Ekkehard: A Tale of the Tenth Century. Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

CHAPTER XVII.

[Gunzo verso Ekkehard.]

During the time in which all that has been told until now, was happening on the shores of the Bodensee, far away in the Belgian lands, in the monastery of the holy Amandus sur l'Elnon, a monk had been sitting in his cell. Day after day, whenever the convent rules permitted it, he sat there transfixed as by a spell. The rough and cheerless winter time had come; all the rivers were frozen up, and snow covered the plain as far as eye could see,--he scarcely noticed it. Spring followed and drove away winter,--he heeded it not. The brothers talked of war, and evil tidings, which had reached them from the neighbouring Rhine-lands,--but he had no time to listen to these tales.

In his cell, every article of furniture, nay even the floor was covered with parchments, for almost all the monastery's books had emigrated to his chamber. There, he sat reading and thinking, and reading again, as if he wanted to find out the first cause of all being. On his right, lay the psalms and holy Scriptures; on his left the remains of heathenish wisdom. Everything he peered over assiduously; now and then, a malicious smile interrupting the seriousness of his studies, upon which he would hastily scribble down some lines, on a narrow strip of parchment. Were these, grains of gold and precious stones, which he dug out of the mines of ancient wisdom? No.

"What on earth, can be the matter with brother Gunzo?" said his fellow-monks amongst themselves. "In former times his tongue rattled on like a millwheel, and the books were seldom disturbed in their rest, by him; for, did he not often say with boasting mien: 'They can only tell me, what I know already?'--and now? Why, now his pen hurries on, sputtering and scratching, so that you may bear the noise it makes, even in the cross-passage. Does he hope to become notary or prime minister of the Emperor? Is he trying to find the philosopher's stone, or is he perhaps writing down, his journey in Italy?"

But brother Gunzo, continued his labours undisturbed, whatever they were. Untiringly he emptied his jug of water and read his classics. The first thunder-storms came, telling of summer's heat; but he let thunder and lightning do as they pleased, without minding them. His slumbers at night were sometimes broken by his rushing up to his inkstand, as if he had caught some good ideas in his dreams; but often they had vanished before he had succeeded in writing them down. Still his perseverance in trying to attain his aim, never wavered, and consoling himself with the prophetic words of Homer: "Yet though it tarry long, the day is certainly coming," he crept back to his couch.

Gunzo was in the prime of life; of moderate height and portly dimensions. When he stood before his well-polished metal mirror in the early morning, and gazed somewhat longer than was necessary, on his own image, he would often stroke his reddish beard with a threatening gesture, as if he were going out there and then, to fight in single combat.

In his veins, flowed Franconian as well as Gallic blood, and this latter gave him something of the liveliness and sprightliness, which is wanting in all those of pure Teutonic race. For this reason, he had bitten and torn a good many more goose quills, whilst writing, than any monk in a German monastery would have done, besides holding many a soliloquy, in the same space of time. In spite of this he mastered the natural restlessness of his body, and forced his feet to keep quiet, under the heavily laden writing desk.

On a soft, balmy summer evening, when his pen had again flitted over the patient parchment, like a will-o'-the-wisp, emitting a soft creaking sound, it suddenly began to slacken its pace,--then made a pause; a few strokes more, and then he executed a tremendous flourish on the remaining space below, so that the ink made an involuntary shower of spots, like black constellations. He had written the word finis, and with a deep sigh of relief he rose from his chair, like a man from whose mind, some great weight has been taken. Casting a long look on that which lay before him, black on white, he solemnly exclaimed, "praised be the holy Amandus! we are avenged!"

At this great and elevating moment, he had finished a libel, dedicated to the venerable brotherhood on the Reichenau, and aimed at,--Ekkehard the custodian at St. Gall. When the fair-haired interpreter of Virgil took leave of his monastery, and went to the Hohentwiel, he never, though he searched the remotest corners of his memory, had an inkling of the fact, that there was a man living, whose greatest wish and desire was to take vengeance on him; for he was inoffensive and kindhearted, never willingly hurting a fly. And yet so it was, for between Heaven and Earth, and especially in the minds of learned men, many things will happen, which the reason of the reasonable, never dreams of.

History has its caprices, both in preserving and destroying. The German songs and epics, which the great Emperor Charles had so carefully collected, were to perish in the dust and rubbish of the following ages; whilst the work of Brother Gunzo, which never benefited any one of the few who read it, has come down to posterity. Let the monstrous deed, which so excited the Gallic scholar's ire, therefore be told in his own words.

"For a long space of time,--thus he wrote to his friends on the Reichenau,--the revered and beloved King Otto, had carried on negotiations with the different Italian princes, to let me come over to his lands. But as I was neither of such low birth, or so dependent upon any, that I could have been forced to this step, he himself sent a petition to me, of which the consequence was, my pledging myself to obey his call. Thus it happened, that when he left Italy, I soon followed him, and when I did so, I did it with the hope, that my coming,--whilst harming no one, might benefit many; for what sacrifices does the love of one's fellow-creatures, and the desire to please, not entice us into? Thus I travelled onwards, not like a Briton, armed with the sharp weapons of censure, but in the service of love and science.

"Over high mountain-passes and steep ravines and valleys, I arrived at last at the monastery of St. Gall, in a state of such bodily exhaustion, that my hands, stiffened by the icy mountain air, refused me their service, so that I had to be taken down from my mule by stranger hands. The hope of the traveller, was to find a peaceful resting-place, within the monastic walls; which hope was strengthened, on beholding the frequent bending of heads, the sober-coloured garments, soft-treading steps, and sparing use of speech, prevalent there. So I was wholly unprepared for what was to follow; although by a strange chance, I happened to think of Juvenal's saying with regard to the false philosophers.

'Sparing and soft is their speech,--but malice is lurking behind it!'

and who would have believed that the said heathen was gifted with a prophetic vision of future cowl-bearing wickedness?

"Yet I was still harmlessly enjoying my life, waiting to see, whether amongst the scanty murmurs of the brothers, some sparks of philosophical wisdom would shine forth. All remained dark however, for they were preparing the arms of cunning.

"Amongst their numbers, there was also a young convent-pupil and his uncle, who--well, who was no better than he should be! They called him a worthy teacher of the school; although to me he appeared rather to look at the world with the eyes of a turtle-dove. Of this languishing-looking wiseacre I shall have to say more, presently. Listen, and judge of his deed!

"Walking up and down, he instigated the convent-pupil to become a partaker of his base design.

'Night had come, and with it the time for grief-stilling slumber:
After the sumptuous meal, Bacchus exacted his rights'----

when an evil star prompted my making a mistake in the use of a casus, in the Latin table speeches we held together; using an accusativus, where I ought to have put an ablativus.

"Now it became evident, in what kind of arts, that far-famed teacher had instructed his pupil, all day long. 'Such an offence against the laws of grammar, deserved the rod,' mockingly said that little imp, to me the well-tried scholar; and he further produced a rhymed libel, which his fine teacher must have prompted him to, and which caused a rough cisalpine burst of laughter in the refectory, at the expense of the stranger guest.

"But who does not know what the verses of a set of overbearing monks, must be like? What do such as they know of the inner structure of a poem, where all must be artistically built up, to produce a fine and pleasing effect? What of the high dignity of poetry?--They pucker up their lips, and spout forth a poem, like to that Lucilius, who has been branded by Horace; and who, whilst standing on one foot only, dictated two hundred verses and more, before an hour had elapsed.

"Judge now, ye venerable brothers, what insults have been heaped on me; and what must be the character of the man, who can upbraid his fellow-creature for mistaking an ablativus!"

The man, who intending only a harmless jest, had committed this fearful crime, was Ekkehard. But a few weeks before the sudden turn in his fate brought him to the Hohentwiel, the terrible deed had been done. With the coming morn on the next day, he had forgotten the conversation that had taken place at supper with the overbearing Italian, but in the bosom of him, who had been convicted of the wrong ablativus, was matured a rancour as fierce and gnawing as that, which, caused by the war-deeds of Achilles, drove the Telamonian Aïas, to destroy himself, and which followed him even into the Hades.

He rode towards the north out of the valley along through which the Sitter rushes; he saw the Bodensee and the Rhine, and thought of the ablativus! He entered the grey and ancient gates of Cologne, and crossed the frontiers of Belgium,--but the false ablativus sat behind him on the saddle like an incubus. The cloister-walls of the holy Amandus could not exclude it; and in the early psalms at morning, and during the litany and vespers, the accusativus, rose before his mind, exacting its expiatory sacrifice.

Of all the unpleasant days of one's life, those imprint themselves deepest in our minds, in which by our own fault, a humiliation has befallen us. Instead of being angry with one's self, one easily bears an ill will towards all those, who were the involuntary witnesses of our defeat. The human heart is so very unwilling to confess its own failings; and many a one who unmoved can think of past battles and dangers, feels his blood rush into his cheeks, at the recollection of some foolish word, which escaped him just then, when he would have liked so much to have made a brilliant remark.

Therefore Gunzo was bent on taking his revenge on Ekkehard, and he had an able and sharp pen, and had spent many a month over his work, so that it became a master-piece of its kind. It was a black soup, made up of hundreds of learned quotations, richly seasoned with pepper and worm-wood, and all those spicy, bitter things, which before all others, give such a delicious flavour to the controversies of ecclesiastical men.

Besides this, a delightful undercurrent of rudeness pervaded the whole; so that the reader feels as though a man were being thrashed with regular flails, in a neighbouring barn. This makes a very pleasant contrast to our present times, in which the poison is presented in the shape of gilt pills; and when the combatants first exchange a polite bow, before they break each others heads.

The treatise was divided into two parts; the first serving to prove, that only an ignorant and uncultivated mind could be shocked by so slight an error, as the mistaking of a casus; whilst the second was written in order to convince the world that the author himself, was the wisest, most learned, and at the same time most pious of all his contemporaries.

For this end he had read the classics and the holy Scriptures, in the sweat of his brow, so that he could make a list of all the places in which the caprice, or negligence of the author, had also misplaced an ablativus. So he managed to name two in Virgil, one in Homer, Terence and Priscianus. Further an example out of Persius, where the ablative stands in the place of the genitive, besides a number of instances out of the books of Moses, and the Psalms.

And if a number of such instances, can be found even in the holy Scriptures, who is so wicked, that he would dare to blame or change, such a mode of expression? Wrongly, therefore believes the little monk of St. Gall, that I was not well versed in the grammar; although my tongue may sometimes be impeded, by the habits of my own language, which, though derived from the Latin, is yet very different from it. Now, blunders are made, through carelessness, and human imperfection in general; for, says Priscianus very truly: "I do not believe, that of all human inventions, a single one, can be perfect in all respects, and on all sides. In like manner, Horace has often taken it on himself, to excuse negligences of style and language, in eminent men: 'sometimes even the good Homer is slumbering,' and Aristotle says in his book on the hermeneia: 'All that, which our tongue utters, is merely an outward expression of that which is stamped on our mind. The idea of a thing, therefore is always pre-existent before the expression, and therefore the thing itself is of far greater importance, than the mere word. But whenever the meaning is abstruse, thou shalt patiently, and with thy reasoning powers, try to find out the real import.'"

Then there followed innumerable classical examples of awkward and negligent expressions of thought, which ended with the words of the Apostle, who calls himself, "unskilled, with regard to speech, but not unskilled in knowledge."

"If one therefore examines the behaviour of my antagonist of St. Gall, one feels tempted to believe, that he had once invaded the garden of some wise man; from one of whose hot-beds he had stolen a radish, which had discomposed his stomach and increased his gall. Let everybody therefore keep a sharp look-out on his garden. Evil communications, corrupt good manners.

"Yet it is possible also, that he could not have done otherwise; for having perchance rummaged the whole day long, in the remotest folds of his cowl, to find something wherewith to regale the stranger guest, and not finding anything else, but cunning and malice, he let his guest taste a bit of that. Bad men have evil possessions.

"With his behaviour, his outward appearance,--which we did not fail carefully to investigate,--was in strict harmony. His countenance bore a pale lustre, like bad metal, used for the adulteration of the genuine; his hair was crimped; his hood finer and daintier than necessary, and his shoes of light make,--so that all the signs of vanity were found on him, which were a vexation in the eyes of St. Hieronymus, when he wrote: 'To my great regret, there are some of the clergy in my parish, who are very anxious for their garments to be well scented and their nails well polished; who anoint their curled hair with precious ointments, and who wear dainty, embroidered shoes. Such garments, however, are scarcely fitted for a dandy and bridegroom, let alone for one of the Lord's elected.'

"Further I have reflected, whether the sound of his own name, was not in harmony with his actions likewise. And what now? Ekkhard, or Akhar, was his name,--as if already at his baptism, by dint of a prophetic providence, he had been stigmatized with the name of a malefactor; for who does not know of that Akhar who appropriated to himself a purple mantle, as well as two hundred bags of silver, and a golden wedge, out of the booty at Jericho, so that Joshuah, had him led out into a remote valley, where he was stoned to death, by all Israel; and all he possessed was given up to the flames?--Of such a man his namesake of St. Gall, has shown himself to be a worthy successor; for he who disregards the laws of politeness and good breeding, acts as badly as a thief. He purloins the gold of true wisdom.

"If it were permitted to believe in the transmigration of souls, such as Pythagoras has taught, it would be beyond all doubt, that the soul of the Hebrew Akhar, had entered the frame of this Ekkehard, and in this case one ought to pity it, as it were better to dwell in the body of a fox even, than in that of a crafty and cunning monk. All this which I have said until now, has been said without any personal hatred. My hatred is directed only against the man's inherent wickedness. Consequently I only detest an attribute of his and not the substance itself, which we are bound to honour, as God's likeness, according to Scripture.

"Please to observe now," continued Gunzo in the second part of his book, "how insanely my enemy has acted against the benefits of science and knowledge. More than a hundred written volumes, had I brought with me, over the Alps; weapons of peace, such as Marcianus' flowery instructions in the seven liberal arts; Plato's unfathomable depth in his Timæus; the obscure wisdom of Aristotle, hardly lighted up in our present days, in his book on the hermeneia, and Cicero's eloquence in the Topica.

"How serious and faithful might our conversation not have been, if they had questioned me, about these treasures! How could I imagine that such as I, whom God has so richly gifted, would be ridiculed on account of mistaking a casus! I who know Donat and Priscianus almost by heart!

"It is probable that that empty coxcomb believes, that he carries the whole of the Grammatica, in his hood,--but beloved brethren, believe me--he has scarcely had a glimpse of her back in the distance, and if he were to try, to catch sight of her radiant countenance, he would stumble, and fall to the ground, over his own awkward feet. The Grammatica is a noble woman, who wears for a woodcutter an aspect very different from that she has for an Aristotle.

"But how shall I speak to you of grammar's sister, of dialectics, whom that Greek sage has called, the nurse of intellect? Oh noble art! that entangles the fool in her nets, whilst showing the wise man how to evade them, and discloses to our wondering eyes, the hidden threads, by which being and not-being are linked together! But of that, yon cowl-bearing monk knows nothing! Nothing of that subtle fineness, which with nineteen kinds of syllogisms, knows how to explain all that, which has ever been thought before, as well as all that which can be thought hereafter. God is wise, and deprives him of such knowledge; knowing beforehand that he would only use it for deceitful and wicked ends ..."

In this way the learned Italian proved his superiority in all the liberal arts. To rhetoric and all its treasures, a whole chapter was dedicated, in which certain persons, to whom the Goddess Minerva had once appeared in their dreams; and fools who believed that brevity of expression is a proof of wisdom, were pointedly alluded to. Then arithmetic, geometry and astronomy were discussed; interspersed with deep investigations, on the questions, whether the stars were gifted with intellectual souls, and a claim on immortality; and further whether at the time when Joshuah had said: "Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon," he had also imposed immobility on the other five planets; or whether these had been allowed to continue their circular motion.

A profound sounding of this problem, offered an opportunity of speaking first of the harmony of the spheres, and then of music in general, as the last of the liberal arts; and thus the vengeance-fraught little ship, carried along by the billowy floods of learning, could at last reach the goal, it had so long been aiming at.

"Wherefore now do you think, that I have expounded all this?" asked he finally.

"Not to expound the elements of the liberal arts, but to expose the folly of an ignorant man, who preferred pecking away at grammatical blunders, to deriving true wisdom, from his guest; for though his inward nature may for ever be shut out from the realms of art, he might at least have caught an outward reflection of my light. But he was swelling with insolent pride, so that he preferred to pass for a sage amongst his fellow-monks; like to that frog which sitting in the mire, thought to rival the bull in greatness. Ah, never has the pitiful creature, stood on the heights of science, hearing God's own voice speak to him. Born in the wilderness and grown up amidst silly, prattling people, his soul has remained on the level of the beasts of the field. Unwilling to dwell in the active life of this world, and incapable of a life of inward contemplation, he has been marked by the enemy of mankind, as his own. Willingly I would exhort you to try what could be done for him, with the aid of healing medicine, but I sadly fear that his disease is too deeply rooted.

"'For on a hardened skin, even sneeze-wort will prove, unavailing,' says Persius.

"And now, after having read all this, please to judge ye venerable brothers, whether I am the man to have merited such treatment and ridicule, from the hands of a fool. I deliver both him and myself into your hands, for before the judgment of the just, the fool falls back into his own nothingness. Finis!"

"... Praised be the holy Amandus!" said Gunzo once more, when the last word of his work had been written down. The old serpent would certainly have swelled with joy, if it could have watched him, in the full glory of his likeness to deity, when he added the last dot. 'And God looked on all that he had made, and behold, it was good.' And Gunzo?--He did the same.

Then he walked up to his metal looking-glass, and gazing for a long time at his own reflection, as if it were of the greatest importance for him, to study the countenance of the man who had annihilated the Ekkehard of St. Gall, he finally made a deep bow to himself.

The bell in the refectory had for some time been announcing the supper-hour. Psalm and grace were finished, and the brotherhood was already seated before the steaming millet-porridge, when Gunzo at last came in with a radiant countenance. The dean, silently pointed to a remote corner away from his customary seat; for he, who missed the regular hour too often, was, as a punishment, separated from the others, and his wine was given to the poor. But without the least murmur, Gunzo sat down, and drank his Belgian pump-water,--for his book was lying finished in his cell, and that made up to him for everything.

When the meal was over, he invited some of his friends to come up to his cell, in as mysterious a way, as if they were about to dig for some hidden treasure, and when they were all assembled, he read his work out to them. The monastery of St. Gallus, with its libraries, schools and learned teachers, was far too famous in all Christendom for the disciples of St. Amandus not to listen to the whizzing of Gunzo's arrows, with a secret joy. Cleverness and a blameless life, are often far more offensive to the world, than sin and wickedness. Therefore they nodded their hoary heads approvingly, as Gunzo read out the choice bits.

"It would have been well before this, to have taught these Helvetian bears a lesson!" said one. "Insolence joined to roughness does not deserve any gentler treatment."

Gunzo continued. "Bene, optime, aristotelicissime!" murmured the assembled monks, when he had ended.

"May the dish please you, Brother Akhar!" exclaimed another. "Belgian spice, to flavour the Helvetian cheese!"

The brother head-cook, embracing Gunzo, actually wept with joy. Nothing so learned, profound and beautiful, had ever gone out into the world before, from the cloister of St. Amandus. Only one of the brothers was standing immovable near the wall.

"Well?" said Gunzo interrogatively.

"And where is charity?" softly asked the brother, and after these few words he relapsed again into silence The reproach struck home.

"Thou art right, Hucbald," said he. "This want shall be supplied. Charity requires us to pray for our enemies. Therefore I will add a prayer for the poor fool, at the end. That will have a good appearance, and impress all tender minds favourably. Ay?"

But the brother did not reply. It had become very late, and they all left the cell now on tip-toe. Gunzo tried to retain him who had spoken of charity, as he cared a good deal for his opinion; but Hucbald turned away and followed the others.

"Matthew twenty-three, verse twenty-five," he murmured when his foot had crossed the threshold. Nobody heard it.

Slumber that night, however, obstinately refused to close the eyes of Gunzo the learned. So he read the production of his industry over and over again. He soon knew in what place every word stood, and yet he could not withdraw his eyes from the well-known lines. At last he seized his pen, saying: "A more pious ending,--so be it!" He reflected a while, pacing up and down his cell with slow measured steps. "It shall be done in hexametres, for who has ever before, retaliated an insult received, in so worthy a manner?"

So he sat down and wrote. He wished to write a prayer for his enemy,--but then nobody can act contrary to his nature. Once more he glanced over the written pages. They were really too good! Then he penned the supplement. When the cock was announcing the dawn of day, this also was finished. Two dozen and a half of rattling monks' verses. That his thoughts, from the prayer for his antagonist, by degrees, diverged on himself and his glorious work, was but a natural transition for a man gifted with so much self-esteem.

With complacent unction, he wrote down the five last stanzas.

"Go then into the world, my book; and wherever, thou findest,
Shameful, slanderous tongues, which my glorious life are defiling,
Crush them without remorse, and humble them with thy just censure,
Until thy author one day, will enter the kingdom of Heaven,
Such as is promised to him, who has not buried his talents."

The parchment was rough, and resistant, so that he had to press the goose-quill, in order to make it receive the letters.

On the next day, Gunzo packed up his epistle in a tin box, and this again in a linen bag. A bondsman of the monastery, who had slain his brother, had taken a vow of a pilgrimage to the grave of the twelve Saints, with his right arm chained to his right hip; and to pray there until some heavenly sign of grace, was shown to him. His way led up the Rhine. So, Gunzo put the tin case round his neck, and a few weeks later, it was delivered safe and sound into the hands of the gate-keeper at Reichenau. Gunzo well knew his friends there. Therefore he had dedicated the libel to them.

Moengal the old parish-priest had also some business to transact in the monastery, on that day. In the stranger's room sat the Belgian pilgrim. They had given him some fish-soup, which he managed to eat with much difficulty; his chains clinking whenever he lifted his arm.

"Thou hadst better go home again, and marry the widow of the man thou hast slain," said Moengal. "That would be a far better expiation, than to make a fool's journey into the wide world, with your rattling chains."

The pilgrim shook his head silently, as if he thought that such chains might prove heavier still, than any which the blacksmith could forge.

Moengal asked to be announced to the Abbot. "He is very busy with some book he is reading," was the answer. Nevertheless he was ushered into his presence.

"Sit down, parish-priest," graciously said the Abbot. "I know that you are rather fond of salty and peppery things. Here's something for you."

He read out to him Gunzo's libel which had just arrived. The old man listened attentively, but his eyebrows contracted and his nostrils expanded during the lecture.

When he had come to the description of Ekkehard's curly hair and fine shoes, the Abbot was nearly convulsed with laughter, but Moengal sat there, rigid and serious, and on his forehead a frown had gathered, like clouds before a thunderstorm.

"Well I reckon, that his pride will be well whipped out of him!" said the Abbot. "Sublime! really sublime! And an abundance of knowledge. That will strike home, and cannot be answered."

"But it can though," grimly said the parish-priest.

"And in what way?" eagerly asked the Abbot.

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 peacocks, 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 hoarse, and will always be hoarse; 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, Marcianus 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 passage, 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 Duchess, 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 noble 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 passes 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 noble 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 assured. 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 God, 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 Saspach will yet become ours!"

"Amen!" murmured Rudimann.