Ekkehard Volume Ii Part 7

Moengal made a gesture of evil import. "A good stick from a holly-bush, or a brave hazel-wand, is all that's wanted, and then to go down the Rhine, until there is but an arm's length left between the Suabian wood and the Italian writer's back. And then." ... He concluded his speech figuratively.

"You are somewhat rude, parish-priest, and have no appreciation of learning," said the Abbot. "To be sure--such a treatise as that can only be written by a refined intellect. Respect, I say!"

"Fine learning that, indeed!" exclaimed Moengal, who had worked himself into a downright rage. "'Puffed-up lips, and a bad and wicked heart, are like an earthen pot, covered with tinsel,' says Solomon. Learned? Why, the wood in my parish is as learned as that, for it also repeats, what you call out to it, and that is at least a melodious echo. We know these Belgian peac.o.c.ks, which are to be found though, also in other parts. Their feathers are stolen, and their singing, in spite of tail and rainbow-colours behind, is hoa.r.s.e, and will always be hoa.r.s.e; no matter what airs the creatures may give themselves. Before my great recovery, I also believed that it was singing, instead of croaking, when a fellow puffed up his cheeks with grammar and dialectics, but now: 'Farewell, _Marcia.n.u.s Capella_,' say we now at Radolfszell!"

"I believe that it is time for you to think of going home, as the clouds are fast gathering over Constance," said the Abbot.

Then the parish-priest found out, that he had not chosen a suitable individual, for expounding his views on healthy opinions and science to. So he took leave.

"For the matter of that, thou mightst have remained as well in thy monastery at Benchor on the emerald isle, thou Irish wooden-head,"

thought Abbot Wazmann, whilst taking leave with evident coolness.

"Rudimann!" he called out through the pa.s.sage, when Moengal was gone.

Rudimann, instantly made his appearance.

"I suppose you remember the last vintage-time," began the Abbot, "as well as a blow given to you by a certain milk-sop, to whom a fanciful d.u.c.h.ess, is now about to give certain lands?"

"I remember the blow," replied Rudimann with a bashful smile, like a maiden who is questioned about her lover.

"That blow has been returned by someone, with a strong and unrelenting hand. You may be satisfied. Read this," handing Gunzo's parchment to him.

"By your leave," said Rudimann, stepping up to the window. He had tasted many a n.o.ble wine in his life, during the time that he had occupied his present post of cellarer, but even on the day, when the bishop of Cremona had sent him some jugs of sparkling brown Asti, his countenance had not shone so radiantly, as it did now.

"What a precious gift from above, is extensive knowledge, and a fine style," exclaimed he. "The brother Ekkehard is done for. He cannot dare to show his face again."

"Tis not quite so far yet," said the Abbot. "But then, that which is not, may yet be in the future. The learned brother Gunzo is helping us.

His epistle must not be allowed to rot unread. So you can have some copies taken; better six than three. That fine young gentleman must be driven away from the Hohentwiel. I am not overfond of yellow-beaked birds, who pretend to sing better than their elders. Some cold water, poured on his tonsure, will benefit him. We will send a note to our brother in St. Gall, urging him to command his return. How is it with the list of his sins?"

Rudimann slowly raised his left hand, and began to count on his fingers. "Shall I recount them? First he has disturbed the peace of our monastery, during the vintage, by, ..."

"Stop," said the Abbot, "that is past and done away with. All that, which happened before the battle with the Huns, is buried and forgotten. That is a law which the Burgundians made, and which we will adhere to, also."

"Then without the help of my fingers," said the cellarer. "The custodian of St. Gallus has become subject to haughtiness and insolence, since the day on which he left his monastery. Without moving his lips to frame a greeting, he pa.s.ses by, brothers, whose age and intellect, ought to claim his reverence. Then, he presumed to preach the sermon, on the holy day when we beat the Huns; although such an important and solemn office, ought to have been performed by one of the Abbots. Further, he presumed to baptize a heathenish prisoner; although such a baptism should have been superintended by the regular priest of the parish and not by one, who ought to attend at the gate of the monastery of St. Gallus.

"What may still arise out of the constant intercourse of the forward youth with his n.o.ble mistress, He Who searcheth all hearts, alone can tell! Already at the wedding-feast of that baptized heathen, it was observed that he did not shun meetings with that beauteous dame, in solitary places; and that he heaved frequent sighs, like a shot buck.

Likewise it has been remarked with heartfelt sorrow, that a Greek maiden, as fickle and unstable as a will-o'-the-wisp, is flickering about him; so that, that which is left undone by the mistress, may be finished by her hand-maiden, of whose orthodoxy even, one is not fully a.s.sured. Now, a frivolous woman is bitterer than death, according to Scripture. She is a bait of the evil one, and her heart is a net, and only he who pleases G.o.d, can escape her wiles."

It was a most becoming and just thing, for Rudimann, the protector of the uppermaid Kerhildis, to be so well versed, in the words of the Preacher.

"Enough," said the Abbot. "Chapter twenty-nine, treating of the calling back of absent brothers. It will do, and I have a sort of presentiment, that the fickle lady will soon flutter about on her rock, like an old swallow, whose nestling has been taken away. Goodbye sweetheart!... and Sas.p.a.ch will yet become ours!"

"Amen!" murmured Rudimann.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Master Spazzo the Chamberlain's Mission.

Early on a cool pleasant summer day, Ekkehard walked out of the castle gate, into the breezy morning air. He had pa.s.sed a sleepless night, during which he had paced up and down in his chamber. The d.u.c.h.ess had called up a host of wild thoughts in his heart, and in his head there was a buzzing and humming, as if a covey of wild ducks were flying about there. He shunned Dame Hadwig's presence, and yet longed every moment that he was away, to be near her. The old happy ingenuousness had taken wing. His ways had become absent and variable; in short, the time which has never been spared yet to mortal man, and which G.o.dfrey of Stra.s.sburg describes: "as an everpresent pain, in a continual state of bliss," had come for him.

Before the night had quite set in, a thunderstorm was raging outside.

He had opened his little window, and enjoyed the fierce sheets of lightning, flas.h.i.+ng through the gathering darkness, and every now and then, lighting up the sh.o.r.es of the lake; and he had laughed when night had triumphed again, and the thunders were reverberating between the hills.

Now it was a fine sunny morning. Glistening dew-drops hung on the gra.s.s, and here and there, an unmelted hailstone, was lying in the shade. Quiet and peace were now reigning over hill and vale, but the ears of the blasted cornfields, hung down their broken heads, for the hail-storm had blighted the fair promising harvest. From the rocky hillsides, mud-coloured little brooklets, were running down into the valley.

As yet, nothing was stirring in the fields, for it was only just daybreak. In the distance, on the hilly ground which extends in undulating lines at the back of the Hohentwiel, a man was striding along. It was the Hunnic convert. He carried willow branches and all sorts of slings, and was just setting out on his work to wage war on the field-mice. As he walked along, he whistled merrily on a lime-tree leaf, and looked the image of a happy bridegroom; for in the arms of the tall Friderun, he had found new happiness.

"How are you?" mildly said Ekkehard when he pa.s.sed by with an humble salutation. The Hun pointed up to the blue sky: "as if I were in heaven!" said he, gaily spinning round on one of his wooden shoes.

Ekkehard turned his steps back again; but for a long while the whistling of the mouse-catcher, could still be heard interrupting the silence around. At the foot of the hill there lay a piece of weatherbeaten rock, over which an elder-tree spread its boughs, richly laden with luxuriant white blossoms. Ekkehard sat down on it, and after dreamily gazing into the distance for some time, he drew out from under his habit, a neatly bound little book, and began to read. It was neither a breviary nor the Psalter. It was called, "The song of Solomon," and it was not good for him to read it. To be sure, they had once taught him, that the lily-scented song, expressed the longing for the church, the true bride of the soul, and in his younger days he had studied it, undisturbed by the gazelle eyes, and the dovelike cheeks and slender as the palm-tree waist of the Sulamite woman, but now!--now he read it with other eyes. A soft dreaminess came over him.

"Who is it, that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" He looked up to the towers of the Hohentwiel, which were glittering in the first rays of the morning sun, and there found the answer.

And again he read: "I sleep but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved, that knocketh saying: open to me my sister, my love, my dove, for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of night."--A stirring breeze shook down some of the white blossoms on the little book. Ekkehard did not shake them off. He had bent down his head, and was sitting there immovable.

Meanwhile, Cappan had cheerfully begun his daily labours. There was a field down in the plain, on the border of the lands belonging to the Hohentwiel, on which the field-mice had erected their headquarters. The hamsters were carrying off plenty of provisions for the winter, and the moles were digging their pa.s.sages in the gravelly soil. To that spot, Cappan had received orders to betake himself. Like a statesman in a rebellious province, he was to restore order, and cleanse the land of all obnoxious subjects. The floods of the late thunderstorm, had laid open the hidden refuges. He dug them up gently, and slew many a field-mouse before it was aware of it. Then, he carefully prepared his various slings and traps, putting also here and there some poisonous baits, which he had concocted out of the thorn-apple and belladonna; and all the while that he was thus intent on these his murderous designs, he continued to whistle merrily; little knowing what terrible clouds were gathering over his head.

The land on which he was exercising his art, bordered on some grounds, that belonged to the monastery of Reichenau. There, where a forest of stately old oaks stretched their tops into the air, some straw-thatched roofs might be seen. These were the roofs of the Schlangenhof, which, together with many acres of wood and fields, belonged to the monastery.

A pious widow had left it to St. Pirmin, in order to secure eternal bliss for her soul. They had let it to a farmer, who was rather a rough man with a thick knotty skull, full of hard, stubborn thoughts. He had many men and maid-servants, as well as horses and cattle, and was altogether a thriving man, for he took good care that the copper-brown snakes, which infested both court and stable, were left unmolested.

Their dish of milk in the stable-corner, was never allowed to remain empty, and in consequence they had got quite tame, and never harmed anybody. "These snakes are the blessing of the whole farm," the old man would often repeat.

For the last two days, however, the convent-farmer had not enjoyed one single quiet hour; for the frequent thunderstorms made him very anxious about his crops. When three of them had pa.s.sed by, without doing any damage, he had a horse put to a cart, on which was placed a sack of last year's rye, and with that he drove over to the deacon of Singen.

He, on seeing the cart approaching, grinned so as to show his big grinders, for he knew his customer well enough. His living was scanty, but out of the folly of mankind, he yet made enough to b.u.t.ter his bread with.

The convent-farmer had taken the sack of corn down from the cart, and said: "Master Otfried, you have taken good care of me, and have prayed away the thunderstorms from my fields. Don't forget me, if the thunder should come on again."

And the deacon replied: "I think you must have seen me standing under the church-door, with my face turned towards the Schlangenhof, sprinkling the holy water three times towards the tempest, in the shape of the holy cross; besides saying the verse of the three holy nails.

That, drove away clouds and hailstones fast enough, I can tell you!

Your rye, convent-farmer, would make excellent bread, if a trifle of barley were added to it."

Then, the convent-farmer returned home, and was just thinking of filling a smaller sack with barley, as an additional, well-deserved present, for his advocate with Heaven, when again some black and threatening clouds became visible. When they were looming dark and terrible, over the oak-wood, a whitish-grey smaller cloud hurried up after them. It had five points like to the fingers of a hand, and swelled and shot forth sheets of lightning, and soon a hail-storm, far worse than any previous ones, came down. The convent-farmer had at first stood confidently under his porch, thinking that the deacon of Singen would again drive it away, but when the hailstones began pelting his cornfields, causing the ears to fall like soldiers in a battle, he struck his clenched fist on the oaken table, calling out: "may that cursed liar at Singen be d.a.m.ned."

In the height of despair, at the deacon's prayers having failed, he now tried an old traditional remedy of the Hegau. Tearing down some branches from the nearest oak-tree, he plucked off the leaves, and putting these into his venerable old wedding-coat, he hung that up, on the mighty oak-tree which overspread his house. But the merciless hailstones continued to beat down the corn, in spite of wedding-coat and oak-leaves. Like a statue, the convent-farmer stood there, with his eyes riveted on the bundle in the air, hoping that the wind which would drive the thunderstorm away, would come out of it,--but it came not!

Then, biting his lips and with contracted eye-brows, he walked back into the house. Almost heart-broken with grief, he threw himself into a chair before the table, and for some time he sat there without uttering a word. When at last he spoke, it was to p.r.o.nounce an awful curse.

This, with the convent-farmer was already a change for the better.

The head-servant, timidly ventured to approach him now. He was of gigantic stature, but before his master, he stood as timid as a child.

"If I only knew the witch!" exclaimed the farmer. "The weather-witch!

the cursed old hag! She should not have shaken out her skirts over the Schlangenhof in vain.... May her tongue be withered in her mouth!"

"Need it have been a witch?" said the head-servant. "Since the woman of the wood has been driven away from the Hohenkrahen, no other has dared to show her face here."

"Hold thy tongue, until thou art asked!" fiercely growled the convent-farmer.

The man remained standing there, well knowing that his turn would come.

After some time the old man gruffly said: "What dost thou know?"