"That is a nice state of things, I declare," whispered Master Spazzo into the Greek maid's ear. "Does that rest on your conscience?"
The Duchess, however, said to Burkhard: "I suppose that thou hast been dreaming thyself. Run up to thy uncle and make him come down as we are waiting for him."
She sat down gracefully on her throne-like seat. The cloister-pupil soon came back with Ekkehard, who was looking very pale, whilst his eyes had something wild and sad about them. He silently bowed his head, and then sat down at the opposite end of the table. Burkhard wanted to place his stool again at the Duchess's feet, as he had done the day before, when they had read Virgil;--but Ekkehard rose and pulled him over by the hand. "Come hither!" said he. The Duchess let him do as he wished.
Casting first a look around her, she began thus: "We pretended yesterday, that in our German legends and tales, there was as much, and as good matter for entertainment, as in the Roman epic of Æneas; and I doubt not that each person amongst us, knows something of heroic battles, and besieged fortresses; of the separation of faithful lovers, and the dissensions of mighty kings. The human heart is differently disposed, so that that, which does not interest the one, may please the other. Therefore we have made the arrangement, that each of our faithful subjects, as the lot will decide, shall relate some graceful tale; and it will be our task then, to allot a prize for the best story. If one of you men should be the conqueror, he shall have the ancient drinking-horn, which, from the time of King Dagobert, has been hanging in the great hall; and if my faithful Praxedis should be the victorious one, some pretty trinket is to be her reward. The pulling of straws shall decide who is to begin."
Praxedis had prepared four bits of straw of different lengths, which she handed to the Duchess.
"Shall I add another for the young verse-maker?" asked she.
But Burkhard said in a doleful voice: "I beseech you to spare me; for, if my teacher at St. Gall were to hear, that I had again diverted myself with idle tales, I should certainly be punished as I was when we acted the story of the old Hildebrand and his son Hadubrand, in Romeias' room. The gate-keeper, always delighted in it, and it was he who made our wooden horses and shields, with his own hands. I was the son Hadubrand, and my fellow-pupil Notker acted old Hildebrand; his underlip being as big as that of an old man. Ho, didn't we fly at each other, so that a cloud of dust flew out of Romeias's windows! Notker had already unfastened his arm-ring, holding it out to me, as the old song describes it, and I was just saying: 'Hoho thou old blade! Thou art really too cunning by half. Dost thou think to beguile we with thy words, and then, to throw thy spear at me? Has thy head become hoary, with treachery and lies? Seafaring men in the west, on the Wendel lake told me: he was killed in the wars, was Hildebrand the son of Heribrand!' when Master Ratolt, our teacher of rhetoric, came upstairs on tip-toe, and belaboured us so fiercely with his large rod, that sword and shield fell from our hands.
"Romeias, was called a stupid old blockhead, for decoying us from useful studies, and my friend Notker and myself were locked up for three days, fed on bread and water, and had to make a hundred and fifty Latin hexametres in honour of St. Othmar, as a punishment."
The Duchess smiled. "God forbid, that we should tempt thee again to such a sin," said she.
She put the four straws into her right hand, and smilingly held them out, for them to draw. Ekkehard's eyes were fixed immovably on the rose under her head-band, as he stepped up to her. She had to speak to him twice, before he pulled out a straw.