Ekkehard Volume I Part 4

Then Praxedis called out: "Is speech such a rare article in St. Gall, that you do not answer properly when questioned?"

The other maids giggled, upon which Romeias said solemnly: "May you all be swallowed up by an earthquake, seven fathom deep."

"We are very much obliged to you, good friend," was Praxedis's reply, and the necessary preliminaries for a conversation being thus made, Romeias informed them of the commission he had received, and the women followed him willingly enough.

After some time the gate-keeper found out, that it was not the hardest work to accompany such guests, and when the Greek maid, desired to know something about his business and sport, his tongue got wonderfully loosened and he even related his great adventure with the terrible boar, into whose side he had thrown his spear and yet had not been able to kill it, for one of its feet would have loaded a cart, and its hair stood up as high as a pine-tree, and its teeth were twelve feet long at the least. After this he grew still more civil, for when the Greek once stopped, to listen to the warbling of a thrush, he waited also patiently enough, though a singing-bird was too miserable a piece of game for him to give much heed to; and when Praxedis bent down for a pretty bra.s.s-beetle, crawling about in the moss, Romeias politely tried to push it towards her, with his heavy boot, and when in doing so he crushed it instead, this was certainly not his intention.

They climbed up a wild, steep wood-path, beside which the Schwarza-brook flowed over jagged rocks. On that slope the holy Gallus had once fallen into some th.o.r.n.y bushes, and had said to his companion, who wanted to lift him up: "Here let me lie, for here shall be my resting-place and my abode for ever."

They had walked far, before they came to a clearing in the fir-wood, where leaning against the sheltering rocks stood a simple chapel in the shape of a cross. Close to it a square little stone-hut was built against the rock in which but one tiny window with a wooden shutter, was to be seen. Opposite there stood another hut exactly like it, having also but one little window.

It was customary at that time for those who inclined to the monastic life, and who as St. Benedict expressed himself, felt strong enough to fight with the Devil, without the a.s.sistance of pious companions, to have themselves immured in that way. They were called "Reclausi" that is Walled-in, and their usefulness and aim in life, may well be compared to that of the pillar-saints in Egypt. The sharp winds of winter, and frequent fall of snow, rendered their exposure in the open air somewhat impossible, but the longing for an anchorite's life, was nevertheless quite as strong.

Within those four walls on Erin-hill there lived the Sister Wiborad, a far-famed recluse of her time. She came from Klingnau in Aargau, and had been a proud and prudish virgin, learned in many an art; besides being able to recite all the Psalms in the Latin tongue, which she had learnt from her brother Hitto. She was not however quite opposed to the idea of sweetening the life of some man or other, but the flower of the youth at Aargau did not find grace in her eyes; and one day she set out on a pilgrimage to Rome. There in the holy city her restless mind must have undergone some great shock, but none of her contemporaries ever knew in what way. For three entire days her brother Hitto ran up and down the Forum through the halls of the Colliseum, and the triumphal arch of Constantine to the four-faced Ja.n.u.s near the Tiber, seeking for his sister and not finding her, and on the morning of the fourth day, she walked in by the Salarian gate, carrying her head very high, and whilst her eyes gleamed strangely she said, that things would not be right in the world until the due amount of veneration was shown unto St. Martin.

After returning to her home, she bequeathed all her wealth to the bishop's church at Constance, on condition that a great festival in honor of St. Martin, should be held every year on the 11th of November.

Then she went to live in a small house where the holy Zilia had lived before, and there led a hermit's life, until she grew dissatisfied, and betook herself to the valley of St. Gallus. The bishop himself accompanied her, put the black veil on her head with his own hands, and after leading her into the cell, he laid the first stone with which the entrance was closed up. Then he p.r.o.nounced his blessing, imprinting his seal four times into the lead, which joined the stones together, whilst the monks who had accompanied him, chaunted sad solemn strains, as if someone was being buried.

The people thereabout held the recluse in great honour. They called her a "hard-forged Saint" and on many a Sunday they flocked to the meadow before her cell, and listened to Wiborad, who stood preaching at her window, and several women went to live in her neighbourhood, to be instructed in all the virtues.

"We have arrived at the place of our destination," said Romeias, upon which Praxedis and her companions looked about in every direction; but not a human being was to be seen. Only some belated b.u.t.terflies and beetles buzzed drowsily in the suns.h.i.+ne and the cricket chirped merrily, hidden in the gra.s.s. The shutter at Wiborad's window was almost shut, so that but a scanty ray of suns.h.i.+ne could penetrate; and from within came the monotonous hollow tones of a person chaunting psalms, with a somewhat nasal sound, breaking the silence without.

Romeias knocked against the shutter with his spear, but this had no effect on the psalm-chaunting individual inside. Then the gate-keeper said: "We must try some other way of rousing her attention."

Romeias was rather a rough sort of man, or he would not have behaved as he did.

He began singing a song, such as he often sang to amuse the cloister-pupils, when they managed to steal off into his watch-tower, there to plague him, by pulling his beard or by making all sorts of absurd noises on his big horn. It was one of those ditties, which from the time that the German tongue was first spoken, have been sung by the thousand, on hills and highroads, beneath hedges and woody dells, and the wind has carried them on and spread them further. The words of this were as follows:

"I know an oak-tree fair to see, In yonder shady grove, There bills and coos the lifelong day A beautiful wild dove.

I know a rock in yonder vale, Around which bats are flitting There, old and h.o.a.ry in her nest An ugly owl is sitting.

The wild dove is my heart's delight, And with a song I greet it; The arrow keep I for the owl To kill it when I meet it."

This song had about the same effect, as if Romeias had thrown a heavy stone against the shutter. Instantly there appeared a figure at the little window, from the withered and scraggy neck of which, rose a ghastly woman's head, in whose countenance the mouth had a.s.sumed a rather hostile position towards the nose. A dark veil hid the rest, and bending out of the little window as far as she could, she cried out with ominously gleaming eyes: "Art thou come back, Satanas?"

Romeias then advanced a few steps and said complacently: "Nay, the Evil One does not know such fine songs as Romeias, the monastery's gate-keeper. Calm yourself Sister Wiborad, I bring you some dainty damsels, whom the Abbot warmly recommends to your kind reception."

"Take yourselves off, ye deceiving phantoms!" screamed the recluse. "I know the snares of the Tempter. Hence, begone!"

But Praxedis now approached the window, and humbly dropping a low curtsey to the old hag, explained to her that she did not come from h.e.l.l, but from the Hohentwiel. Showing that the Greek maiden could be a little deceitful, she added, that she had already heard so much of the great piety of the far-famed Sister Wiborad, that she had availed herself of the first opportunity of paying her a visit, though the fact was, that she had before that day never heard about the cell and its inhabitant.

After this the wrinkles on Wiborad's forehead began somewhat to disappear. "Give me thy hand, stranger," said she, stretching her arm out of the window, which as the sleeve fell back, could be seen in all its skinny leanness.

Praxedis held up her right hand, and as the recluse touched with her dry fingers the soft warm hand with its throbbing pulses, she became slowly convinced, that the young girl was a being of flesh and blood.

Romeias on perceiving this change for the better rolled some big stones under the window of the cell. "In two hours I shall be back to fetch you;--G.o.d bless you, virgins all," he said aloud and then added in a whisper to the Greek maid,--"and don't be frightened if she should fall into one of her trances."

Whistling to his dogs he then quickly strode towards the wood. The first thirty steps or so, he got on without any impediment; but then he suddenly stopped; and turning first his s.h.a.ggy head round, and then the whole body, he stood leaning on his spear, intently gazing at the spot before the cell, as if he had lost something there. Yet he had forgotten nothing.

Praxedis smiled and kissed her hand to the rudest of all gate-keepers.

Then Romeias quickly turned round again, shouldered his spear,--dropped it, took it up again, then stumbled and finally managed to complete his retreat, after which he vanished behind the moss-grown stems.

"Oh thou child of the world, groping in darkness," scolded the recluse, "what meant that movement of thy hand?"

"A mere jest," replied Praxedis innocently.

"A downright sin," cried Wiborad in rough accents, so that Praxedis started,--and then continuing with her preaching added: "Oh the Devil's works and delusions! There you cast your eyes slily about until they enter a man's heart like lightning, and kiss your hands to him as if that were nothing! Is it nought that he looks back who ought to be looking forwards? No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of G.o.d. 'A jest?' O give me hyssop to take away your sin, and snow to wash you clean!"

"I did not think of that," admitted Praxedis deeply blus.h.i.+ng.

"That is the misery, that you do not think of so many things;"--then looking at Praxedis from head to foot she continued, "neither do you think that wearing a bright green garment, and all such flaring colours are an abomination unto those, who have banished all worldly thoughts; and that thy girdle is tied so loosely and negligently round thy waist, as if thou wert a public dancer. Watch and pray!"

Leaving the window for a few moments, the recluse returned presently, and held out a coa.r.s.ely twisted cord.

"I have pity on thee, poor turtle-dove," she said. "Tear off thy silken finery and receive herewith the girdle of self-denial, from Wiborad's own hand; and let it be a warning to thee, to have done with all vain talkings and doings. And when thou feelest the temptation again to kiss thy hand to the gate-keeper of a monastery, turn thy head eastwards and chaunt the psalm, 'Oh Lord, deliver me from evil!'--and if even then peace will not come to thee, then light a wax-candle and hold thy forefinger over the flame, and thou wilt be saved; for fire alone, cures fire."

Praxedis cast down her eye.

"Your words are bitter," she said.

"Bitter!" exclaimed the recluse. "Praised be the Lord that my lips do not taste of sweets! The mouth of saints must be bitter. When Pachomius sat in the desert, the angel of the Lord came unto him, took the leaves from a laurel-tree, and writing some holy words of prayer thereon, gave them to Pachomius and said: 'Swallow these leaves, and though they will be as bitter as gall in thy mouth, they will make thy heart overflow with true wisdom.' And Pachomius took the leaves and ate them, and from that moment his tongue became bitter, but his heart was filled with sweetness, and he praised the Lord."

Praxedis said nothing, and there ensued a silence which was not interrupted for some time. The other maids of the d.u.c.h.ess had all vanished, for when the recluse had handed out her girdle, they nudged each other and then quietly glided away. They were now gathering bunches of heather and other autumnal flowers, giggling at what they had witnessed.

"Shall we also put on such a belt?" said one of them.

"Yes, when the sun rises black," replied the other.

Praxedis had put the cord into the gra.s.s.

"I do not like robbing you of your girdle," she now said shyly.

"Oh, the simplicity," exclaimed Wiborad, "the girdle that we wear is no child's play like the one, that I gave thee. The girdle of Wiborad is an iron hoop with blunted spikes,--it clinks like a chain and cuts into the flesh,--thou wouldst shudder at the mere sight of it."

Praxedis gazed towards the wood, as if spying whether Romeias was not yet to be seen. The recluse probably noticed that her guest did not feel particularly comfortable, and now held out to her a board, on which lay about half a dozen of reddish green crab-apples.

"Does time pa.s.s by slowly for thee, child of the world?" she said.--"There, take these, if words of grace do not satisfy thee. Cakes and sweet-meats have I none, but these apples are fair in the sight of the Lord. They are the nourishment of the poor."

The Greek maid knew what politeness required. But they were crab-apples, and after having, with an effort swallowed the half of one, her pretty mouth looked awry, and involuntary tears started into her eyes.

"How dost thou like them?" cried the recluse. Then Praxedis feigned as if the remaining half fell by chance from her hand. "If the Creator had made all apples as acid as these," she said with a sour-sweet smile, "Eve would never have eaten of the apple."

Wiborad was offended. "Tis well," said she, "that thou dost not forget the story of Eve. She had the same tastes as thou, and therefore sin has come into the world."

The Greek maid looked up at the sky but not from emotion. A solitary hawk flew in circles over Wiborad's hut. "Oh that I could fly with thee, away to the Bodensee," she thought. Archly shaking her pretty head she then enquired: "What must I do, to become as perfect as you are?"

"To renounce the world entirely," replied Wiborad, "is a grace from above, which we poor mortals can't acquire by ourselves. Fasting, drinking of pure water, castigating the flesh and reciting of psalms,--all these are mere preparations. The most important thing is to select a good patron-saint. We women are but frail creatures, but fervent prayer brings the champions of G.o.d to our side, to a.s.sist us.