It may be," said he, "that the wisdom of little children
flies higher than our heavy wits can follow."

At least Otto was not slow with his studies, and Brother Emmanuel,
who taught him his lessons, said more than once that, if his wits were
cracked in other ways, they were sound enough in Latin.

Otto, in a quaint, simple way which belonged to him, was gentle
and obedient to all. But there was one among the Brethren of St.
Michaelsburg whom he loved far above all the rest--Brother John, a poor
half-witted fellow, of some twenty-five or thirty years of age. When
a very little child, he had fallen from his nurse's arms and hurt his
head, and as he grew up into boyhood, and showed that his wits had been
addled by his fall, his family knew not what else to do with him, and
so sent him off to the Monastery of St. Michaelsburg, where he lived
his simple, witless life upon a sort of sufferance, as though he were a
tame, harmless animal.

While Otto was still a little baby, he had been given into Brother
John's care. Thereafter, and until Otto had grown old enough to care for
himself, poor Brother John never left his little charge, night or day.
Oftentimes the good Father Abbot, coming into the garden, where he loved
to walk alone in his meditations, would find the poor, simple Brother
sitting under the shade of the pear-tree, close to the bee-hives,
rocking the little baby in his arms, singing strange, crazy songs to
it, and gazing far away into the blue, empty sky with his curious, pale
eyes.

Although, as Otto grew up into boyhood, his lessons and his tasks
separated him from Brother John, the bond between them seemed to grow
stronger rather than weaker. During the hours that Otto had for his own
they were scarcely ever apart. Down in the vineyard, where the monks
were gathering the grapes for the vintage, in the garden, or in the
fields, the two were always seen together, either wandering hand in
hand, or seated in some shady nook or corner.

But most of all they loved to lie up in the airy wooden belfry; the
great gaping bell hanging darkly above them, the mouldering cross-beams
glimmering far up under the dim shadows of the roof, where dwelt a great
brown owl that, unfrightened at their familiar presence, stared down at
them with his round, solemn eyes. Below them stretched the white walls
of the garden, beyond them the vineyard, and beyond that again the far
shining river, that seemed to Otto's mind to lead into wo