ther, in attempting to ford a flooded river, was swept down-stream
and drowned, and Bertha had no one left to fend for her and for her
child. Soon they had no food left, and the little Roland watched with
amazed eyes his famished mother growing so weak that she could not
rise from the bed where she lay, nor answer him when he pulled her by
the hand and tried to make her come with him to seek his father and to
find something to eat. And when he saw that it was hopeless, the child
knew that he must take his father's place and get food for the mother
who lay so pale, and so very still. Into a great hall where
Charlemagne and his lords were banqueting Roland strayed. Here was
food in plenty! Savoury smelling, delicious to his little empty
stomach were the daintily cooked meats which the Emperor and his court
ate from off their silver platters. Only one plateful of food such as
this must, of a surety, make his dear mother strong and well once
more. Not for a moment did Roland hesitate. Even as a tiny sparrow
darts into a lion's cage and picks up a scrap almost out of the
monarch's hungry jaws, so acted Roland. A plateful of food stood
beside the King. At this Roland sprang, seized it with both hands, and
joyfully ran off with his prey. When the serving men would have caught
him, Charlemagne, laughing, bade them desist.

"A hungry one this," he said, "and very bold."

So the meal went on, and when Roland had fed his mother with some
pieces of the rich food and had seen her gradually revive, yet another
thought came to his baby mind.

"My father gave her wine," he thought. "They were drinking wine in
that great hall. It will make her white cheeks red again."

Thus he ran back, as fast as his legs could carry him, and Charlemagne
smiled yet more when he saw the beautiful child, who knew no fear,
return to the place where he had thieved. Right up to the King's chair
he came, solemnly measured with his eye the cups of wine that the
great company quaffed, saw that the cup of Charlemagne was the most
beautiful and the fullest of the purple-red wine, stretched out a
daring little hand, grasped the cup, and prepared to go off again,
like a marauding bright-eyed bird. Then the King seized in his own
hand the hand that held the cup.

"No! no! bold thief," he said, "I cannot have my golden cup stolen
from me, be it done by ever so sturdy a robber. Tell me, who sent thee
out to steal?"

And Roland, an erect, gallant, little figure