Part 16 (1/2)
and then as they both saw Brother Alburtus perilously nigh, she quietly sat down again at her former place, most demurely, while Sonnlein pa.s.sed on toward his _Kammer_.
As Brother Alburtus came upon her he stopped for a moment, hand rubbing hand as usual, looked at her in grave absorption and pa.s.sed on as though she were not there.
And then I could have sworn I saw peering at her, and next at the departing form of Brother Alburtus, the loathsome features of that awful woman whom I had not seen for over ten years, from the shelter of a tangled clump of vines and brush, which I solemnly promised myself should be cut down on the morrow, root and branch.
Stealthily I crept out of my hiding-place and proceeded to where it seemed I had seen the witch, but as I came near I saw naught, and yet as I walked slowly away there came faintly to mine ears as though receding from me, that horrible, cackling laugh I had reason to hold in so much dread.
CHAPTER XX
SISTER GENOVEVA IS GONE
O thou whose glory fills the etherial throne, And all ye deathless powers, protect my son!
--Iliad.
Twilight was fast deepening into night when I returned to my _Kammer_ in the large Brother House, or Bethania, which we built a few years after the departure of the Eckerlings, down in the meadow, nigh the Cocalico, and facing the Sister House, or Saron, Brother Beissel's cabin sitting circ.u.mspectly between the two houses of our Order.
Here, as in Zion, Sonnlein and I had adjoining cells. I was not greatly surprised as I entered mine, to hear him whistle softly a worldly tune, though where he had caught it I knew not--surely not from me--for our sober lives never favored such G.o.dless puckerings and twistings of the lips!
Then he hummed the blasphemous thing for a while, changing into whistling again, and in his humming and whistlings making such vain and perverse changes, flying from high to low, from loud to soft, mingling with it all such sundry quiverings and queer little runs and trillings, until not able to stand it longer--for it seemed he would never stop--I marched sternly to the doorway of his cell, flung back the light door and spake to him, ”Art crazy or in love?”
”Both, _Vaterchen_, both!” he fairly shouted, as he grabbed me ere I knew what was up, and spun me around so I could hardly keep my feet.
”Surely thou'rt mad,” I gasped feebly as I sank down on his bench, ”Hast been drinking?”--though I knew he had not.
”Yea,” he shouted again even louder than before, ”from the loving cup of the G.o.ds!”
”Be not so boisterous, thou blasphemer! Wouldst have the Brethren think thee drunk?”
”The Brethren are not about; I am not so wild I know not how to save thy gentle reputation, _Vaterchen_”--and in truth in his adventures he ever regarded me.
”Still it poorly becometh thee to act like a thoughtless boy,” I remonstrated.
”Surely, _Vaterchen_,” he laughed gayly, ”if thou didst but know what it is to be in love thou couldst not scold me so!”
”Every man to his trade,” I replied dryly, not trusting myself to look at him; ”my trade is preaching and trying to behave myself. Thine appears to be loving,” saying the latter as sarcastically as my dislike for sharp words and my love for him would allow.
But he only laughed the louder as he said, ”'Tis a trade that never had to advertise for apprentices.”
”Cease thy levity; canst not be sober-minded? If thou must make music we have hundreds of n.o.ble hymns in our books.”
”They are not framed to my mood, but”--and now in truth he looked more serious and manlike, as I most admired him--”dost thou agree with our superintendent that marriage is a sinful state?”
”Dost ask for mere curiosity, or hast found some foolish woman who careth for thee?” I asked with seeming ignorance.
He flushed at this, and then said gently, the schemer, ”Nay, but sometime I might see one foolish enough, as thou sayest, to love me and perchance I might commit in all ignorance the grievous sin of marriage.”
”I commend thy great thoughtfulness,” said I, looking at him in a way that made him in turn look at me as though wondering whether I knew more than I cared to tell. ”To relieve thy anxiety I shall tell thee, which I would not have proclaimed from the housetops, there being those who hold to stricter views, I do not regard marriage as sinful. The word of G.o.d sayeth not so. In truth it esteemeth marriage highly. We base our views of celibacy on what Paulus sayeth, thou rememberest, 'For I would that all men were even as I myself,' meaning unmarried.”
”But Paulus himself wrote that he spake this by permission and not of commandment.”