Ekkehard Volume Ii Part 11

The cuckoo sang out for the fourteenth time.

Here, another woke up, and also raised its voice; a third one followed, and now there began a chorus of emulating cuckoo-voices around the tipsy chamberlain, so that all counting became impossible.

Now his patience left him entirely.

"Miserable liars and breakers of marriages, that's what you are," cried he furiously. "Would that the devil would take you altogether!"

He spurred his horse on to a quicker pace. The wood became thicker, and heavy clouds were sailing towards the moon. It was intensely dark; the pine-trees had a.s.sumed a strange weird look, and everything was silent around. Willingly would Master Spazzo now have listened to the voice of the cuckoo, but the nightly disturber of peace had flown away, and the solitary rider began to s.h.i.+ver.

An unshapely cloud now stealthily approached the moon, and had soon covered her up entirely. Then, Master Spazzo recollected that his nurse had told him in his early infancy, how the bad wolf Hati and Monagarm the moon-dog, persecuted the radiant astre. Looking up, he clearly recognised, both wolf and moon-dog in the sky. They had just taken hold with their teeth, of the gentle comforter of belated travellers;--Master Spazzo was convulsed with pity. He drew his sword.

"_Vince luna!_ conquer, oh moon!" cried he, at the top of his voice, and rattling his sword against his greaves. "_Vince luna, vince luna!_"

His cries were loud, and his jingling metal sounded fierce enough, but the cloud-monsters did not loosen their hold on the moon; only the chamberlain's horse became frightened, and galloped at full speed through the dark wood with him.

When Master Spazzo awoke on the next morning, he found himself lying at the foot of the Hunnic mound. On the meadow, he saw his mantle, whilst his black steed Falada, was indulging in a morning walk, at some distance. The saddle was hanging down on one side, and the reins were torn. Falada, however, was eating the young gra.s.s and flowers with evident enjoyment. Slowly the exhausted man lifted his head, and looked about yawning. The convent-tower of Reichenau was mirrored in the distant lake, as peacefully as if nothing whatever had happened. He tore up a bunch of gra.s.s, and held the dewy blades to his forehead.

"_Vince luna!_" said he with a bitter sweet smile. He had got a racking headache.

CHAPTER XIX.

Burkhard the Cloister-Pupil.

Rudimann the cellarer, was no bad logician. A roll of parchment-leaves in the jaws of a salmon, must beget curiosity. Whilst Master Spazzo had been drinking the cloister-wine, his mistress and Praxedis sat in their private room, spelling out Gunzo's libel. Ekkehard's pupils had learned enough Latin to understand the chief part, and what remained grammatically obscure, they guessed at, and what they could not guess, they interpreted as well as they could. Praxedis was indignant.

"Is the race of scholars then everywhere like that at Byzantium?"

exclaimed she. "First, a gnat is metamorphosed into an elephant, and then a great war is made against the self-created monster! The present from the Reichenau is as sour as vinegar," puckering up her lovely mouth, just as when she had tasted Wiborad's crab-apples.

Dame Hadwig was beset by strange feelings. A certain something told her, that the spirit which pervaded Gunzo's libel was not a good one, and yet she felt some satisfaction at Ekkehard's humiliation.

"I think that he has deserved this reprimand," said she.

Then Praxedis stood up: "Our good teacher needs many a reprimand, but then that should be our business. If we manage to cure him of his shy awkwardness, then we shall have done him a good service; but if someone who carries a beam in his own eye, reproaches his neighbour with the moat in his,--that is too bad! The wicked monks have merely sent this to slander him. May I throw it out of the window, gracious mistress?"

"We have neither requested you to complete Ekkehard's education, nor to throw a present we have received, out of the window," sharply said the d.u.c.h.ess. So Praxedis held her peace.

The d.u.c.h.ess could not tear away her thoughts so easily from the elegant libel. Her ideas with respect to the fair-haired monk, had undergone a great change since the day on which he carried her over the cloister courtyard. Not to be understood in a moment of excited feeling, is like being disdained. The sting remains for ever in the heart. Whenever her eyes now chanced to light on him, it did not make her heart beat any the quicker. Sometimes it was pity which made her gaze kindly on him again; but not that sweet pity out of which love springs, like the lily out of the cool soil. It contained a bitter grain of contempt.

Through Gunzo's libel, even Ekkehard's learning, which the women until then had been wont to treat with great respect, was laid prostrate in the dust,--so what was there now left to admire? The silent working and dreaming of his soul, was not understood by the d.u.c.h.ess, and a delicate timidity is but too often considered folly, by others. His going out into the fields in the fresh morning, to read Solomon's song, came too late. He should have done that last autumn....

Evening had come.

"Has Ekkehard returned home yet?" asked the d.u.c.h.ess.

"No," said Praxedis. "Neither has Master Spazzo returned."

"Then take yonder candlestick," said Dame Hadwig, "and carry up the parchment-leaves to Ekkehard's tower. He must not remain ignorant of the works of his fellow-brothers."

The Greek maid obeyed, but unwillingly. In the closet up in the tower, the air was close and hot. In picturesque disorder, books and other things were strewn about. On the oak table, the gospel of St. Matthew lay opened at the following verses:

"But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod.

"Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask.

"And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, 'Give me here John Baptist's head on a charger.'"

The priestly stole, the d.u.c.h.ess's Christmas-gift to Ekkehard, lay beside it. Its golden fringes were hanging over the little bottle with the water from the Jordan, which the blind Thieto had given him.

Praxedis pushed back the other things, placing Gunzo's libel on the table. When she had arranged everything, she felt sorry. Just about to go, she turned back once more, opened the window, and gathering a branch of the luxuriant ivy which was winding its garlands round the tower, she threw it over the parchment-leaves.

Ekkehard came home very late. He had been nursing the wounded Cappan, but had found it far harder work, to comfort his tall spouse. After the first wailing was over and her tears had been dried, her speech until sunset had been nothing but one great curse against the convent-farmer; and when she raised her strong arms and spoke of scratching his eyes out, of pouring henbane into his ears, and breaking his teeth, whilst her long brown tresses threateningly fluttered in the air, it needed a great effort to quiet her.

Yet he had succeeded at last.

In the silence of night, Ekkehard read the leaves which the Greek maid had put on his table. His hand played with a wild rose, which he had culled in the fir-wood when riding home, whilst his eyes took in the spiteful attacks of the Italian scholar.

"How is it," thought he, inhaling the soft fragrance of the flower, "that so much that is written with ink, cannot deny its origin? All ink is made of the gall-nut, and all gall-nuts spring from the poisonous sting of the wasp." ...

With a serene countenance he finally laid aside the yellow parchment-leaves. "A good work! an industrious good work!--well, the peewit is also an important personage amongst the feathered tribe, but the nightingale does not heed its singing." ... He slept very well after he had read it.

On coming back from the castle-chapel the next morning, he met Praxedis in the courtyard.

"How are you, venerable baptizer of Hunnic idolaters," said she lightly. "I am really very anxious about you. I dreamt that a big brown sea-crab had swum up the Rhine, and from the Rhine into the Bodensee, and from thence, he came up to our castle; and he had got a pair of sharp pincers, and with them he pinched you very badly. The sea-crab's name was Gunzo. Say, have you many more such good friends?"

Ekkehard smiled.

"Most likely, I do not please many a one, who does not please me either," said he. "He, who comes into contact with sooty kettles, easily gets blackened himself."

"You, however, seem to be wholly indifferent about it," said Praxedis.

"You ought to be thinking already about the reply. Boil the crab, till it gets dark red. Then he will not bite you again."

"The answer to this," replied Ekkehard, "has been given already by another: 'whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of h.e.l.l fire.'"

"You are extremely mild and pious," said Praxedis, "but take care how you get on in the world with that. Whoever does not defend his skin, will be flayed, and even a miserable enemy should not be considered quite harmless. Seven wasps together will kill a horse, you know."

The Greek maid was right. Silent contempt of an unworthy antagonist, is easily interpreted into weakness. But Ekkehard acted according to his nature.

Praxedis approaching him still closer, so that he started back, now added: "Shall I give you another piece of advice, most reverend Master?" He silently nodded in the affirmative.

"Then let me tell you, that you have again become far too serious of late. To look at you, one would think that you were going to play at nine pins with the moon and stars. We are now in the middle of summer, and your habit must be exceedingly warm. Get yourself some linen garment, and perhaps it would not harm you either to cool your head a little in yonder spring,--but above all be merry and cheerful. The d.u.c.h.ess might otherwise become indifferent towards you."

Ekkehard wanted to take her hand. Sometimes he felt as if Praxedis were his good angel; but at that moment, Master Spazzo on horseback, entered the courtyard at a slow and lingering pace. His head was bent towards the pommel, and a leaden smile rested on his tired features. He was half asleep.

"Your face has undergone a great change since yesterday," called out Praxedis to him. "Why do the sparks not fly out any more from under Falada's hoofs?"

With a vacant stare, he looked down at her. Everything was dancing before his eyes.