Ekkehard Volume I Part 25

"The wisdom of physicians, has in this case, long come to an end. They have done their best for me," pointing to his forehead, where two old scars crossed each other.

"Look here!--If they want you to try that remedy, you must not do so.

In my younger days they hung me up by the feet;--then they made some cuts in my head; thus taking away some blood, and part of my intellects, without helping me. At Cremona (Zedekias was the name of the Hebrew sage), they consulted the stars, and placed me on a mulberry-tree at midnight. It was a long exorcism with which they drove the headache into the tree, but it did not help me. In the German lands, they ordered me to take powdered crabs' eyes, mixed with the dust of St. Mark's grave; and a draught of wine from the lake after it: all in vain! Now I've got used to it. The worst is licked away by Muramolin's rough tongue. Come here my brave Mummolin, who has never betrayed me yet ..."

He stopped, almost breathless, and caressed the dog.

"My message" ... Ekkehard was beginning--, but the old man waved his hand to him and said: "Have patience yet awhile; 'tis not well to speak with an empty stomach. You must be hungry. Nothing is more awful and more holy than hunger--said that dean of yore, when his friend and guest, ate up five of the six trouts before him; leaving only the smallest on the plate. He who has had something to do with the world, does not easily forget that saying. Rauching, prepare our meal."

So Rauching went into a neighbouring closet, which had been fitted up as a kitchen. The provisions were kept in different niches, and a few moments later, a white wreath of smoke curled up, from the rocky chimney. Shortly after, the cooking was done. A stone slab served as table. The crowning piece of the frugal repast was a pike; but the pike was old; moss growing on its head, and its flesh was tough, as leather.

A jug of reddish looking wine, was also brought by Rauching; but _that_ had grown on the Sippling hills, a vintage which still enjoys the reputation of being the most sour of all the sour wines produced on the lake. Rauching waited upon them during the meal.

"Well, what may your business be?" asked the old man, when the meagre repast was ended.

"Evil tidings; the Huns are invading the country. Their hoofs will soon be treading the Suabian ground."

"Good!" cried the old man. "That serves you right. Are the Normans also approaching?"

"You speak strangely," said Ekkehard.

The eyes of the old man lighted up. "And if enemies were to spring up around you, like mushrooms, you have deserved it well; you and your masters. Rauching, fill the gla.s.s; the Huns are coming,--_neque enim!_ Now you will have to swallow the soup, which your masters have salted for you. A great and proud empire had been founded, extending from the sh.o.r.es of the Ebro, to the Raab in the Danish land, into which not a rat could have entered, without faithful watchmen catching it. And this, the great Emperor Charlemagne ..."

"G.o.d bless him," exclaimed Rauching.

"... left behind him; strong and powerful. The tribes which had once put a stop to the Roman supremacy, were all united as they ought to be; and in those days, the Huns slily kept behind their hedges on the Danube, the weather not being favourable for them; and as soon as they tried to move, their wooden camp-town in Pannonia, was destroyed to the last chip, by the brave Franks. Later, the great ones in Germany, began to feel sorely, that not every one of them could be the master of the world; so each one must needs establish a government in his own territory. Sedition, rebellion and high-treason, well suited their tastes; and so they dethroned the last of Charlemagne's descendants, who held the reins of the world.--The representative of the unity of the realm has become a beggar; who must eat unb.u.t.tered water-gruel;--and now, your lords who preferred Arnulf the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and their own arrogance, have got the Huns on their heels, and the old times are coming back, as King Attila had them painted. Do you know the picture in the palace at Milan?...

"There the Roman Emperor was painted sitting on the throne, with Scythian princes lying at his feet; till one day King Attila, chancing to ride by, gave a long and stedfast look at the picture, and laughingly said: 'quite right; only I'll make a small alteration.' And he had his own features, given to the man on the throne; those kneeling before him, pouring out bags of tributary gold,--being now the Roman Caesars ... The picture is still to be seen."

"You are thinking of bygone tales," said Ekkehard.

"Of bygone tales?" exclaimed the old man. "For me there has been nothing new, these last forty years, but want and misery. Bygone tales! 'Tis well for him, who still remembers them, in order that he may see how the sins of the fathers, are visited on the children and children's children. Do you know why Charlemagne shed tears once in his life?--When they announced to him, the arrival of the Norman sea-robbers: 'as long as I live,' said he, ''tis mere child's play, but I grieve for my grandsons.'"

"As yet we have still an Emperor and a realm," said Ekkehard.

"Have you still one?" said the old man, draining his gla.s.s of sour Sippling wine, and shivering after it, "well I wish him joy. The corner-stones are dashed to pieces; and the building is crumbling away.

With a clique of presumptuous n.o.bles, no realm can exist. Those who ought to obey are lording it over the others; and he who ought to reign, must wheedle and flatter, instead of commanding. Methinks, I have heard of one, to whom his faithful subjects, sent the tribute in pebbles, instead of silver, and the head of the count who was sent to collect it, lay beside the stones, in the bag. Who has avenged it?" ...

"The Emperor is fighting and gathering laurels in Italy," rejoined Ekkehard.

"Oh Italy! Italy!" continued the old man. "That will still become a thorn in the German flesh. That was the only time the great Charles ..."

"Whom G.o.d bless," exclaimed Rauching.

"... allowed himself to be entrapped. It was a sad day, on which they crowned him at Rome; and no one has chuckled so gleefully, as he on St.

Peter's chair. He was in want of us,--but what have we ever had to do in Italy? Look there! Has that mountain-wall been erected heavenwards, for nothing?--All that, which lies on the other side, belongs to those in Byzantium; and it is all right so; for Greek cunning is better there than German strength; but later generations have found nothing better to do than to perpetuate the error of Charlemagne. The good example he left them, they have trampled upon; and whilst there was plenty to do in the East and North, they must needs run off to Italy, as if the great magnet lay behind the Roman hills. I have often thought about it, what could have driven us, in that direction; and if it was not the Devil himself, it can only have been the good wine."

Ekkehard had become saddened by the old man's speeches, who, seeming to feel this, said: "Do not regard what a buried man tells you. We here in the Heidenhohlen, cannot make it any better; but the truth has many a time taken up her abode in caverns; whilst ignorance was striding at a great pace through the land."

"A buried man?" said Ekkehard enquiringly.

"You may for all that, drink a b.u.mper with him," jestingly replied the mysterious stranger. "It was necessary that I should die before the world; for the headache and the rascals had brought me into discredit.

You need not therefore, stare at me so, little monk. Sit down here on the stone bench, and I will tell you about it and you can make a song of it, to play on the lute ... There once lived an Emperor, who had few happy days; for his realm was large, and he himself was big and stout, and the headache tormented him; ever since the day that he mounted the throne. Therefore he took unto himself a chancellor, who had got a fine head, and could think better than his master; for he was thin and meagre like a pole, and had no headache. The Emperor had raised him from obscure birth, for he was only the son of a blacksmith; and he bestowed favours on him, doing all that his chancellor advised him to do. Aye, he even concluded a miserable peace with the Normans; for his counsellor told him, that this matter was too insignificant; and that he had more important things to do, than to worry himself about a handful of pirates. At the same time, the chancellor went to the Emperor's spouse, and beguiled her weak heart; playing on the lute before her. Besides this he carried off by force, the daughters of some n.o.ble Allemannians; and finally joined in a league, with the Emperor's enemies. And when the Emperor at last called together a great diet, to remedy the state of affairs, his gaunt chancellor was among the foremost who spoke against him. With the words, '_neque enim_,' he began his speech, and then he proved to them, that they must dethrone their Emperor; and he spoke so venomously and treacherously against the peace with the Normans, which he had himself concluded,--that they all fell off from their master, like withered leaves when the autumn winds are shaking the tree. And they cried that the time for the stout ones was at an end; and then and there they dethroned him; so that he who had entered Tribur, with a threefold crown on his head, had nothing when he went away that he could call his own, but what he wore on his back; and at Mainz he sat before the Bishop's castle, glad when they presented him with a dish of soup. The brave chancellor's name was Luitward of Vercelli. May G.o.d reward him according to his deserts, and the Empress Richardis and the rest of them, likewise."--

"But when later the people in Suabia took pity on the poor outlaw, and gave him a little bit of land, whereby to earn a scanty livelihood; and when they thought of sending an army to fight for his rights, Luitward dispatched murderers against him. It was a wild night for the tenement of Neidingen; the storm was breaking the branches of the trees, and the shutters were rattling violently. The dethroned Emperor not being able to sleep on account of the headache, had mounted on the roof, to let the storm cool his burning forehead, when they broke in to murder him.

It is not a very pleasant feeling I can tell you, to sit in the cold night-air on the roof, with a heavy aching head, and hear how people are regretting downstairs, that they cannot strangle you, or hang you over the draw-well." ...

"He who has lived to hear that, had better die at once. The stout Meginhard at Neidingen, had fallen down from a tree and was killed just at the right time; so that they could lay him on the bier, and spread the news in the country that the dethroned Emperor had paid his tribute to grim King Death. They say that it was a fine procession, when they carried him to the Reichenau. The Heavens are said to have opened, casting a ray of light on the bier; and the funeral must have been touching indeed, when they buried him on the right side of the altar.

'That he had been stript of his honour, and bereft of his kingdom, was a trial imposed from above, to cleanse and purify his soul, and as he bore it patiently, it is to be hoped that the Lord rewarded him, with the crown of eternal life; to comfort him for the earthly crown which he had lost' ... thus they preached in the cloister-church, not knowing that he, whom they imagined they had buried, was at that same hour entering the solitude of the Heidenhohlen; laden with all his trifling belongings; and leaving behind him a curse on the world." ...

The old man laughed. "Here it is safe and quiet enough, to think of old times. Let's drink a b.u.mper to the dead! And Luitward has been cheated after all; for though his Emperor wears an old hat instead of a golden crown, and drinks the sour juice of the Sippling grape, instead of the sparkling Rhinewine, he is still alive; whilst the meagre ones and all their race are dead, long ago. And the stars will prove right after all, in prophesying at his birth, that he would leave this false world, in the roar of battle. The Huns are coming! Oh, come thou also soon, thou joyful end!"

Ekkehard had listened with the utmost attention. "Oh Lord, how wonderful are Thy ways," he exclaimed, attempting to kneel down and kiss the old man's hands; but he prevented him, saying: "All these things have been done away with, long ago. Take an example ..."

"Germany has greatly wronged you, and your race," Ekkehard was beginning to say, but the old man interrupted him, saying: "Germany! I do not bear her a grudge. May she prosper and nourish, undisturbed by enemies; and find some ruler who will make her powerful again; and who is not plagued with the headache when the Normans come back; and not have a chancellor whose name is Luitward of Vercelli. But those who have divided his garments amongst them; and cast lots for his vesture."

"May Heaven punish them with fire and brimstone," said Rauching in the background.

"And what answer shall I give to my mistress?" asked Ekkehard, after having finished his beaker.

"With regard to the Huns?" said the old man. "I believe that is simple enough. Tell the d.u.c.h.ess to go into the woods, and to see what the hedgehog does, when an enemy is coming too near. It curls itself up into a ball, and presents its p.r.i.c.kles; and he who lays hands on it, is wounded. Suabia has got plenty of lances. Let them do the same.--You monks will also not be the worse for carrying the spear. And if your mistress wishes to know still more; then you may tell her the adage which rules in the Heidenhohlen. Rauching, what is it?"

"Keep two steps off, or we'll break your head," he replied.

"And if there should be a question of peace, then tell her, that the old man of the Heidenhohle once concluded a bad one, and that he would never do so again; although his headache were as bad as ever; and that he would much rather saddle his own horse, at the sound of the war-trumpet,--if you outlive his last ride, you may say a ma.s.s for him."

The old man had spoken with a strange excitement. Suddenly his voice broke off; his breath became short, almost groaning, and bending his head, he said: "it is coming on again."

Rauching hastily presented him with a draught of water; but the oppression did not subside.

"We must try the remedy," said Rauching. From a corner of the chamber, he rolled forwards a heavy block of stone, about a man's height, bearing some traces of sculpture, which they had found in the cavern; a mystic monument, belonging to former inhabitants. He placed it upright against the wall. It appeared as if a human head bearing a bishop's mitre, had once been represented on it. Rauching now seized a thick, knotty stick, and placing another in the hands of the old man, began thrashing away at the stone image, and p.r.o.nouncing slowly and solemnly the following words. "Luitward of Vercelli! Traitor and adulterer, _neque enim!_ Ravisher of nuns, and foul rebel, _neque enim!_" Heavily fell the blows, and a faint smile lighted up the withered features of the old man. He arose and began striking away at it also, with feeble arms.

"It has been written, that a bishop must lead a blameless life," said he in the same tone as Rauching,--"take this for the peace with the Normans! This for the seduction of the Empress Richardis, _neque enim!_ This for the diet at Tribur, and that for the election of Arnulf!

_neque enim!_"

The cavern rang with the resounding blows; the stone image standing immovable, under the fierce attacks. The old man became more and more relieved; warming himself by giving vent to the old hatred, which for years had nourished his miserable life.

Ekkehard did not quite understand the meaning of what he saw. He began 'to feel uncomfortable and so took his leave.

"I trust you have been enjoying yourself, at the expense of the old fool up there," said the steward of Sernatingen to him, when he brought out his saddled horse. "Does he still believe, that he has lost a crown and a kingdom? Ha, ha!"

Ekkehard rode away. In the beech-wood, the new green leaves were sprouting forth, telling of the coming Spring. A young monk from the Reichenau was going the same road. Bold and gay, like the clashing of arms, his song floated through the solitary wood:

"Arise ye men of Germany, ye warriors gay; With warlike song, and watchman's call, drive sleep away!

At ev'ry hour make the round, from gate to wall, Lest unawares the enemy, upon you fall.

From walls and towers then be heard, _eia vigila!_ The echoes all repeating, _eia vigila!_"