is light,'" was the reply.