Ekkehard Volume Ii Part 19

At the well in the courtyard, Rudimann the cellarer was standing, letting the clear water flow over his head. Ekkehard had given him a sharp cut, out of which the dark blood was slowly trickling down into the water.

Whilst he was thus occupied, Praxedis came down, looking pale and depressed. She was the only being who had sincere, heartfelt pity, for the prisoner. On seeing the cellarer, she ran into the garden, tore up a blue cornflower with the roots, and then bringing it to him, said: "Take that into your right hand until it gets warm, and then the bleeding will cease. Or, shall I fetch you some linen to dress the wound?"

The cellarer shook his head.

"It will stop, in its own time," said he. '"Tis not the first time that I have been bled. Keep your cornflowers for yourself."

But Praxedis was anxious to conciliate Ekkehard's enemy. So she fetched some linen, upon which he allowed his wound to be dressed, without however, offering any thanks for it.

"Are you not going to let Ekkehard out to-day?" asked she.

"To-day?" Rudimann repeated sneeringly. "Do you feel inclined to weave a garland for the standard-bearer of Antichrist? the leading horse of Satan's car, whom you have petted and spoiled up here, as if he were the darling son Benjamin himself? Today indeed! When a month is pa.s.sed you may put the question again, over there," pointing towards the Helvetian mountains.

Praxedis was frightened. "What then do you intend to do with him?"

"That which is right," replied Rudimann with an evil laugh.

"Wantonness, deeds of violence, disobedience, haughtiness, sacrilege, blasphemy,--there are scarcely names enough for all his nefarious acts; but thank G.o.d, there are yet means for their expiation!" He made a motion with his hand like that of flogging.--"Ah yes, plenty of means of expiation, gentle mistress! We are going to write the catalogue of his sins on his back."

"Have pity," said Praxedis, "for he is a sick man."

"For that very reason we are going to cure him. When he has been tied to the pillar for an hour or so, and half a dozen rods have been flogged to pieces on his bleeding back, then all his spleen and his devilries will vanish!"

"For G.o.d's sake!" exclaimed the terrified girl.

"Calm yourself, for that is not all. A stray lamb must be delivered up to the fold it belongs to. There, he will find good shepherds who will look after the rest. Sheep-shearing sweet mistress, sheep-shearing!

Then they will cut off the hair of his head, which will make it a deal cooler; and if you feel inclined to undertake a pilgrimage to St. Gall, in a year hence, you will see on Sundays and holidays, somebody standing barefooted before the church-door, and his head will be as bare as a cornfield after harvest-time, and the penitential garb will become him very nicely. What do you think? The Heathenish goings on with Virgil are at an end now."

"He is innocent!" said Praxedis.

"Oh," said the cellarer sneeringly, "we shall never harm innocence! He need only prove himself so by G.o.d's ordeal. If he takes the ring out of the kettle of boiling water with unburnt arm, our Abbot himself will give him the blessing; and I will say that it was all a delusion of the Devil's own making, when my eyes beheld the lady d.u.c.h.ess, clasped in the arms of his holiness, brother Ekkehard."

Praxedis wept. "Dear, venerable Master Rudimann!" said she imploringly.

Throwing an ugly leer at the Greek maiden, he said with pinched lips: "So it will be. I might however perhaps be induced to interfere on his behalf, if ..."

"If?" asked Praxedis eagerly.

"If you would be pleased to leave your chamber-door open to-night, so that I could communicate the result of my endeavours to you."

Playfully drawing the ample folds of his habit together, so that the outlines of his tightly laced waist became visible, he a.s.sumed a complacent and expectant att.i.tude. Praxedis stepped back, and stamped her foot on the blue cornflower.

"You are a bad, wicked man!" she cried turning her back on him.

Rudimann, who knew how to interprete physiognomy, clearly saw from the twitching of Praxedis's eyelids, and the angry frown on her forehead, that her chamber-door would be locked, now and ever, against all the cellarers in Christendom.

She went away. "Have you still any commands?" asked she, once more looking back.

"Yes, thou Greek wasp! A jug of vinegar if you please. I want to lay my rods in it; the writing is easier then, and will not fade away so soon.

I have as yet never had the good fortune to flog an interpreter of Virgil. Such a scholar verily deserves particular attention."

Burkhard, the cloister-pupil, was still sitting under the linden-tree, sobbing. Praxedis, in pa.s.sing gave him a kiss, chiefly to spite the cellarer. She went up to the d.u.c.h.ess, intending to implore her compa.s.sion for Ekkehard on her knees; but the door remained locked against her. Dame Hadwig was deeply hurt. If the monks of the Reichenau had not come in upon them, she might have pardoned Ekkehard's frenzy; all the more as she herself had sowed the seeds of all this,--but now it had become a public scandal, which demanded punishment. The fear of gossiping tongues, does influence many an action.

The Abbot had sent her the letter from St. Gall. "St. Benedict's rules," so the letter said, "exacted not only the outward forms of a monastic life, but the self-denial of heart and soul, which forms the spirit of it!" Ekkehard was to return. From Gunzo's libel, some parts were quoted against him.

It was all perfectly indifferent to the d.u.c.h.ess. What his fate would be, if delivered into the hands of his antagonists, she knew quite well. Yet she was determined to do nothing for him. Praxedis knocked at her door a second time, but again it was not opened.

"Oh thou poor moth," said she sadly.

Ekkehard meanwhile, lay in his dungeon like one who had dreamt some wild dream. Four bare walls surrounded him; some faint gleams of light falling in from above. Now and then, he shivered as with cold. By degrees a melancholy smile of resignation settled on his lips, but this did not always remain there; bursts of anger, which made him clench his fists, interrupted it.

It is the same with the human mind as with the sea. Though the tempest may have blown over, the surge is yet stronger and more impetuous than before, and now and then, some mighty straggling wave dashes wildly up, frightening the seagulls away from the rocks.

But Ekkehard's heart was not yet broken. It was still too young for that. He began to reflect on his position. The view into the future was not very cheering. He well knew the rules of his order, and that the men from Reichenau were his enemies.

With big strides he paced up and down the narrow s.p.a.ce. "Great G.o.d, whom we may invoke in the hour of affliction, how will this all end?"

He shut his eyes, and threw himself on the bundle of straw. Confused visions pa.s.sed before his soul. Thus he saw with his inward eye, how they dragged him out in the early morning. The Abbot would be sitting on his high stone chair, with the hooked staff in his hand, in sign of his sitting in judgment, and then they would read out a long bill of complaints against him, ... all this in the same courtyard in which he had once sprung out of the sedan chair, with such a jubilant heart, and in which he had preached his sermon against the Huns, on that solemn Good-Friday,--and now they were all against him!

"What shall I do?" thought he. "With my hand on my heart, and my eyes raised towards Heaven, I shall say: 'Ekkehard is not guilty!' Then the judges will say, 'prove it!'" The big kettle is fetched; the fire lighted beneath, so that the water hisses and bubbles. Then, the Abbot draws off the golden ring from his finger. They push up the right sleeve of his habit, whilst solemn penitential psalms are chaunted around them. "I conjure thee, spirit of the water, that the Devil quit thee, and that thou serve the Lord, to make known the truth, like to the fiery furnace of the King of Babylon, when he had the three men thrown into it!"--Thus the Abbot would address the boiling water; and "dip in thy arm, and fetch the ring," says he to the accused....

"Just G.o.d, how will thy ordeal speak?" Wild doubts were besetting Ekkehard's soul. He believed in himself and his good cause, but his faith was less strong in the dreadful means, by which priestcraft and church-laws sought to arrive at G.o.d's decision.

In the library of his monastery there was a little book, bearing the t.i.tle: "Against the inveterate error of the belief, that through fire, water or single combat, the truth of G.o.d's judgment could be revealed."

This book he had once read, and he remembered it well. It was to prove, that with these ordeals, which were an inheritance from the ancient Heathen time, it was as the excellent G.o.dfrey of Stra.s.sburg has expressed it in later days, namely "that the best Christian, is as combustible as an old rag."

"And what, if no miracle is performed?"

His thoughts were inclined to dark and despondent doubts.--"With burnt arm, to be proclaimed guilty and to be flogged,--whilst _she_ perhaps would stand on the balcony looking on, as if it were being done to an entire stranger.--Oh Lord of Heaven and Earth send down Thy lightning!"

Yet hope does not entirely forsake even the most miserable. Then, he fancied again how through all this shame and misery, a piercing "stop!"

was heard, and how she flew down with dishevelled locks, and in her rustling ducal mantle drove his tormentors away, as the Saviour drove out the usurers from the temple. And then, when all were gone, she presents him both her hand and lips to receive the kiss of reconciliation.--Long and ardently his phantasy dwelt on that beautiful possibility, which filled his heart with a soft consolation, and he spoke with the words of the Preacher: "As gold is purified from dross in the fire, so the heart of man is purified by sorrow."

He now heard a slight noise in the antichamber of his dungeon. A stone jug was put down. "You are to drink like a man," said a voice to the lay-brother on guard, "for on St. John's night, all sorts of unearthly visitors people the air and pa.s.s over our castle. So you must take care to strengthen your courage. There's another jug set ready, when this is finished."

It was Praxedis who had brought the wine. Ekkehard did not understand what she wanted. "Then she also is false," thought he. "G.o.d protect me!"

He closed his eyes and soon fell asleep. Some hours later he awoke. The wine had evidently been to the lay-brother's taste, for he was l.u.s.tily singing a song in praise of the four goldsmiths, who had refused the making of heathenish idols at Rome; for which they had suffered martyrdom. With his heavy sandal-clad foot, he kept beating time on the stone-flags. Ekkehard heard that another jug of wine was brought in.

The singing became always louder and more uproarious. Then he held a soliloquy; in which he spoke much about Italy and good fare, and _Santa Agnese fuori i muri_, until he suddenly ceased talking, whilst his snoring could be heard very plainly through the stone walls.

Everything was silent around. It was about midnight. Ekkehard lay in a half-slumbering state, when he heard the bolts of the door softly withdrawn. He remained lying where he was. A m.u.f.fled figure came in, and a soft little hand was laid on the slumberer's forehead. He jumped up.

"Hush!" whispered Praxedis, for it was she.

When everybody had gone to rest, Praxedis had kept awake. "The bad cellarer shall not have the satisfaction of punishing our poor melancholy teacher," she had said to herself; and woman's cunning always finds some way and means to accomplish its schemes. Wrapping herself up in a grey cloak, she had stolen down on tip-toe. No special artifices were necessary, for the lay-brother was sleeping the sleep of the just. If it had been otherwise, the Greek would have frightened him by some ghost-trickery. That would have been her plan.

"You must fly!" said she to Ekkehard. "They mean to do their worst to you."

"I know it," replied he sadly.