Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/401

26, 1863.] not close an eye that night, and on getting up to open his window he saw, proceeding leisurely across the court, a female figure bearing on its shoulders—not the weight of half a dozen kingdoms, certainly, but what was in her case quite as bad, or worse—a tall young man. It was Emma carrying Eginhard. To imagine the scene that followed it is necessary to take a full measure of the greatness of Charlemagne as compared with the littleness of a pert young clerk. What the exact spot where the scene occurred was, appears uncertain; but it may have been the imperial hunting-seat of Dreieichenhain, between Frankfort and Darmstadt. In such a case the wrath of Charlemagne must have been more like the wrath of the four elements than anything human, except perhaps that of the Chief Druid when Charlemagne put his imperial foot on his overturned idol. However, he did not put them to death; that would have created a scandal. He said nothing to any one else, but ordered the guilty pair to quit his sight for ever. Nevertheless, Emma was the favourite daughter of Charlemagne, and Eginhard himself he loved, and would have promoted to great honour but for the presumptuous youth thus dashing all his own prospects to pieces. So Charlemagne was sad, and often longed to hear news of Emma, whose name he never mentioned, and whose name none mentioned to him; why, they scarce dared to ask even themselves. And he tried to cure his sadness, as was his wont, by exercise and excitement, and now, as he had no wars on hand, by the chase. It chanced, one day that a fine stag had escaped him after a long run in the wood close to the Main, by a small hamlet called Obermühlheim. He was tired and in need of refreshment, and he drew up at the door of a humble house in the