Ekkehard Volume I Part 11

"This is complicated," murmured the Abbot. "Chapter seventy: no brother shall dare to strike a fellow-brother, without the Abbot's sanction.

Chapter seventy-two: of that which is becoming in a monk; and which leads to eternal felicity, ... How old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

Then the Abbot seriously resumed. "The quarrel is ended. You brother cellarer, may look on the received blows, as the just retribution, for your forgetfulness; and you stranger I might well bid to continue your journey, for the laws say: 'Whenever a stranger-monk, enters a monastery, he shall be satisfied with everything he meets there, allowing himself only to reprove mildly, and not making himself officious in any way.' In consideration of your youth however, as well as the blameless motive of your action, you shall be allowed to pa.s.s an hour's devotion at the chief-altar of our church, in expiation of your rashness, and after that you will be welcome as the guest of the monastery."

The Abbot and his sentence, fared as many an impartial judge has fared before. Neither of the two were satisfied. They obeyed, but they were not reconciled. When Ekkehard was performing his expiatory prayers, many thoughts and reflections on timely zeal, good will and other people's judgment thereon, crossed his mind. It was one of the first lessons he learned, from contact with other men. He returned to the monastery by a little side-door.

What Kerhildis the upper-maid related that evening to her companions, in the sewing-room at Oberzell, where they had to make a dozen new monks' habits, by the flickering light of the pinewood, was couched in such very insulting terms, regarding the disciples of the holy Gallus, that it had better not be repeated here!...

CHAPTER VI.

Moengal.

While Ekkehard was performing his compulsory devotions, in the church at Reichenau, Dame Hadwig had stood on the balcony, looking out into the distance;--but not on account of the setting sun, for the sun went to his rest at her back, behind the dark hills of the black-forest, and Dame Hadwig, looked with eager, expectant eyes towards the lake, and the path which led from it up to the Hohentwiel. The view however did not appear to satisfy her, for when the twilight melted into darkness, she went in, rather discontentedly; ordered her chamberlain to come, and conversed a long time with him.

Early the next morning Ekkehard stood at the threshold of the cloister, ready to continue his journey. The Abbot was also up betimes, and was taking a walk in the garden. The serious look of the judge, was no longer visible on his face. Ekkehard said good-bye to him. Then the Abbot with a meaning smile, whispered in his ear: "Happy man, who has to teach grammar, to such a fair pupil." These words stabbed Ekkehard to the heart. An old story rose in his memory; for even within cloister-walls, there are evil, gossiping tongues, and traditional stories which go round, from mouth to mouth.

"You are probably thinking of the time," replied he tauntingly, "when you were instructing the nun Clotildis in the act of dialectics, Sir Abbot."

After this he went down to the boat. The Abbot would much rather have taken a quant.i.ty of pepper for his breakfast, than have had that fact called up to his mind. "A happy journey!" he called out after his departing guest.

From that time, Ekkehard had drawn down on himself the enmity of the monks at Reichenau. This however he little heeded; and was rowed down the lake, by the same boat-man of Ermatingen.

Dreamily he gazed about from his boat. Over the lake, transparent white mists were floating, through which the little belfry of Egina's cloister, Niederzell, peeped out on the left, while on the other side, the island stretched out its farthest points. A large stone-built castle could be seen through the willow-bushes, but Ekkehard's eyes were riveted on a more distant point. Proud and grand, in steep, bold outlines a rocky mountain-peak rose above the hills on the sh.o.r.e, like to a mighty spirit, which, ponderous and pregnant with action, towers over the insignificant objects around. The morning sun was casting faint gleams of light on the rocky edges and steep walls. A little to the right, several lower hills of the same shape, stood modestly there, like sentinels of the mighty one.

"The Hohentwiel," said the boat-man to Ekkehard. The latter had never before beheld the place of his destination, but he did not need the boatman's information. Inwardly thinking, "thus must the mountain be, which she has chosen for her residence."

A deep, earnest expression overspread his features. Mountain-ranges, extensive plains, water and sky, in fact all that is grand and beautiful in nature always produces seriousness. Only the actions of men, sometimes bring a smile to the lips of the looker on. He was thinking of the apostle John, who had gone to the rocky isle of Patmos, and who had there met with a revelation.

The boat-man rowed steadily onwards; and they had already come to the projecting neck of land, on which Radolfszell and a few scattered houses were situated, when they suddenly came in view of a strange little canoe. It was simply made of the rough, hollow trunk of a tree; roofed over and quite covered up with green boughs and water-rushes, so that the rower inside was invisible. The wind drifted it towards a thick plantation of water reeds and bulrushes near the sh.o.r.e.

Ekkehard ordered his ferry-man to stop this curious little boat, and in obedience he pushed his oar into the green covering.

"Ill luck befall you!" called out a deep ba.s.s voice from the inside, "_oleum et operam perdidi_, all my labour lost!--Wild geese and water-ducks are gone to the Devil!"

A covey of water-fowl, which hoa.r.s.ely shrieking rose up from the rushes, corroborated the truth of this exclamation.

After this, the leafy boughs were pushed aside, and a brown weather-beaten and deeply furrowed countenance, peeped out. The man it belonged to, was clothed in an old faded priest's robe, which cut off at the knees, by an unskilled hand, hung down in a ragged fringe. At his girdle, the owner of the boat wore, instead of a rosary, a quiver full of arrows; whilst the strung bow lay at the head of the boat.

The individual just described, was about to repeat his cursing, when he beheld Ekkehard's tonsure and Benedictine garment, and quickly changing his tone, he cried: "Oho! _salve confrater!_ By the beard of St.

Patrick of Armagh! If your curiosity had left me unmolested another quarter of an hour, I might have invited you to a goodly repast of the game of our lake." With a melancholy expression he cast a look at the covey of wild ducks in the distance.

Ekkehard smilingly lifted his fore-finger: "_Ne clericus venationi inc.u.mbat!_ No consecrated servant of G.o.d shall be a sportsman!"

"Your book-wisdom does not do for us at the Untersee," called out the other. "Are you sent hither perhaps, to hold a church examination, with the parish-priest of Radolfszell?"

"The parish-priest of Radolfszell?" enquired Ekkehard in his turn. "Do I verily see the brother Marcellus?" He cast a side-look on the sportsman's right arm, from which the sleeve was turned back, and there beheld, etched into the flesh, in rough outlines, a picture of our Saviour, encircled by a serpent, over which stood the words, "_Christus vindex_."

"Brother Marcellus?" laughed the other pushing his hair back from his forehead, "_fuimus Troes!_ welcome in Moengal's realm!"

He stepped out of the canoe into Ekkehard's boat, and kissing him on cheek and forehead he said: "Health to the holy Gallus! And now we will land together, and you shall be my guest, even without the wild ducks."

"Of yourself, I had conceived a very different idea," said Ekkehard, and this was not to be wondered at.

Nothing gives a more erroneous idea of persons, than when we come to the places, where they once lived and worked, there to see fragmentary bits of their activity; and from the remarks of those left behind, to form in ourselves an impression of those that are gone. The deepest and most peculiar part of the character of a man, is frequently unnoticed by others; even though it be open to the day; and in tradition it disappears entirely.

When Ekkehard had joined the monastery, the brother Marcellus had already left it, to a.s.sume the priest's office at Radolfszell. Some neatly written ma.n.u.scripts, such as Cicero's book on duty, and a Latin Priscianius with Irish characters between the lines, still kept up the remembrance of him. His name too was held in great veneration in the inner cloister-school, where he had been one of the most distinguished teachers. Besides this, he had led a blameless life, but since that time, nothing had been heard of him at St. Gall. For these reasons, instead of the lively sportsman, Ekkehard had expected to find a serious, meagre and pale-faced scholar.

The sh.o.r.es of Radolfszell were soon reached. A thin silver coin, stamped on one side only, satisfied the boat-man, and then the two stepped on sh.o.r.e. A few houses and a handful of fishermen's huts, surrounded the little church, which holds the remains of St. Radolf.

"We have reached Moengal's dwelling," said the old man. "Be pleased to enter. It's to be hoped that you will not carry tales about my house, to the Bishop of Constance, like the deacon of Rheingau, who pretended that he found the jugs and drinking-horns, of a size, which ought to have been objectionable, in any century."

They entered into a wainscoted hall. Stag-antlers and bison-horns hung over the entrance; while spears and fishing-tackle of every description, ornamented the walls in picturesque confusion. Close to a reversed tun in one corner, stood a dice-box,--in fact, if it had not been the abode of the parish-priest, it might have been that of an imperial gamekeeper.

A few moments later, a jug of somewhat sour wine as well as a loaf of bread and some b.u.t.ter, were placed on the oak table; and when the priest returned from an expedition to the kitchen, he held up his habit like a filled ap.r.o.n, and poured down a shower of smoked fish, before his guest.

"_Heu quod anseres fugasti, antvogelasque et horotumblum!_ Alas that you should have frightened away, the wild geese, as well as the ducks and moor-fowls!" said he, "but when a person has to choose between smoked fish and nothing, he always chooses the former."

Members of the same fraternity are quickly at their ease with each other; and a lively conversation was kept up during the meal. But the old man had far more questions to put, than Ekkehard could well answer.

Of many a one of his former brothers, nothing else was to be told, but that his coffin had been laid in the vault; side by side with the others; a cross on the wall, besides an entry in the death-register, being the sole traces left, that he had ever lived. The stories, jokes and quarrels, which had been told, thirty years ago, had been replaced by new ones, and all that had happened lately, did not interest him much. Only when Ekkehard told him about the end and aim of his journey he exclaimed: "_Oho confrater!_ how could you cry out against all sport, when you yourself aim at such n.o.ble deer!"

But Ekkehard turned the subject, by asking him: "Have you never felt any longing for the quiet and study within the cloister-walls?"

At that question the parish-priest's eyes lighted up: "Did Catilina ever feel any longing for the wooden benches of the senate, after they had said to him: _excessit, evasit, erupit_?--Young men, like you cannot understand that. The flesh-pots of Egypt?! _ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes_ ... said the dog to the kennel, in which he had lain seven years."

"No, I certainly do not understand you," replied Ekkehard. "What was it, that created such a change in your views," casting a look at the sportsman's implements, which were lying about.

"Time," replied the priest, beating his fish on the table to make them tender, "time and growing experience. But this you need not repeat to your Abbot. I also was once such a man as you are now, for Ireland produces pious people, as is well known here. _Eheu_, what a different being I was when I returned with my Uncle Marcus, from our pilgrimage to Rome. You should have seen the young Moengal then! The whole world was not worth a herring to him, whilst psalm-singing, vigils, and spiritual exercises, were his heart's delight. Thus we entered the monastery of St. Gallus--for in honour of a countryman, an honest Hibernian does not mind, going a few miles out of his way,--and finally I stopped there altogether. Outward property, books, money and knowledge,--the whole man became the monastery's own, and the Irish Moengal, was called Marcellus, and threw his uncle's silver and golden coins out of the window; thus to break down the bridge leading back to the world. They were fine times I tell you; praying, fasting and studying, to my heart's content."--

"But then too much sitting is unhealthy, and much knowledge, gives one a quant.i.ty of superfluous work to do. Many an evening I have meditated like a book-worm, and disputed like a magpie; for there was nothing which could not be proved. Where the head of St. John the baptist was buried, and in what language the serpent had spoken to Adam,--all was investigated and demonstrated, while such ideas, as that human beings had also received flesh and blood from their Creator, never entered my head. Ohone, confrater, then there came evil hours for me, such as I hope may be spared you. The head grew heavy, and the hands restless.

Neither at the writing-desk nor in the church could I find rest or peace;--hence, hence was the inward cry of my heart. I once said to the old Thieto, that I had made a discovery. What discovery, quoth he? That outside the cloister-walls there was fresh air ... Then they forbade me to go out; but many a night did I steal up to the belfry, to look out and envy the bats, that could fly over into the pinewoods ...

Confrater, that cannot be cured by fasting and prayer, for that which is in human nature, must come out."

"The late Abbot at last took pity on me, and sent me here for one year; but the Brother Marcellus never returned. When I cut down a pine-tree in the sweat of my brow, and made myself a boat out of it, and struck down the bird flying in the air, then I began to understand what it meant to be healthy. Hunting and fishing drive away morbid fancies. In this way I have performed the priest's duties at Radolfszell for thirty years, _rusticitate quadam imbutus_,--liable to become a rustic, but what does it matter? 'I am like the pelican in the wilderness, and, like the owl, I have built my nest amidst ruins,' says the psalmist, but I am fresh and strong, and old Moengal does not intend to become a dead man so soon, and he knows that he is at least secure against one evil ..."

"And that is?" enquired Ekkehard.

"That St. Peter will not one day give me a blow on the forehead with the blessed key of heaven, saying, 'Off with you, who have meddled with vain and useless philosophy!'"

Ekkehard did not reply to Moengal's outpourings. "I suppose," said he, "that you have often hard work with your ecclesiastical duties.

Hardened hearts, heathendom, and heresy."

"'Tis not so bad, as they make it out to be," said the old man. "To be sure in the mouths of Bishops and Chamberlains and in the reports of the session and the synod, it seems terrifying enough, when they describe the heathenish idolatry, and threaten it with punishment. Here we have simply the old faith; tracing the G.o.dhead, in tree and river and on mountain-heights. Everybody in this world must have his book of revelations, his apocalypse. Now the people hereabouts, have theirs in the open air; and really, one is capable of high and holy thoughts, when early in the morning, one stands in the water-reeds and sees the glorious sun arise. Nevertheless they come to me, on the Lord's day, and chaunt the ma.s.s; and if they were not fined so often, they would open their hearts to the Gospel, far more readily still. A b.u.mper, confrater, to the fresh air!"