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.