SISTER BERNICE IS COMFORTED
Girls and gold are the softer the purer they are.
--Jean Paul Richter.
The beautiful flowers that grew down in the meadow where we laid our
Brother Agonius in his chamber of rest, like him were soon gathered up
into the arms of the Master Reaper. The enchantments of the long, hot,
summer days had worked silently but surely the entrancing spells that
now spread over field and forest the glowing vestments of the early
fall.
But one day as I was resting at the foot of the venerable oak where
Brother Martin had been hastened to his death by that strange woman not
many years before, suddenly I heard a piercing shriek from the thick
woods back of me and a wild, terrified rush toward the little clearing
where I was standing erect, fairly astounded. In a moment more Sister
Bernice fell almost headlong at my feet, whence I lifted her unconscious
with fright and terror into my arms.
Hardly knowing what to do I stood there helplessly gazing at her sweet
face and then at the crown of hair that lay like a golden fleece over my
arm, her hood having fallen to the ground, so that I was thankful some
remnant of womanly vanity had saved her from the hideous tonsure. But I
bethought myself to lay her gently on the ground, her head, a dear
burden, in my lap, fanning her face as best I might with my large,
toil-stained hands. At last the fluttering eyelids and the gasping
breath told me of returning consciousness. At first she opened her eyes
and gazed at me wonderingly, vaguely, and once she closed them as if to
shut out some awful sight. I rubbed her hands, her wrists, softly
smoothed her brow, and spake to her gently, "'Tis naught but Brother
Jabez; thou needst not fear him. What hath he done?" and by such soft
entreaties and with tender pressures of the hands I sought to soothe her
to herself again.
Finally, she sat up weakly, but leaning so sweetly and helplessly
against me--it being necessary to hold her safe with mine arms for great
fear she might faint again--that I longed to sit there forever. She,
however, after a while freed herself somewhat from my too careful
protection and said "Nay, my dear sister, my--Bernice, I never had much
faith in such wild tales," said I, as she lifted those clear, trusting
eyes to mine. And may I be forgiven for this unblushing, unscrupulous
lie; for did I not know of the witch of Endor? Many a tale had I heard
in the _Vaterland_ of the malign influences of the evil eye, so that now
I felt a vague dread I dared not make known to my poor little sister,
who had flown to my arms as a birdling to its nest.
[Illustration: "In a moment more Sister Bernice fell almost headlong
at my feet." Page 128.]
"Think not of her more, my sister; she cannot harm thee now, dear
Bernice." Upon which boastful assurance she smiled confidently enough
and said with a look I would not have changed for a kingdom, "That I
know quite well, thou great giant; wast thou ever afraid, Brother
Jabez?"
"Never," I responded valiantly, recklessly adding another lie to the
record I this day seemed bound to cover with falsehoods.
"Oh, that I could be so brave, Brother Jabez; but I have ever been weak,
such a coward; the _Vaterchen_ and the _Mutterchen_ always shielded me
as though I were in all truth a baby." Here she paused as if to catch
her breath, and then slowly again as with difficulty she said quietly,
"I have been growing so weak lately, I wonder what ails me?"
And now my selfish joy, after all these gloomy months without sight of
her, gave way to a pain that shot through me like an arrow as I saw how
much more delicate and ethereal she had become since that blissful love
feast. For a moment my soul was in hot rebellion at all the hardships
and privations that made our Kloster life almost unbearable to the
strongest and which were so heavy on the frail shoulders of this sweet
angel at my side. Something of my wicked wrath must have expressed
itself against my will, for she suddenly looked up at me alarmed, crying
out, "What is wrong, Brother Jabez? Thou hast such a hard, angry look
in thy eyes, such as I have never seen there before."
"I am not in anger, Sister Bernice" replied I, softening my evil looks
to fit my words, "merely thinking hard--exceeding hard."
"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 passing 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 passion
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 passions 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.