A Tale of the Kloster Part 6

"Just beyond the oak," he replied; "she was standing in a thicket covered with tangled vines as foul and poisonous as herself. I had all unthinking almost walked into her when suddenly I heard a snarl like some ravenous beast; I saw her horrible claws uplifted as though she were about to spring on me and tear me limb from limb. I jumped back, my heart almost standing still, thinking naught but that my end had come.

She came no farther, but contented herself with crouching there and glaring at me with those awful eyes of hate that seemed to burn into my very soul."

"Canst thou go with me where thou hast seen this witch or devil?" I said boldly, although I had not overly much stomach for the venture.

As I said this he drew back and trembled violently as he cried out, "Nay, not even for the very hope of a safe hereafter would I go to that accursed place."

"Then remain there, thou gentle coward, whilst I go," commanded I.

Again he clutched me by the arm and cried out, "Nay, go not, Brother Jabez; even if she touch thee not her look will blast thee like lightning."

"I fear her not," bragged I, and strode away, leaving him shuddering with the terror that had not yet grown cold, and with apprehensions for me.

I had no trouble in finding the thick bush and entangling vines Brother Martin had pointed out to me. As I approached its dark, forbidding front, I trembled like a leaf, and then grew angry at my weakness. Then I went on, resolutely forcing my way into the vile vines that caught me all about my face and body and limbs so that I was ready to affirm naught human could penetrate such a wilderness; but though I looked carefully for any signs that would show that some one or something had thrust itself into these exasperating vines I could find nothing, even though I had in all these years learned much of the ways of the woods and its signs.

In great bewilderment I was about to turn back to chide Brother Martin with having seen nothing but a creature of his own imagining when I saw in a small gully at the farther boundary of the thicket a footprint, small, a woman's surely, in the soft, clayey soil. Had the imprint been that of a cloven foot I could not have been more startled; for I knew that the Sisterhood seldom, if ever, came to the Brother woods, and the good wives and daughters of the near-by settlers were too timid and honest to trespa.s.s on our lands. Much perturbed, for I knew this thing boded evil to our community, I walked slowly back to my waiting brother, vague remembrances strangely flitting through my mind, but making no impression at the time, of how Sonnlein had come to me, and the midnight beating of our Brother Beissel.

I found Brother Martin, still pale and fearful, anxiously wanting to know what I had learned. "Nothing," I said, "of witch or devil, but the substantial print of a woman's foot."

"Was there no smell of brimstone? No cloven footprint?" he persisted.

"Nay, thou simple one, else I had told thee. Say thou naught of this; for they who would not believe thee would only laugh at thee, and if any believe what could that avail?"

"Nothing, dear Brother Jabez, nothing," he said mournfully, a strange, fixed look in his wild eyes. "A woman with an evil eye once looked upon my little brother as he lay laughing in the cradle my father had hewn out of a log. Until then the child was strong and healthy, never having been sick; but from that day he wasted away, with naught that could help or cure him, and within a month we laid him down in his little resting-place in the orchard nigh our cabin. They whom the evil eye look upon live not long." And then, as one who goes forth to certain death, he looked up at me smiling bravely through all his fears and said, "If my time hath come, let it come quickly, His servant waiteth."

I found it impossible to free him from this melancholy mood, and so we walked back slowly and sadly to our _Kammers_, saying nothing more.

A week pa.s.sed, Brother Martin quietly, with resignation, doing his lowly duties each day; but we all could see he was in failing health. Only he and I knew, however, that the tortures of mind he was enduring far outweighed the lesser pains of the flesh; for I hesitate not to say of saint as well as sinner, that until death be actually at hand, they fear alike the inevitable end.

On a Friday night, just a week from the Friday our brother had seen this thing, the midnight services being over, and the Brethren and Sisters having returned to their _Kammers_ to rest their weary heads on their hard wooden blocks, we were startled by the ringing of the Kloster bell.

Clear and loud it pealed through the cold quietness of the night. Like a flash, though I had not thought of it before, I cried out to Brother Obed, who had the adjoining cell, "'Tis Brother Martin," though not more than a half-hour had expired since we had returned, he with us, from our midnight devotions.

Suddenly the pealing notes ceased, and then came the slow, solemn tolling of the bell, a custom followed ever after on the death of any of our number, until forty-eight were measured out, which I knew was about our brother's age. His cell was on the floor below, where I hastened as soon as the last year of his life had been tolled. A number of the Brethren, with bowed heads, stood sadly in the narrow _Kammer_, in the still narrower doorway and corridor. I had been filled, ere I saw him, with a dread that his death agony might have had its terrors increased a thousand-fold by the awful memory of the witch; for I knew he had never forgotten it. But when I looked down on the slight form and peaceful face resting on the hard bench and still more mortifying pillow, I saw no trace of any overpowering, death-dealing vision.

Instead, his face, though greatly wasted and altered, was as composed as though he had merely fallen asleep in the arms of his beloved. The little window looking out from his _Kammer_, as soon as the last spark of life had died out, had been opened so that his soul could take its flight unhindered and unmolested to that place of pure delights "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

At the funeral, which was the following midnight, as we carried the body out of the _Berghaus_ a bucket of water was poured upon the sill and swept up, and the door immediately closed so that his spirit could not return again to its earthly home, and to make further a.s.surance against such a return three crosses were marked upon the door jamb with red earth.

We buried him who had thus pa.s.sed away in the prime of his life, down in the meadow nigh to where in later years we built our Brother house. It was a dark, stormy night, no moon and no stars to lighten up the gloom of the sky or the still deeper darkness in our hearts; but with our f.a.got torchlights sputtering fitfully, almost blown out by the wind at times, we laid him to rest at the midnight hour with all the honors and rites and ceremonies of our holy order.

Thus, on this weird, stormy night, in such contrast to the peace and gentleness of this earnest, zealous warrior of the faith who for almost nine years had abided with us, we left in the meadow his mortal remains, but took back with us the remembrance of his G.o.dly services and his truth and fidelity unto his profession and brotherhood during his short life.

CHAPTER IX

A LOVE FEAST

But when a lady chaste and fair, n.o.ble, and clad in rich attire, Walks through the throng with gracious air, As sun that bids the stars retire-- Then where are all thy boastings, May?

What hast thou beautiful and gay Compared with that supreme delight?

We leave thy loveliest flowers and watch that lady bright.

--Song of Walter Von der Vogelweide.

It accords not well with my ideas of humility and self-effacement that I should ever be writing of myself, and yet it seemeth not possible to tell this tale without bringing into it much that befell me in connection with those who were so dear to me, and of whose lives it is my pleasure and pain to relate.

And of those who were so precious to me there were none so dear to me as my Sister Bernice, not even Sonnlein; for however beloved he was of me he was none the less of my s.e.x, while my dear sister was of that s.e.x which a true man, so it appeareth to me, can no more help holding with a more or less tender feeling than he can help breathing.

I know this will seem unto many as foolishness, especially as I--like my Brother Beissel, who had published his "_Ehebuchlein_," or "Booklet on Matrimony," denouncing marriage as the penitentiary of carnal man--have ever been an advocate of the beauty and superiority of the virgin life; but in my reading of history I have noted how more than one man much stronger than I, changed utterly his beliefs and principles for the love of some daughter of Eve.

It is not that I have never been greatly attracted by the charms of my sisters, whom we in Ephrata regarded not so much opposite as complementary to our own, man's nature. I loved my mother dearly; her love hath been as a sweet fragrance to me in all my long life, and in many a trial and temptation have I felt her presence near, strengthening and upholding me in the right. And however cold and indifferent I may have borne myself outwardly to the gentler ones, still I never could speak otherwise than tenderly, and even reverently to them, as it seemed to me their pure, finer natures deserved; so that it hath ever grieved me to hear any one belittle a woman.

I shall never forget the first time I saw the slight, delicate form and sweet face of Sister Bernice. It was at one of our love feasts (_Liebesmahl_), which with us was not like among the other denominations, merely symbolic, but was patterned after that of the early Christians; for we took a regular meal--and not merely a wafer or cake--in utter silence before communion, the love feast being an introduction to the more solemn part of the evening's service.

I remember full well how the Brethren were sitting on one side of the long table in Kedar, with heads uncovered, the Sisters on the other side not with their enveloping bonnets, but bedecked with the pretty prayer covering, which they always seemed glad to wear, which was a neat lace cap with strings beneath the chin.

After the reading of the Scriptures I raised my head, and then for the first time in my life saw the Sister opposite me--Bernice. I do not think she saw me or in any way observed me, for she seemed rapt in ecstatic adoration, her eyes turned upward and her lips slightly parted, as if she already saw and heard the glories of that heavenly home she was to visit ere many years pa.s.sed over her fair head.

I shall never forget that look, that face, nearer an angel's than any I have ever seen. An unaccountable pity swept over me, and that pity I fear was the beginning of another feeling I dared not own. But my dangerous thoughts were soon interrupted by the preparations for the _pedelavium_, or feet-was.h.i.+ng. Small tubs of tepid water were brought into the _Saal_. The Elder washed the feet of the Brethren and the eldest Sister performed the same humble service for the Sisters, each Brother and Sister after the feet were dried receiving from him or her who washed the feet, a shake of the hands and the kiss of love and charity. A wicked wish came into my heart, grieving me days after for my perverse, unspiritual longing, that I might take the place of the eldest Sister, for I could willingly suffer the kisses of all the other Sisters for merely one touch of the lips of that young angel opposite me.

Fortunately, the Brothers and Sisters were so busy in their devotions, no one noticed whether or not my face reflected my guilty longings, for I was so absorbed in them that when the Elder came to me, instead of my feet I thrust my hands down into the tub, and was about to place them on the Elder's towel, when he, un.o.bserved by the rest, gave me a little nudge and said in a low voice but sternly, "Art crazy, brother? knowest not thy hands from thy feet?"

I gazed at my hands for a moment, and then as I realized my folly, I dropped my feet into the tub with such a splash that Brother Lamech who was seated next awaiting his turn, being utterly swallowed up in wors.h.i.+p and forgetting whether or not his feet had been washed, hastily stuck them out past me into the Elder's lap just as I was placing mine own feet there. For a moment the Elder looked at us both in such solemn, puzzled disgust, that in spite of my natural gravity I almost laughed outright, which would have been most sacrilegious. Happily, our Elder was a quickwitted man, and drying our intermingled feet as best he could, he pa.s.sed quietly to the rest who had not seen the little complexity down the line.

The feet-was.h.i.+ng being completed, and we all having resumed the covering of our feet, we turned around on our benches toward the table, the Brothers and Sisters again facing each other. Then came the evening meal, which with us consisted of lamb soup as the chief dish, while bread and apple-b.u.t.ter were served to the strangers and visitors gathered in the hall. Brother Beissel having breathed a fervent blessing on the meal we turned to it in absolute silence. And yet not in utter silence, for if ever heart spake to heart I know mine was clamoring most violently, and I verily believe hers was too, for now and then, not slyly nor shamefacedly, the sweet face opposite me would look up and the tenderest shadow of a smile would be wafted to me. I know little of these things, but I believe our hearts turned each toward the other without the power to stay them, just as certain as flowers turn toward the light and warmth of the sun. Those gentle smiles, as innocent and guileless as a child's, filled me with a happiness, an ecstatic bliss I had never felt at any other love feast. It was, ah me, truly a feast of love.

I suppose we had sat there forever in perfect happiness and content, had not the evening services interrupted our foolish bliss. I shall not describe what followed of the service, for they were similar to the love feasts that are still observed by our little congregation; the giving of thanks at the end of the meal, the holy kiss, when Brother kissed Brother and Sister kissed Sister. But if ever the kisses of my Brethren seemed stale and unprofitable--may I be forgiven for saying this--'twas then, when there was so near in being but so far in possibility, a kiss from my dear young sister.

Alas, what a garrulous old fool I am to be writing of such things at my age. But I cannot help it, for if ever I had a true idea of what heaven's bliss would be like it was that night. If such transcendent joy could come from sweet flesh and blood on earth, though in angelic shape, what joy must it be to wander forever the boundless realms of heaven enraptured with the love of the celestial virgin.

That night as I lay down on my hard bench in my _Kammer_, I felt for the first time as though it were too small to hold all the joy of human love and the pain of a conscience guilty of treason to its celestial virgin.

What little sleep visited mine eyes that night brought visions of the dear sister in the form of our spiritual Eve, and when morning came I was so miserably happy, if I may so say, between the two loves I hardly knew what to do. Nor was I helped much during the day when I overheard our Elder remark to Brother Joseph that he had never seen such beautiful, soul-absorbing observance of a love feast as that shown by Brother Jabez and Brother Lamech the night before.

This was more than I could bear, and I laughed so heartily that Sister Maria, who afterward became the spiritual leader of the Sisterhood, suddenly coming upon me held up her hands in pious horror at such unspeakable levity. I did many a penance that week before I felt myself absolved from my impious frivolity. I have often thought since then how many a time we are praised when we deserve blame and blamed when we merit praise; and indeed it hath been a rule of my life never to be unduly elated by praise, or on the other hand unnecessarily depressed by censure. I have always set one against the other, and in this manner have contrived with my weak, erring temper to preserve a fair show of equanimity and serenity.

But I was resolved that I, Brother Jabez, the a.s.sociate superintendent of the community, would not give way to this midsummer madness, and so far as I could see, Sister Bernice was of the same mind. I saw but little of her, and when we did come nigh each other, which was seldom, her averted gaze told me she too was struggling against our sinful love.

And so day after day pa.s.sed around, filled with its various duties, neither Sister Bernice nor myself giving any sign, so far as either of us was aware, of our poor, forbidden love, though often in the long after years I wondered whether all our self-denial of this sweet, human love was not a greater sacrifice than He required of us.

CHAPTER X

THE BROTHERHOOD OF ZION

Lo, this only have I found, that G.o.d hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

--Bible.