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Ruus, who had ever shown himself a wayward convert, liked not the lamentable voice of devotional services; and strove to sneak out from the mumbling group, but the Abbot, with resolute horror, seized him by the cloak, and exorcised him, quickly as his tongue would speak, into a red horse; and, by the sanctity of invested power, constrained him, by way of punishment for his wicked designs, to pass through the air day after day to England, and without intermission, in blistering summer, or biting winter, to return bearing on his back 320,000 pounds weight of lead for the roof of Esrom Monastery.
Nay, the legend even tends to the utmost limit of delight, and asserts, that Ruus introduced the most beautiful women to the caresses of this holy fraternity; and so ingratiated himself highly with the abbot, that the old man desired nothing more than that Ruus should become one of their order, and remain for ever master-cook of Esrom monastery.
Now, it so happened, that in the cool of one summer's afternoon, Ruus went forth to walk in a wood; and though the air which he breathed was pure, and the generous sun, mindless of good or bad, poured around an equal distribution of his tempered warmth, Ruus, throwing aside, nevertheless, the harsher trammels of honesty, relaxed to his genial depravity; for, observing at a little distance a fine fat cow, he approached and slew her; and, taking on his shoulders a quarter to the monastery, left the remaining three-quarters hanging on a tree.
The victuals of the friars, made savoury by every herb and spice Ruus could take from the abundant hand of Nature, or steal from the art of man, were luscious to the extreme of taste; and, delivering themselves up to the enjoyment of all earth's good things, the friars allowed fasting and prayer to slip from their memories.
Tearing his hair, and putting on the hypocritical garb of innocence, Ruus ran hither and thither screaming, and lamenting in the face of all his saints the irretrievable misfortune which had happened to his master.
Folding the mantle close to his form, the man moved with quick steps towards the monastery of Esrom; and, arriving, knocked gently, at the gates. He sought admission, and said that his name was Ruus, and that the abbot had engaged him to be cook's apprentice.
The lateness of the hour pleading in his favour, a monk, doubting not the truth of his assertion, admitted the stranger, who entered without further question on the duties of his humble office. Being one day alone with the master-cook, Ruus showed so much disobedience, and raised the anger of his superior to such a pitch, that he received chastisement severely for his contumely.
At this Ruus felt wroth; and, having previously placed a cauldron of water on the fire, and perceiving the water boiled, he seized, in the apparent frenzy of the moment, the master-cook by his ankle and the nape of his neck, and thrust him head foremost into the hissing liquid.
By such deception, leading the friars by the nose, Ruus caused them to see combined in him tenderness of heart and guilelessness of conduct, and to make him straightway their master-cook. This was precisely the elevated point of trust to which Ruus had aspired, since his entrance into the monastery was urged by the resolution to work out its destruction.
This Ruus is supposed in the legends of Zealand, to have been the Devil, who, envious of the piety and virtue of the monks of Esrom, assumed the human form, and gained access to the monastery in the manner, and suffered punishment with the certainty, I have stated.
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