With the poultry in the yard, which he fed very regularly, he also talked a good deal. "If you are very good, and the brothers do not return," he once said, "Heribald will preach you a sermon."--In the monastery itself, he also found plenty of amusement, for in a single day of solitude, a man can hatch a good many useful ideas. The camerarius had angered him, by refusing to give him the necessary shoe-leather; so Heribald went up to the cell of the camerarius, smashed to pieces his large, stone water-jug, as well as his three flower-pots, and then opening the straw mattress, he took out some of the straw, and put in the broken crockery instead. Having achieved this feat, he lay down on it, and on feeling the hard and sharp-edged contents tolerably unpleasant, he smiled contentedly and betook himself to the Abbot's apartments.
Towards the Abbot he also bore a grudge, as he was indebted to him for many a sound whipping; but in his rooms, everything was locked up, and in excellent order. So nothing was left to him, but to cut off one of the legs of the cushioned easy-chair. Having done this, he cunningly placed it back in its old place, as if nothing whatever had happened. "That will break down nicely with him, when he comes home, and sits comfortably on it. 'Thou shalt castigate the flesh,' says St. Benedict. But Heribald has not cut off the chair's foot.--The Huns have done it."
The duty of prayer and psalm-singing he performed regularly, as the rules of the order prescribed. The seven times for prayer each day, the solitary man strictly adhered to, as if he could be punished for missing them; and he descended also every night into the cloister-church, there to hold the midnight vigil.
At the same hour, when his brothers were carousing in the hall of the ducal castle with the monks of St. Gall, Heribald was standing in the choir. The dark, dreary shadows of night enveloped the aisle, in which the everlasting lamp was dimly burning; but fearlessly and with a clear voice, Heribald intoned the first verse: "Oh Lord, deliver me from evil"--and then sang the third psalm, which David had once sung, when he fled before his son Absalon. When he came to the place where the antiphon was to fall in, according to custom, he stopped, waiting for the responses. Everything remained silent and still, however. Heribald passed his hand over his forehead, and said: "Ah, I forgot! They are all gone, and Heribald is alone." Then he wanted to sing the forty-ninth psalm, as the nightly service required,--when the everlasting lamp went out, a bat having extinguished it with its wings. Outside, storm and rain were raging. Heavy drops fell on the roof of the church, and beat against the windows. Heribald began to shudder.
"Holy Benedict," exclaimed he, "be pleased to see that it is not Heribald's fault, that the antiphon was not sung." He then rose and walked with careful steps through the dark aisle. A shrill wind whistled through a little window of the crypt under the high-altar, producing a howling sound; and as Heribald advanced, a draught caught his garment. "Art thou come back, thou hellish tempter?" said he, "must I fight thee once more?"
Undauntedly he stepped back to the altar and seized a wooden crucifix, which the Abbot had not had taken away. "In the name of the Holy Trinity, I defy thee, Satanas. Come on, Heribald awaits thee!" With unabated courage he thus stood on the altar-steps; but though the wind continued to howl dismally, the Devil did not appear.
"He still remembers the last time," smilingly said the idiot. About a year ago the Evil One had appeared to him in the shape of a big dog, barking furiously at him; but Heribald had attacked him with a pole; and had aimed his blows so well, that the pole broke.
Then Heribald screamed out a number of choice invectives, in the direction where the wind was moaning; and when even after this, nothing came to tempt him, he replaced the crucifix on the altar, bent his knees before it, and then went back to his cell, murmuring the "Kyrie eleison." There he slept the sleep of the just until late in the morning. The sun was already high in the heavens, when Heribald was complacently walking up and down, before the monastery. Since the time, when he had enjoyed an occasional holiday at school, he had seldom had an opportunity of resting himself. "Idleness is the soul's worst enemy," St. Benedict had said, and in consequence strictly ordered his disciples, to fill up the time which was not claimed by devotional tasks, by the work of their hands. Heribald, not knowing any art or handicraft, had been employed in cutting wood and in rendering similar useful, but tiring services;--but now, he paced up and down with crossed arms before the heaped up log-wood; looking up smilingly at one of the cloister-windows.
"Why don't you come down, Father Rudimann, and make Heribald cut the wood? You, who used to keep such excellent watch over the brothers; and who so often called Heribald a useless servant of the Lord, when he looked at the clouds, instead of handling the axe. Why don't you attend to your duty?"
Not even an echo gave answer to the half-witted creature's query; so he drew out some of the under logs, thus making the whole pile fall noisily down. "Tumble down if you like," continued he in his soliloquy, "Heribald has got a holiday, and is not going to put you up again.--The Abbot has run away, and the brothers have run away also; so it serves them right, if everything tumbles down."