Part 9 (1/2)

”And dost thou look so stern and fierce and frown so, when thou art lost in great thoughts?” she asked looking up so innocently I felt myself an unregenerate and abandoned soul for such shameless lying. ”If thou dost,” she went on slowly, ”I shall be afraid of thee.”

”Yea, sister,” I lied again unhesitatingly, ”thou hast yet to learn that like many other silly men and women I save my smiles and cheerfulness for those whom I know the least and am sternest and coldest to those that know me and love me best.”

”That I know to be false,” she cried out, smiling up at me brightly, in such a way I thought I never could let her go; ”thou art not a hypocrite. Who in all our Kloster does not know and love our big brother, Brother Jabez, for his kindness, his patience, his tenderness, his charity, for every one, good or bad, and most of all for that mischievous Sonnlein?”

All this sweet-sounding anthem to my unmerited exaltation made me so sinfully happy and irreligiously proud I fairly forgot myself in my foolish joy, so that I pressed the gently resisting girl--for a mere girl she was--to my breast, and was about to insult her trust and purity by an unhallowed kiss, and doubt not I had done this great wickedness, had I not seen too near for me to venture on such indulgence, the form of some Sister straying our way.

I hurriedly urged Sister Bernice--who not seeing the approaching Sister, marveled much at my sudden coldness and failure to complete the sweet enterprise on which I had embarked: ”Go thy way, my best beloved sister; think no more of witches; I shall not let them harm thee.” And with that she smiled more heavenly than before, but obeyed my will and betook herself to her _Kammer_, while I pa.s.sing on in the opposite direction, went straight for that accursed spot where Brother Martin had been the first ill-fated one to see that grisly shape.

But though I searched most diligently, scrutinizing the vines, the brush, the ground, I saw no sign of her, and I was making my way back, sorely puzzled, to the oak, when suddenly I heard a quick rustling among the leaves, such as a bird might make, and turning sharply, beheld, not more than a child's throw, in the gloomy shades of that thick, dark forest, the bent, crouching form of that hideous hag, a wild-eyed, savage-featured she-fiend!

The memory of poor Brother Martin, the terror of my harmless, innocent Bernice, moved me to such anger as never before or since overcame my patience and moderation.

”Thou witch, or devil, whatever thou art,” I yelled at her in my pa.s.sion as I pulled out of the ground a stone as large as my clenched fists, ”it is in mine temper to crush thee where thou standest, polluting these holy grounds, thou pestilence!”

With that she rushed forward fiercely for a few steps as though with clawlike hands and fanglike teeth she would rend me to pieces; but now that my blood was on fire, I quailed not, whereat she suddenly stopped, the more especially as my hand was drawn back ready to hurl the stone should she come any nigher.

As she stood there glowering and glaring at me, snarling and choking for the world like some angry beast, I marveled not that the others had been terror-stricken at such a forbidding shape. Again I commanded, drawing up my figure to its full height, ”Begone thou vile beast ere I forget myself and slay thee as I would a snake!” and with that I advanced on her, my face distorted with such anger--for the pa.s.sions are ever destroyers of comeliness--I doubt not she knew, if, indeed she had a mind for knowing, that I meant my threats.

I was but a few paces from her, when she made a spiteful sweep at my face with one of her talons that would have sadly marred me had I been reached, and then, bent and crouching, she slunk away sullenly, still snarling and muttering inarticulate sounds. I stood there until her evil shape was swallowed up by the woods, and then I first knew I was shaking like a leaf and that I was as wet as though I had just come out of the Cocalico.

In this frame I walked back slowly to my _Kammer_, so sick at heart with forebodings of evil I dared not think of, which not all the joy of having had Bernice in my arms could make me forget.

CHAPTER XIII

THE COMET AND BROTHER ALBURTUS

Night's curtains now are closing Round half a world reposing In calm and holy trust; All seems one vast, still chamber, Where weary hearts remember No more the sorrows of the dust.

--Mathias Claudius.

Hardly had Peniel been completed and dedicated, when there occurred an event that wrought great consternation, not only in our little community but among all the settlers in the province. This was nothing less than a comet. Many firmly believed this celestial visitant to be the precursor of war and its kindred evils, famine and pestilence; for full many of our German settlers had still fresh in their minds the fiery comet that had appeared in the sky of the _Vaterland_ immediately before the Thirty Years' War, when the Palatinate was devastated from end to end and almost depopulated. Thus it was feared this fiery, flaming star foretold similar bloodshed and disaster in this. .h.i.therto peaceful New World. Many of our Brotherhood thought the flaming tail was a bundle of switches, with which the Almighty was about to punish the unrepentant and unregenerate.

To our brother hermits of the Wissahickon the comet was looked upon as a harbinger of the celestial Bridegroom, for whose coming they had so long devoutly waited.

I remember well the night this wonderful star appeared. It was early in the year 1742. The Kloster bell with its sweet tones was calling the Brotherhood of Zion to their midnight devotions. I still see our long slender line in cloaks and cowls file out of the narrow corridors, and silently and reverently take up our march toward the Hall of Prayer on Mount Sinai. There was no moon, but through the clear, frosty air was spread the light of a mult.i.tude of stars that twinkled brightly over head. Not a twig stirred on the leafless trees. Everything was quiet, Kedar and Zion looming up distinctly on the hillside, and the sharp roof of Peniel, down in the meadow, seemed wrapt in deep slumber.

As the notes of the bells died away there was absolute stillness, save for the creaking and crunching of our wooden shoes on the frozen ground. We had pa.s.sed over half the distance to the prayer house, when suddenly we saw in the eastern heavens a blazing star, with its bright, fiery tail flas.h.i.+ng upon the face of the sky. I shall never forget the awe that took possession of us so that we trembled with fear, Brother Obed who was next to me, his teeth chattering violently, whispering hoa.r.s.ely it was the judgment day and Gabriel would blow his horn. I myself was not without a feeling that something dreadful was about to happen, for it was the first comet I had ever seen, and I knew not what it portended. Still, I am glad to say I was not so utterly bereft of my senses as most of my poor brethren seemed to be.

Brother Alburtus, however, was least concerned of all, a peaceful smile lighting up his face as though the celestial Bridegroom were coming on some fiery chariot to take him to heaven; but Brother Onesimus fell on his knees on the hard ground, and prayed for mercy and that the great evil and calamities foreshadowed by the fiery messenger in the heavens might be turned aside and that the Almighty would hear our prayers.

And then I felt moved to quote the sublime words of Job:

Is not G.o.d in the height of heavens?

And behold the height of the stars, How high they are.

After the first shock of this sudden apparition was somewhat abated, Brother Beissel ordered the bells rung throughout the community, and deputed me to order all out for religious services in Peniel, where we prayed and sang until the dawn, some of us fondly hoping as the daylight appeared and the glare of the comet died away our prayers had been answered, only to find the direful visitant in the sky on the following night and many nights thereafter.