"Hear, hear!" said Praxedis.
"And when he had taken leave, he only went as far as the church, where he prayed till night-fall. Now he must have known every nook and corner in the monastery, for when the sleeping-bell sounded, he slunk on tiptoe to the great dormitory, there to listen to what the brothers might say about you and the contents of the treatise. The night-lamp burnt but dimly, so that he could crouch down unseen in a dark corner. But at midnight, Father Notker Peppercorn, came to make the round and to inspect whether everyone had fastened his girdle tidily round his garment, and whether no knife or other dangerous weapon was perchance in the bedroom. He drew out the stranger from his hiding-place; and the brothers woke up, and the big lanthorn was lighted, and then they all rushed on him, armed with sticks and scourges from the scourging-room, and there was a tremendous noise and uproar, although the Abbot and Dean tried to quiet them. Notker Peppercorn was also highly indignant: 'The devil goes about in disguise, trying whom he may devour,' cried he, 'but we have caught the devil, and will scourge him!'
"But Father Rudimann in spite of all, was yet inclined to be saucy: 'I declare ye excellent youths,' said he, 'if I knew where the carpenter had left some outlet, I should creep away on my hands and feet; but now, when chance has delivered me into your hands, mind that you do not heap insults on the head of your guest!' Then they all got quite furious, and dragged him out into the scourging-room, where he had to go down on his knees to escape scot-free; and when finally the Abbot said: 'We will let the fox go home to his den,' he expressed his thanks in very polite terms.
"On my way, yesterday, I met a cart laden with two big wine-tuns, which the driver told me were a present from the cellarer of the Reichenau, for the friendly reception he had met with, at St. Gall."
"Of all this, Master Rudimann did not breathe a word, when he called on us yesterday," said Praxedis. "For that recital, thou verily deservest a piece of cake, my darling boy. Thou canst tell a story as well as any older person."
"Oh," said the cloister-pupil half offended, "that's nothing! But I am going to write a poem about it, entitled, 'the wolf's invasion of the sheep-fold, and subsequent punishment.' I have already got it half ready in my head. That will be fine!"
"Dost thou also make poems, my young nephew?" gaily said Ekkehard.
"That would be a nice cloister-pupil indeed, who with fourteen years could make no poem!" was the boy's reply. "My hymn in praise of the Archangel Michael, with double-rhymed hexametres, I was permitted to read out to the Abbot, who was pleased to call my verses, 'a glittering string of pearls.' And then my Sapphic ode, in honour of the pious Wiborad is likewise very pretty. Shall I recite it to you!"
"For God's sake!" cried Praxedis. "Dost thou think that one merely drops down into our courtyard to begin at once reciting odes? Thou hadst better eat thy cake first."
She ran off to the kitchen, leaving Ekkehard's learned nephew under the linden-tree, to talk with his uncle. He profited by the opportunity to speak a good deal about the trivium and quadrivium, and as the Hohentwiel just then threw a delicately drawn shadow on the plain below, the cloister-pupil indulged in a prolix discussion about the cause of all shadows, which he pronounced with great assurance to spring from a compact body standing in the way of light; proving afterwards the vanity of all other definitions.