Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/400

390 “tug-stretchers.” They swindle and rob in the daytime, and plunder drunken men through the night. They have many tricks peculiar to races and fairs, of which we shall only mention two, “fawney dropping” and the “three bars.” The former practice is worked by two scoundrels. One tries to get some country simpleton engaged in conversation. As soon as the thief is able to accomplish this, his criminal companion walks in front, and drops an apparently gold ring, marked at a high figure. The thief who has the flat in hand picks up the ring, and pretends to be very much excited and delighted with the value of his find. He attempts to break the ring in two, and says that half of it belongs to the flat. But the flat objects, and says it would be a pity to break and spoil the ring. So the thief agrees to let the flat have it for so much, and probably bags eight or nine shillings for a ring that never cost him threepence. The three bars are worked in streets as well as at races and fairs. It requires three men to work the artifice—a kid, a dropper, and one to act as a policeman in plain clothes. Two common pencil-cases are the instruments, one containing a pin and a pen, the other a pen only. When the kid has got his victim to rights, he raises his hat by way of signal to his confederates. The dropper then walks past the kid, pulls out his pocket-handkerchief for the usual purpose, and in doing so drops a pencil-case with a steel pen in it. The kid picks up the pencil-case, and says to the flat, “That man has dropped this, let us see what there is in it.” The flat finds a steel pen in the case. Then the kid proposes to have a lark with the owner of the pencil-case, so he takes the pen out, puts in a pin, and gives the pen to the flat to hold. They call the dropper back, and the kid asks him if he has lost anything. He says that he is not aware that he has, and inspects his flash money in showy style. “It is not money that you have lost,” says the kid. Then the dropper examines his pockets, and finds that his pencil-case is gone. They give him the pencil-case, and the kid remarks that there is no steel pen it. The dropper shakes the case and says there is a pen in it. The kid replies, “But the pen is not like this,” producing the one which the flat is holding. Then the kid appeals to the flat, who also affirms that there is no pen in it. The dropper then offers a bet, and if it is taken he puts his hand into his pocket for the money, and at the same time adroitly changes the pencil-case for one with a pin and a pen in it. The case is handed to the flat, and he opens it to his astonishment. The policeman in plain clothes comes up, threatens to arrest them for gambling, and so they all “skedaddle.”





thirty-first of January of this year ’63 was a clear, soft, and bright day. There had been many such in the course of one of the mildest winters within living memory. But perhaps this was the first day in which the promise of an early spring—so often broken, but this year to have a glorious fulfilment—was felt in the air. On the whole, it was a day which prompted a pilgrimage in defiance of the calendar. On a bend of the Lower Main lies the ancient town of Seligenstadt. It appears to be but a short walk from Offenbach, as the road thence to it appears on the map as the chord to which the arc is formed by the river; and distant but some ten minutes by rail from Frankfort is Offenbach, a thriving, industrious place, whose prosperity was caused by the Huguenot immigration. The road from Offenbach to Seligenstadt is monotonous enough, cutting through dense pine-forests in straight lines, so that a person or carriage approaching is seen for half an hour before he or it is met. This forest was the terror of the Nuremburg merchants in the middle ages, as they could be seen a long way off by the robber knights and their henchmen, who remained ensconced in the wood till a convenient opportunity occurred for making the onslaught on the convoy of wares. The town of Frankfort used to keep soldiers on purpose to protect its customers through this part of their journey, though not always effectually. It must have been nervous work passing along this road in those times, for at any moment any reasonable number of enemies might issue from the thick covert on either side, or on both. Seligenstadt, with its old walls and towers, is seen long before it is reached after the woods have opened and made room for the plain on which it stands, with the Main washing its crumbling fortifications.

As the approach to Verona brings to mind the loves of Romeo and Juliet, so does that to Seligenstadt those of Eginhard and Emma, which, however, had a less unfortunate close. The story connected with the town has been given in different versions, of which the most apparently authentic is as follows. Emma was a beautiful daughter of Charlemagne. Eginhard was a page and private secretary of that great monarch. From the office he held he could not well have been of very high station in those days, when clerkly functions were in general contempt, and he was probably a young gentleman reading for Holy Orders, perhaps some son of a good family who had interest at court, who, if he had borne arms at all, would have borne them with a bar-sinister. Comely, however, he certainly was, and of such goodly figure that he found favour in the eyes of the Princess Emma. Under the circumstances it would be probable that the first advances to intimacy were made on the part of the lady, the disparity of rank being so great, and the fortunate issue of any open suit so apparently hopeless. The lovers, who moved in different spheres by day, managed to meet by moonlight in the apartments belonging to the Princess, which had a separate door into the court, which was unfortunately commanded by a window of the Emperor’s own rooms. These meetings continued to take place for a long time with impunity; at last Eginhard, late one night or early one morning, after bidding the Princess farewell, started back with horror, as soon as he had opened the door, on seeing that the courtyard was covered with snow. Of course the snow would betray the tracks of his feet. By ill luck, Charlemagne, who had the cares of half a dozen kingdoms on his shoulders, did