My readers will probably be of opinion that he got off very easily. So was Abbot Burkhard when he heard of the affair, though he was far from being of a pugnacious temper; and so too was the mighty duchess. The next time that Ekkehard Palatinus appeared to give his lesson, she vented her wrath in very strong language; to be candid, she swore, “by the life of Hedwiga,” to have her revenge. But her anger for that day, at least, was dissipated by a pleasant incident which sets her character in a more amiable light. Ekkehard had brought with him one of his junior scholars, whose infantine beauty attracted the admiration of the duchess. “Wherefore have you brought this child?” she inquired of her tutor; who replied with his customary courtesy, “For the sake of the Greek, gracious lady, which I hope he will gather from your lips.” Then the boy, who was well trained in the versifying habits of the St. Gall’s scholars, spoke for himself in an extempore line of Latin:-- “Esse velim Græcus, cum sim vix, Dom’na, Latinus.”[136] Charmed with his ready wit, she drew him to her, and kissing him kindly on the forehead made him sit on the footstool at her feet, requiring him to make her some more verses immediately. The child, confused with these unwonted caresses, looked first at one and then at the other of his teachers, and then stammered out, “Non possum prorsus dignos componere versus, Nam nimis expavi Duce me libante suavi.”[137] The severe heart of the duchess was fairly conquered, and making the little poet stand up before her, she then and there taught him to sing the antiphon, _Maria et flumina_, which she had herself translated out of Latin into Greek, and frequently afterwards had him at her castle and taught him how to make Greek verses. Moreover, she treated him with a tenderness that went nigh to spoiling, and gave him a Horace, and some other books which one wishes Ekkehard junior had named, and which were long preserved in the library. I will not pursue the story of Ruodman, which has been chiefly introduced for the sake of this graceful ending. He had great difficulty in making his peace with the abbot and the duchess, though he tried the mollifying gift to the former of a very handsome horse, which threw its rider the very first time he mounted it, so that in spite of all the skill displayed by Notker Piperis-granum, poor Abbot Burkhard went for some time after on crutches.