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
circumspectly 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 godless 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 gods!"
"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 noble 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
God 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."
"True, and so say I, now that I am older and wiser. We practise
celibacy, and praise it because we believe that, as good soldiers of the
Lord, we can go better to battle than if we are impeded by wives and
children."
A long pause and then anxiously, as though much depended on my reply, he
asked with a touch of reverence in his voice, "Wouldst think it wrong
for any of our Sisters to marry?"
"Our vows are binding only on our consciences. We compel no one to
celibacy. Each follows his own will. Thou knowest many of the Brethren
and Sisters who were married when they joined our order left us again to
live together and no one said them 'nay,' but our single Sisters and
Brethren have almost invariably remained with us."
"If I were to marry one of the Sisterhood, wouldst thou condemn either
of us?" he asked eagerly.
"When thou'rt sure thou hast found one to break her vows for thee it
were time to ask me that," I admonished him; and then, as I arose to
return to my cell, I said smiling, not meaning it with malice, "thou
knowest much may happen between sunrise and sunset."
Hardly had I said this--and oft it hath come to me how like it was to
the fulfilling of a prophecy--when the Kloster bell rang out from Mt.
Sinai strong and clear as though calling us to face some sudden danger.
Alarm was writ plainly on our faces as we looked out of the little
window, fearing to see the glare of fire against the sky, but we saw
nothing. Soon the hall and corridors were filled with the anxious
brethren, for it was still a few hours from midnight, and each of us
knew something of great moment must be about to cause this hurried
ringing so early in the night.
As Sonnlein and I hastened out of the corridor and the low doorway for
Brother Beissel's cabin, the rest of the anxious brothers trooping after
us, we saw our prioress and a number of the Sisters gathered about our
leader in front of his cabin, the changing light from the fat lamps
showing clearly enough the fear and consternation oppressing us.
As our leader saw me, he called me to him and said, his voice trembling
in spite of him: "Our Sister Genoveva cannot be found; no one hath seen
her since sunset."
I could feel Sonnlein's grip on my arm like the hold of a drowning man,
but he said nothing.
"I myself saw her then in the Sisters' close, sitting at the foot of a
large chestnut tree," said I slowly, for I could not help thinking of
that evil face I now felt certain I had really seen peering at our
sister from behind the thicket.
"She may have gone to some of the neighbors to attend some sick one,"
suggested Brother Beissel, but saying it as against his own belief.
"But first she would have left word with us," the prioress reminded him,
"for such is our rule."
"Still, there may have been sudden illness that left no time for word to
us," persisted our leader.
So far, no one had said a word as to the great fear that I knew was
clutching the hearts of my Brothers and Sisters, which was that the
Indians had either killed or carried away our Genoveva; for over a year
had gone by since the French and Indians had taken up musket and
tomahawk against the English settlements, and though we had thus far
been spared the horrors of this savage war, yet we heard now and then of
awful massacres of the whites by the Indians not many miles to the north
and west, among the outlying settlements off our province, so that the
whole country, by reason of these barbarous deeds and the want of proper
defense, was in a great state of excitement and apprehension.
Calling Brother Alburtus to me, I asked him slowly and distinctly, for
he seemed oft not to understand one: "Thou wast in the Brother woods and
the Sister woods at sunset. Didst see signs of Indians, the red men?"
But he only shook his head with his accustomed vacant air, so that
Brother Beissel exclaimed impatiently: "'Tis waste of time to question
him; he never seeth aught."
"Brother Beissel, if thou wilt send of the brethren among the neighbors
to inquire of our sister, Sonnlein and I will go to the Sister woods,"
and with this I turned about for Sonnlein, but he was gone as though he
too had been swallowed up, for I had felt him but a moment before at my
elbow. My flesh was beginning to creep and prick with unmanly fright
when one of the brethren spake:
"He hath just gone with a fagot to Mt. Sinai," and as I looked where my
brother pointed, I saw the occasional glimmer of a light through the
trees and bushes.
Without waiting for a light, though the night was dark and overcast with
heavy clouds, threatening rain, I dashed after my boy as fast as the
gloom and my knowledge of our Kloster ground would let me.
When I reached him he was already at the chestnut tree, kneeling, torch
in hand, closely searching the ground. As I came nigh I saw his face
was hard and drawn, and though I could see his hands tremble, his voice
was firm as a rock as he commanded me, as he never spoke to me before,
to stand back a moment.
All around the base of the tree he looked, missing, as I thought, not a
leaf or twig or stone, I wondering now at the patience of him who never
since I had known him had been overly patient.
Then slowly he got up from the ground, still holding his torch close to
the earth, and started off, now stopping as in doubt, then holding aside
a branch or vine in his way, I all the while following as meekly as a
little boy his parent, but rejoicing now that Sonnlein's living in the
woods so much had taught him what I knew so little of. On we slowly and
surely went, he often stooping down and scrutinizing the earth as though
he had lost his guiding marks, but always finding them again, until we
had gone down over the hill and were aiming toward the Cocalico where it
wound its course fully a half-mile below the Brother House.
A great fear again chilled me to the bones. Our sister had thrown
herself into the cold waters of the creek rather than weakly surrender
herself to love for man! But when I had seen her last she seemed not
over-weighted with grief or remorse. Nay, not self-murder!
And now as we were following the right bank of the Cocalico and were
treading the wet, soft earth, I could see plainly now and then what a
child could have seen--through the weeds and grasses, footprints of
three people, one of whom I felt sure was our sister, for some of the
prints were small and delicate, such as would be made by the wooden
soles of her sandals. Other of the prints from their size were those of
a grown man, but whether white or Indian I had not sufficient woodcraft
to tell. The other marks were too small for a man's and yet not
Genoveva's, being differently shaped.
We had not gone far along the Cocalico, when suddenly the grassy bank
spread out into a stony, gravelly beach, where the deep pool we had been
following dwindled away to a shallow, rippling stream. On this hard
beach I at once lost the footprints, but Sonnlein never hesitating led
the way, still silent and grim, to the water's edge, and there again I
plainly saw the foot-marks in the soft mud among the stones.
He paused but a moment as he looked at the marks, and then plunged into
the stream without waiting to see whether or how I might follow. My
selfish indignation at his indifference to me lasted but the space of a
lightning's flash, for I immediately thought of the great trouble that
had come to my boy, and without any ado I plunged into the icy waters
that, despite its shallowness, caught me knee-deep at times, and with
such savage eagerness as I feared more than once would sweep my feet
off the slippery bed of the stream and no doubt drown me, for in my
neglect of earthly things I had never learned to swim.
But with all my floundering and splashing I did at last reach the
farther side, where I found Sonnlein following the shore looking closely
for the footprints, of which I could see none. But suddenly we found
them again quite a distance below where we had emerged from the
Cocalico, and I realized now that the captors had practised the old
trick of walking in the water some distance to destroy all pursuit.
But now Sonnlein's fagot was almost burnt out and the rain was beginning
to fall, lightly as yet, though I knew it would soon be drenching us to
the skin, and by washing away the footprints make it impossible to
follow any further.
I tried to call Sonnlein's mind to the utter folly of hoping to
accomplish aught in the darkness and the rain, but his only reply was to
make a fresh torch from the dead branches of an old tree overhanging the
creek. Lighting the sticks from his fast expiring fagot, he suddenly
turned to me, as if for the first time since we had left the chestnut
tree he were aware of me, and said shortly, "Stay thou here till I come
back," and with that he plunged into the heavy brush, mine eyes
following anxiously as far as I could the light of his torch.
It was not long until, with all the straining of my sight, I no more
could see aught of his light, and then heavy-hearted--as I had not been
for many a year--and wet and shivering from the cold rain that was
beating down faster and faster, I crouched up close to the dry side of
the old dead tree, and patiently awaited in all the misery of my body
and mind the return of my boy.
Not that I feared he could not take care of himself, for I knew he had
the strength of a lion and the quickness of a cat, but I knew his
determined, persistent nature, and that he would go to the ends of the
earth, if needs be, for her he loved.
How long I waited under the old tree I remember not. Through all the
rushing of the rain and the sweeping of the winds, I heard faintly the
Kloster bells, and I knew it must be midnight. I could see in mind the
Brothers and Sisters file out of Bethania and Saron for our little
chapel for the accustomed devotions, and I found much comfort because I
felt sure earnest, loving prayers were ascending to Him to watch over
our sister and my boy and me, and bring us back safe and whole to the
fold.
But mortal flesh is ever weak, and as I stood and waited with the storm
howling about me, wondering where our sister was in all this wind and
rain, wondering where my boy was and when he would come back to me, I
lost heart and faith. Besides the wind and the rain and the murmuring
of the creek, everything was absolutely silent. I seemed utterly alone
in the world. I thought to myself, Who or what am I in all this great
universe? What careth God for me? While in this weak mood an owl hooted
overhead, and though I had never before found the hooting of owls aught
but sad and mournful, this one sounded to me almost as sweet as our own
dear bells. And then I thought of what our Master had said about a
sparrow's fall--and I doubt not he also regardeth owls--so that I felt
better again.
And great need I had of comfort, for hour after hour I waited for my
boy. I was drenched to the skin and so cold I shook like a leaf. More
than once as I had made up my mind to wait no longer I started to leave,
but then crouched closer to the tree again, ashamed of myself for
wanting to leave my post. Still as the long, awful night grew toward
morning and the faint light of a gloomy dawn came on, I thought to wait
longer were of no avail, and so in great anguish of mind, heeding not
the lesser pains of the flesh, I made my way back, heavy-eyed and still
more heavy-hearted to my cell, drying myself as best I might, and then
throwing myself on my hard bench to seek in sleep some peace for body
and mind.