"Do look, you radiant star of science," she now said to Ekkehard, "who may that dainty ecclesiastical little man be, who is coming up here?"
Ekkehard bent over the wall and looked down the steep rocky hill-side. Between the hazel-bushes, bordering the footpath that led up to the castle, walked a boy with wavy brown locks, wearing a monk's habit, coming down to his ankles; sandals on his naked feet, a leathern knapsack on his back, and carrying a staff with an iron point, in his hand. Ekkehard did not recognise him as yet.
After a few minutes he reached the castle-gate. There he turned round, and shading his eyes with his hand, he gazed over the wide beautiful landscape, stretching out before him. Then he entered the courtyard and approached Ekkehard with measured steps. It was Burkhard the cloister-pupil; the son of Ekkehard's sister, who had come over from Constance, to pay a holiday visit to his youthful uncle.
He made a solemn face, and pronounced his greeting as if he had learned it by heart.
Ekkehard embraced the well-behaved boy, who in all the fifteen years of his life had never done a downright foolish thing. Burkhard was the bearer of sundry kind messages from St. Gall, as well as of an epistle of Master Ratpert, who, being busy just then with some translation, asked Ekkehard's advice, in what style and measure he was wont to translate certain difficult passages in Virgil. "Hail, prosperity and progress in knowledge," was the letter's parting salutation.
Ekkehard at once began to question his nephew about all the brothers, but Praxedis soon interrupted him.
"Please to let the pious youngster rest himself first. A parched tongue, is not adapted for speech. Come with me, my little man, thou shalt be a more welcome visitor, than the wicked Rudimann from the Reichenau!"
"Father Rudimann?" exclaimed the boy. "Him I know also."
"How did you get to know him?" asked Ekkehard.
"He paid us a visit but a few days since, and brought a big letter to the Abbot, as well as a treatise, which they say contains a great deal about yourself, beloved uncle, and is not much in your praise."