COMMONPLACE.
My little girl is commonplace, you say?
Well, well, I grant it, as you use the phrase
Concede the whole; although there was a day
When I too questioned words, and from a maze
Of hairsplit meanings, cut with close-drawn line,
Sought to draw out a language superfine,
Above the common, scarify with words and scintillate with pen;
But that time's over—now I am content to stand with other men.
It's the best place, fair youth. I see your smile—
The scornful smile of that ambitious age
That thinks it all things knows, and all the while
It nothing knows. And yet those smiles presage
Some future fame, because your aim is high;
As when one tries to shoot into the sky,
If his rash arrow at the moon he aims, a bolder flight we see,
Though vain, than if with level poise it safely reached the nearest tree.
A common proverb that! Does it disjoint
Your graceful terms? One more you'll understand:
Cut down a pencil to too fine a point,
Lo, it breaks off, all useless, in your hand!
The child is fitted for her present sphere:
Let her live out her life, without the fear
That comes when souls, daring the heights of dread infinity, are tost,
Now up, now down, by the great winds, their little home for ever lost.
My little girl seems to you commonplace
Because she loves the daisies, common flowers;
Because she finds in common pictures grace,
And nothing knows of classic music's powers:
She reads her romance, but the mystic's creed
Is something far beyond her simple need.
She goes to church, but the mixed doubts and theories that thinkers find
In all religious truth can never enter her undoubting mind.
A daisy's earth's own blossom—better far
Than city gardener's costly hybrid prize:
When you're found worthy of a higher star,
'Twill then be time earth's daisies to despise;
But not till then. And if the child can sing
Sweet songs like "Robin Gray," why should I fling
A cloud over her music's joy, and set for her the heavy task
Of learning what Bach knew, or finding sense under mad Chopin's mask?
Then as to pictures: if her taste prefers
That common picture of the "Huguenots,"
Where the girl's heart—a tender heart like hers—
Strives to defeat earth's greatest powers' great plots
With her poor little kerchief, shall I change
The print for Turner's riddles wild and strange?
Or take her stories—simple tales which her few leisure hours beguile—
And give her Browning's _Sordello_, a Herbert Spencer, a Carlyle?
Her creed, too, in your eyes is commonplace,
Because she does not doubt the Bible's truth
Because she does not doubt the saving grace
Of fervent prayer, but from her rosy youth,
So full of life, to gray old age's time,
Prays on with faith half ignorant, half sublime.
Yes, commonplace! But if I spoil this common faith, when all is done
Can deist, pantheist or atheist invent a better one?
Climb to the highest mountain's highest verge,
Step off: you've lost the petty height you had;
Up to the highest point poor reason urge,
Step off: the sense is gone, the mind is mad.
"Thus far, and yet no farther, shalt thou go,"
Was said of old, and I have found it so:
This planet's ours, 'tis all we have; here we belong, and those are wise
Who make the best of it, nor vainly try above its plane to rise.
Nay, nay: I know already your reply;
I have been through the whole long years ago;
I have soared up as far as soul can fly,
I have dug down as far as mind can go;
But always found, at certain depth or height,
The bar that separates the infinite
From finite powers, against whose strength immutable we beat in vain,
Or circle round only to find ourselves at starting-point again.
If you must for yourself find out this truth,
I bid you go, proud heart, with blessings free:
'Tis the old fruitless quest of ardent youth,
And soon or late you will come back to me.
You'll learn there's naught so common as the breath
Of life, unless it be the calm of death:
You'll learn that with the Lord Omnipotent there's nothing commonplace,
And with such souls as that poor child's, humbled, abashed, you'll hide your face.
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
PROBATIONER LEONHARD;
OR,
THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER IV.
THE TEST—WITH MENTAL RESERVATIONS.
Elise went out to gather willow-twigs, as her mother had said when her father asked for her.
A little later in the afternoon, Mr. Albert Spener walked swiftly down the street toward the house occupied by the Rev. Mr. Wenck. While he was yet at a distance Elise saw him approaching, and possibly she thought, "He has seen me and comes to meet me;" and many a pleasant stroll on many an afternoon would have justified the thought.
But it was not until he had, as it were, stumbled upon Elise that he noticed her. He carried in his hand a letter, and when suddenly he stopped upon the sidewalk and looked at her, the changeful aspects of his face were marvelous to behold.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I was going home," she answered, not a little surprised by the abrupt and authoritative manner of his address.
"I want to talk with you," said he. "Is it to-day that I am to begin to leave off loving you, Elise?"
"That you are—What do you say, Albert?" she asked.
"Have you not seen Brother Wenck's letter to your father, Elise?"
She shook her head.
"The lot—the lot—" he repeated, but his voice refused to help him tell the tale.
"Albert, may I see the letter?" Father and Mother Loretz might have rejoiced in their daughter could they have seen and heard her in those trying moments. Her gentleness and her serene dignity said for her that she would not be over-thrown by the storm which had burst upon her in a moment, unlocked for as tempest and whirlwind out of a clear sky.
Spener thrust into her hands the letter addressed to him that morning by the minister. It contained an announcement of the decision rendered by the lot, couched in terms more brief, perhaps, than those which conveyed the same intelligence to the father of Elise.
She gave it back to him without a word.
"If Brother Wenck is going to stand by it," said he, "there'll be no room for him in this place. I was just going to his house to tell him so. Will you go with me? I should like to have a witness. I'll make short work of it."
"No," said Elise, shrinking back amazed from her companion. "I will not go with you to insult that good man."
"You will go with me—not to his house, then! Come, Elise, we must talk about this. You must help me untie this knot. I cannot imagine how I ever permitted things to take their chance. I have never heard of a sillier superstition than I seem to have encouraged. Talk about faith! Let a man act up to light and take the consequences. I can see clear enough now. You never looked for this to happen, Elise?"
She shook her head. Indeed, she never had—no, not for a moment.
"To think I should have permitted it to go on!"
"But you did let it go on—and I—consented. Do not let me forget that," she exclaimed. "I will go home, Albert."
"Ha, Elise! I wish I could feel more confidence in your teachers when you get there."
"I need no one to tell me what my duty is just here," she answered.
"Have you ever loved me, child? Child! I am talking to a rock. You do not yield to this?" He waved the letter aloft, and as if he would dash it from him. Elise looked at him, and did not speak. "Sister Benigna will of course feel called upon to bless the Lord," said he. "But Wenck shall find a way out of this difficulty. Then we will have done with them both, my own."
"Am I to have no voice in this matter?" she asked. "What if I say—"
Spener grasped her hand so suddenly that, as if in her surprise she had forgotten what she was about to say, Elise added, "Sister Benigna is my best friend. She knows nothing about the lot."
"Does not?"
"I told you, Albert, that it was to be so. And—you do not mean to threaten Mr. Wenck?"
"I mean to have him find a way out of this difficulty. He ought to have said to your father that this lot business belongs to a period gone by. He did hint at it. I supposed, of course, that he would see the thing came out right, since he let it go on."
"Did you then believe it was only a play or a trick?" exclaimed Elise indignantly.
"Not quite, but I did not suppose that we were a company who would stand by an adverse decision. You know, if you are the Elise I have loved so long, that I must love you always—that I am not going to give you up. Your father was bent on the test, but look at him and tell me if he expected this turn. He is twenty years older than he was yesterday. Folks used to resort to the lot in deciding about marriages, and it was all well enough if they didn't care how it turned out, or hadn't faith to believe in their own ability to choose. A pretty way of doing business, though! Suppose I had tried it on this place! I have always asked for God's blessing, and tried to act so that I need not blush when I asked it; but a man must know his own mind, he must act with decision. I say again, I don't like your teachers, Elise. Between Sister Benigna and Mr. Wenck, now, what would be my chances if I could submit to such a pair?"
"You and I have no quarrel," said Elise gently. "I suppose that you acted in good faith. You know how much I care—how humiliated I shall feel if you attack in any way a man so good as Mr. Wenck. You do not understand Sister Benigna."
It was well that she had these to speak of, and that she need not confine herself to the main thought before them, for Albert could do anything he attempted. Had not her father always said, "Let Spener alone for getting what he wants: he'll have it, but he's above-board and honest;" and what hopes, heaven-cleaving, had spread wing the instant her eyes met his!
"It is easy to say that I do not understand," said he. "One has only to assume that another is so excellent and virtuous a character as to be beyond your comprehension, and then your mouth is stopped."
"Ah, how bitter you are!" exclaimed Elise. Her voice was full of pain.
Spener silently reproached himself, and said, with a tenderness that was irresistible, "You don't know what temptations beset a man in business and everywhere, Elise. It would be easier far to lie down and die, I have thought sometimes, than to stand up and meet the enemy like a man. You will never convince me that my duty is to let you go, to give you up. I can think of nothing so wicked."
These words, which had a joyful sound to which she could not seal her ears, made Elise stop suddenly, afraid of Albert, afraid of herself. "I think," she said after a moment, "we had best not walk together any longer. There is nothing we can say that will satisfy ourselves or ought to satisfy each other."
"Do you mean that you accept this decision?" said he.
"I promised, Albert. So did you."
"We will not talk about it. But we can at least walk together, Elise. You need not speak. What you confessed just now is true—you cannot say anything to the purpose."
So they walked on together. Silently, past all Spenersberg's dwelling-places they walked, till they came to the cemetery, and ascending the hill they strolled about that pleasant place among the graves, and thought, perhaps, How blessed are the dead! and oh to be lying there in a dreamless sleep beneath the blooming wild roses, and where dirges were sounding through the cedars day and night! Elise might have thought thus, but not her companion. He was the last man to wish to pass from the scene of his successes merely because a great failure threatened him. Looking upon the slight young figure beside him and her grave sweet face, a wrathful contempt was aroused within him that he should have allowed himself to be placed in a situation so absurd. As they walked down the hill again, he startled his companion by a merry outbreak. "Tell me you are not mine!" he said: "there never was a joke like it!"
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER V.
SISTER BENIGNA.
On her return home Elise found Sister Benigna seated at the piano, attuning herself, as she said, after her work among the restive children of her school.
When she looked upon her friend and recalled the bitter words Albert had spoken against her, Elise felt their injustice. It was true, as she had told him, he did not understand Sister Benigna.
Sitting down beside the window, Elise began to busy herself over the dainty basket she was elaborately decorating. After a few moments Sister Benigna left the piano and stood looking at Elise and her work. She had something to say, but how should she say it? how approach the heart which had wrapped itself up in sorrow and surrounded itself with the guards of silence?
Presently Elise looked at her, but not until she had so long resisted the inclination to do so that there was something like violence in the effort. When her eyes met the gaze of Sister Benigna the warm blood rushed to her cheeks, and she looked quickly down again. Did Sister Benigna know yet about the letter Mr. Wenck had written?
A sad smile appeared on Benigna's face. She shook her head. If she did not know what had happened, she no doubt understood that some kind of trouble had entered the house.
Drawing a roll of needlework from her pocket, she quietly occupied herself with it until Elise, unable to endure the silence longer, said, "Oh, Sister Benigna, is it not time we did something about the Sisters' House? I have been reading about one: I forget where it is. What a beautiful Home you and I could make for poor people, and sick girls not able to work, and old women! We ought to have such a Home in Spenersberg. I have been thinking all day it is what we must have, and it is time we set about it."
"I do not agree with you," was the quiet answer. "There is no real need for it here, and perhaps there never will be. Work that is so unnecessary might better be avoided. In Spenersberg it is better that the poor and the old and the sick should be cared for in their homes, by their own households: there is no want here."
"Will you read what I have been reading?" said Elise, hesitating, not willing yet to give up the project which looked so full of promise.
"I know all about Sisters' Houses, and they are excellent institutions, but if you will go from house to house here you will find that you would probably keep house by yourself a long time if you opened such an establishment. No, no: you have your work all prepared for you, and I certainly have mine. There is a good deal to be done yet for the festival. Tomorrow, after five, come to the schoolroom and we will practice a while. And we might do something here tonight. The children surprise me: I seem to be surrounded by a little company of angels while they sing."
"Oh, Sister Benigna," exclaimed Elise throwing down her work in despair, "I don't in the least care about the festival. I should be glad to know it was all given up. I cannot sing at it. I think I have lost my voice: I do, indeed. I tried it this afternoon, and I croaked worse than anything you ever heard."
"Croaked? We must see to that," said Sister Benigna; but, though her voice was so cheerful, she closed her eyes as she spoke, and passed her hands over them, and in spite of herself a look of pain was for an instant visible on her always pale face. She rose quickly and walked across the room, and crossed it twice before she came again to the window.
"You don't understand me to-day," said Elise impetuously; "and I don't want you to." But Elise would not have spoken at all had she looked at Sister Benigna.
A silence of many seconds, which seemed much longer to Elise, followed her words. She did not dare to go on. What was Sister Benigna thinking? Would she never speak? Had she nothing to say? Elise was about to rise also, because to sit still in that silence or to break it by words had become equally impossible, when Sister Benigna, approaching gently, laid her hand upon her and said, "Wait one moment: I have something to tell you, Elise."
And so Elise sat down. She could not summon the strength to go with that voice in her ear and the touch of that hand arresting her.
"I once had a friend as young as you are, of whom you often remind me," said Benigna. "She had a lover, and their faith led them to seek a knowledge of the Lord's will concerning their marriage. It was inquired for them, and it was found against the union. You often remind me of her, I said, but your fortunes are not at all like hers."
"Sister Benigna, why do you tell me this?" asked Elise quickly, in a voice hardly audible. She was afraid to listen. She recalled Albert's words. She did not know if she might trust the friendly voice that spoke.
"Because I have always thought that some time it would be well for you to hear it; but if you do not wish to hear it, I will go no farther."
Elise looked at Benigna—not trust her! "Please go on," she said.
"I knew the poor child very well. She had grown up in an unhappy home, and had never known what it was to have comfort and peace in the house, or even plenty to eat and to wear. She was expected to go out and earn her living as soon as she had learned the use of her hands and feet. Poor child! she felt her fortune was a hard one, but God always cared for her. In one way and another she in time picked up enough knowledge of music to teach beginners. The first real friend she had was the friend who became so dear to her that—I need not try to find words to tell you how dear he was.
"She was soon skilled enough to be able to take more intelligent and advanced pupils, and in the church-music she had the leading parts. By and by the music was put into her hands for festivals and the great days, Christmas and Easter, as it has been put into mine here in Spenersberg. One day he said to her, 'It seems to us the best thing in life to be near each other. Would it might be God's will that we should never part!' She responded to that prayer from the depths of her heart, and a great gulf seemed to open before her, for she thought what would her life be worth if they were destined to part? Then he said, 'Let us inquire the will of our Lord;' and she said, 'Let it be so;' and they had faith that would enable them to abide by the decision. The lot pronounced against them. I do not believe that it had entered the heart of either of them to understand how necessary they had become to each other, and when they saw that all was over it was a sad awaking. For a little while it was with both as if they had madly thrown a birthright away; for, though they had faith, they were not yet perfect in it. Not soon did either see that this life had a blessing for them every day—new every morning, fresh every evening—and that from everlasting to everlasting are the mercies of God. But at last he said, 'I am afraid, my darling'" (Elise started at this word of endearment. It was like a revelation to think that there had been lovers in the world before her time), "'it will go harder with me than with you. I cannot stay here and go on with my work. I must go among new people, and begin again.' And so he went away, and at last, when by the grace of God they met again—surely, surely by no seeking of their own—they were no less true friends because they had for their lifetime been led into separate paths. Their faith saved them."
Low though the voice was in which these last words were spoken, there was a strength and inspiration in them which Elise felt. She looked at Sister Benigna with steady, wondering eyes. Such a story from her lips, and told so, and told now! And her countenance! what divine beauty glowed in it! The moment had a vision that could never be forgotten.
Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now rise to depart. She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and so they sat silent until the first chords of the "Pastoral Symphony" drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by the pure in heart.
About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his home.
Through the sleepless night Elise's thoughts were constantly going over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her. But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the reason, perhaps, that Elise's sympathies had been more powerfully excited by the tale than her faith. It was not upon the final result of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed: her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl's early life, and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary. "How fearful!" she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.
Of all doubts that could afflict the soul of Sister Benigna, none more distracting than this was conceivable: Had she proved the best instructor to this child of her spirit? Had she even been capable of teaching her truest truth? Was it the truth or herself to which Elise was always deferring? Was obedience a duty when not impelled and sanctified by faith? In what did the prime virtue of resignation consist? Would not obedience without faith be merely a debasing superstitious submission to the will of the believing? Her reflections were not suggested by a shrewd guess. She knew that the lot had been resorted to, and that the letters had been written to Elise and Albert which acquainted them with the result; and the peace of her prayerful soul was rent by the thought that a joyless surrender of human will to a higher was, perhaps, no better than the poor helpless slave's extorted sacrifice. The happiness of the household seemed to Benigna in her keeping. If they had gone lightly seeking the oracle of God, as they would have sought a fortune-teller, was not the Most High dishonored? She could not say this to Elise, but could she say it to Albert Spener? Ought she not to say it to him? There was no other to whom it could be said. Had the coming day any duty so imperative as this? She arose to perform it, but Spener, as we know, had gone away the day before.
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER VI.
THE MEN OF SPENERSBERG.
This Spenersberg, about which Leonhard was not a little eager to know more when he shut the door of the apartment into which his host had ushered him—for he must remain all night—what was it?
A colony, or a brotherhood, or a community, six years old. Such a fact does not lie ready for observation every day—such a place does not lie in the hand of a man at his bidding. What, then, was its history? We need not wait to find out until morning, when Leonhard will proceed to discover. He is satisfied when he lies down upon the bed, which awaited him, it seems, as he came hither on the way-train—quite satisfied that Spener of Spenersberg must be a man worth seeing. Breathing beings possessed of ideas and homes here must have been handled with power by a master mind to have brought about this community, if so it is to be called, in six short years, thinks Leonhard. He recalls his own past six years, and turns uneasily on his bed, and finds no rest until he reminds himself of the criticism he has been enabled to pass on Miss Elise's rendering of "He is a righteous Saviour," and the suggestion he made concerning the pitch of "Ye shall find rest for your souls." The recollection acts upon him somewhat as the advancing wave acts on the sand-line made by the wave preceding. When he made the first suggestion, Sister Benigna stood for a moment looking at him, surprised by his remark; but, less than a second taken up with a thought of him, she had passed instantly on to say, "Try it so, Elise: 'He is a righteous Saviour.' We will make it a slower movement. Ah! how impressive! how beautiful! It is the composer's very thought! Again—slow: it is perfect!"
Was this kind of praise worth the taking? a source of praise worth the seeking? Leonhard had said ungrateful things about his prize-credentials to Miss Marion Ayres, and I do believe that these very prizes, awarded for his various drawings, were never so valued by him as the look with which priestly Benigna seemed to admit him at least so far as into the fellowship of the Gentiles' Court.
He would have fallen asleep just here with a pleasant thought but for the recollection of Wilberforce's letter, which startled him hardly less than the apparition of his friend in the moonlight streaming through his half-curtained window would have done. Is it always so pleasant a thought that for ever and ever a man shall bear his own company?
But this Spenersberg? Seven years ago, on the day when he came of age, Albert Spener, then a young clerk in a fancy-goods store, went to look at the estate which his grandfather had bequeathed to him the year preceding. Not ten years ago the old man made his will and gave the property, on which he had not quite starved, to his only grandson, and here was this worthless gorge which stretched between the fields more productive than many a famous gold-mine.
The youth had seen at once that if he should deal with the land as his predecessors had done, he would be able to draw no more from the stingy acres than they. He had shown the bent of his mind and the nature of his talent by the promptness with which he put things remote together, and by the directness with which he reached his conclusions.
He had left his town-lodgings, having obtained of his employer leave of absence for one week, and within twenty-four hours had come to his conclusion and returned to his post. Of that estate which he had inherited but a portion, and a very small portion, offered to the cultivator the least encouragement. The land had long ago been stripped of its forest trees, and, thus defrauded of its natural fertilizers, lay now, after successive seasons of drain and waste, as barren as a desert, with the exception of that narrow strip between the hills which apparently bent low that inland might look upon river.
Along the banks of the stream, which flowed, a current of considerable depth and swiftness, toward its outlet, the river, willows were growing. Albert's employer was an importer to a small extent, and fancy willow-ware formed a very considerable share of his importations. The conclusion he had reached while surveying his land was an answer to the question he had asked himself: Why should not this land be made to bring forth the kind of willow used by basket-weavers, and why should not basket-weavers be induced to gather into a community of some sort, and so importers be beaten in the market by domestic productions? The aim thus clearly defined Spener had accomplished. His Moravians furnished him with a willow-ware which was always quoted at a high figure, and the patriotic pride the manufacturer felt in the enterprise was abundantly rewarded: no foreign mark was ever found on his home-made goods.
But his Moravians: where did these people come from, and how came they to be known as his?
The question brings us to Frederick Loretz. In those days he was a porter in the establishment where Spener was a clerk. He had filled this situation only one month, however, when he was attacked with a fever which was scourging the neighborhood, and taken to the hospital. Albert followed him thither with kindly words and care, for the poor fellow was a stranger in the town, and he had already told Spener his dismal story. Afar from wife and child, among strangers and a pauper, his doom, he believed, was to die. How he bemoaned his wasted life then, and the husks which he had eaten!
In his delirium Loretz would have put an end to his life. Spener talked him out of this horror of himself, and showed him that there was always opportunity, while life lasted, for wanderers to seek again the fold they had strayed from; for when the delirium passed the man's conscience remained, and he confessed that he had lived away from the brethren of his faith, and was an outcast. Oh, if he could but be transported to Herrnhut and set down there a well man in that sanctuary of Moravianism, how devoutly would he return to the faith and practice of his fathers!
When Spener returned from his trip of investigation he hastened immediately to the hospital, sought out poor half-dead Loretz, laid his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Come, get up: I want you." And he explained his project: "I will build a house for you, send for your wife and child, put you all together, and start you in life. I am going into the basket business, and I want you to look after my willows. After they are pretty well grown you shall get in some families—Simon-Pure Moravians, you know—and we will have a village of our own. D'ye hear me?"
The poor fellow did hear: he struggled up in his bed, threw his arms around Spener's neck, tried to kiss him, and fainted.
"This is a good beginning," said Spener to himself as he laid the senseless head upon the pillow and felt for the beating heart. The beating heart was there. In a few moments Loretz was looking, with eyes that shone with loving gratitude and wondering admiration, on the young man who had saved his life.
"I have no money," said this youth in further explanation of his project—for he wanted his companion to understand his circumstances from the outset—"but I shall borrow five thousand dollars. I can pay the interest on that sum out of my salary. Perhaps I shall sell a few lots on the river, if I can turn attention to the region. It will all come out right, anyhow. Now, how soon can you be ready? I will write to your wife to-day if you say so, and tell her to come on with the little girl."
"Wait a week," said Loretz in a whisper; and all that night and the following day his chances for this world and the next seemed about equal.
But after that he rallied, and his recovery was certain. It was slow, however, hastened though it was by the hope and expectation which had opened to him when he had reached the lowest depth of despair and covered himself with the ashes of repentance.
The letter for the wife and little girl was written, and money sent to bring them from the place where Loretz had left them when he set out in search of occupation, to find employment as a porter, and the fever, and Albert Spener.
During the first year of co-working Loretz devoted himself to the culture of the willow, and then, as time passed on and hands were needed, he brought one family after another to the place—Moravians all—until now there were at least five hundred inhabitants in Spenersberg, a large factory and a church, whereof Spener himself was a member "in good and regular standing."
Seven years of incessant labor, directed by a wise foresight, which looked almost like inspiration and miracle, had resulted in all this real prosperity. Loretz never stopped wondering at it, and yet he could have told you every step of the process. All that had been done he had had a hand in, but the devising brain was Spener's; and no wonder that, in spite of his familiarity with the details, the sum-total of the activities put forth in that valley should have seemed to Loretz marvelous, magical.
He had many things to rejoice over besides his own prosperity. His daughter was in all respects a perfect being, to his thinking. For six years now she had been under the instruction of Sister Benigna, not only in music, but in all things that Sister Benigna, a well-instructed woman, could teach. She sang, as Leonhard Marten would have told you, "divinely," she was beautiful to look upon, and Albert Spener desired to marry her.
Surely the Lord had blessed him, and remembered no more those years of wanderings when, alienated from the brethren, he sought out his own ways and came close upon destruction. What should he return to the beneficent Giver for all these benefits?
Poor Loretz! In his prosperity he thought that he should never be moved, but he would not basely use that conviction and forget the source of all his satisfaction. He remembered that it was when he repented of his misdeeds that Spener came to him and drew him from the pit. He could never look upon Albert as other than a divine agent; and when Spener joined himself to the Moravians, led partly by his admiration of them, partly by religious impulse, and partly because of his conviction that to be wholly successful he and his people must form a unit, his joy was complete.
The proposal for Elise's hand had an effect upon her father which any one who knew him well might have looked for and directed. The pride of his life was satisfied. He remembered that he and his Anna, in seeking to know the will of the Lord in respect to their marriage, had been answered favorably by the lot. He desired the signal demonstration of heavenly will in regard to the nuptials proposed. Not a shadow of a doubt visited his mind as to the result, and the influence of his faith upon Spener was such that he acquiesced in the measure, though not without remonstrance and misgiving and mental reservation.
To find his way up into the region of faith, and quiet himself there when the result of the seeking was known, was almost impossible for Loretz. He could fear the Judge who had decreed, but could he trust in Him? He began to grope back among his follies of the past, seeking a crime he had not repented, as the cause of this domestic calamity. But ah! to reap such a harvest as this for any youthful folly! Poor soul! little he knew of vengeance and retribution. He was at his wit's end, incapable alike of advancing, retreating or of peaceful surrender.
It was pleasant to him to think, in the night-watches, of the young man who occupied the room next to his. He did not see—at least had not yet seen—in Leonhard a messenger sent to the house, as did his wife; but the presence of the young stranger spoke favorable things in his behalf; and then, as there was really nothing to be done about this decision, anything that gave a diversion to sombre thoughts was welcome. Sister Benigna had spoken very kindly to Leonhard in the evening, and he had pointed out a place in one of Elise's solos where by taking a higher key in a single passage a marvelous effect could be produced. That showed knowledge; and he said that he had taught music. Perhaps he would like to remain until after the congregation festival had taken place.
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER VII.
THE BOOK.
In the morning the master of the house rapped on Leonhard's door and said: "When you come down I have something to show you." The voice of Mr. Loretz had almost its accustomed cheerfulness of tone, and he ended his remark with a brief "Ha! ha!" peculiar to him, which not only expressed his own good-humor, but also invited good-humored response.
Leonhard answered cheerily, and in a few moments he had descended the steep uncovered stair to the music-room.
"Now for the book," Loretz called out as Leonhard entered.
How handsome our young friend looked as he stood there shaking hands with the elderly man, whose broad, florid face now actually shone with hospitable feeling!
"Is father going to claim you as one of us, Mr. Marten?" asked the wife of Loretz, who answered her husband's call by coming into the room and bringing with her a large volume wrapped in chamois skin.
"What shall I be, then?" asked Leonhard. "A wiser and a better man, I do not doubt."
"What! you do not know?" the good woman stayed to say. "Has nobody told you where you are, my young friend?"
"I never before found myself in a place I should like to stay in always; so what does the rest signify?" answered Leonhard. "What's in a name?"
"Not much perhaps, yet something," said Loretz. "We are all Moravians here. I was going to look in this book here for the names of your ancestors. I thought perhaps you knew about Spenersberg."
"I am as new to it all as Christopher Columbus was to the West India islands. If you find the names of my kinsmen down in your book, sir, it—it will be a marvelous, happy sight for me," said Leonhard.
"I'll try my hand at it," said Loretz. "Ha! ha!" and he opened the volume, which was bound in black leather, the leaves yellowed with years. "This book," he continued, "is one hundred and fifty years old. You will find recorded in it the names of all my grandfather's friends, and all my father's. See, it is our way. There are all the dates. Where they lived, see, and where they died. It is all down. A man cannot feel himself cut off from his kind as long as he has a volume like that in his library. I have added a few names of my own friends, and their birthdays. Here, you see, is Sister Benigna's, written with her own hand. A most remarkable woman, sir. True as steel—always the same. But"—he paused a moment and looked at Leonhard with his head inclined to one side, and an expression of perplexity upon his face—"there's something out of the way here in this country. I have not more than one name down to a dozen in my father's record, and twenty in my grandfather's. We do not make friends, and we do not keep them, as they did in old time. We don't trust each other as men ought to. Half the time we find ourselves wondering whether the folks we're dealing with are honest. Now think of that!"
"Are men any worse than they were in the old time?" asked Leonhard, evidently not entering into the conversation with the keenest enjoyment.
"I do not know how it is," said Loretz with a sigh, continuing to turn the leaves of the book as he spoke.
"Perhaps we have less imagination, and don't look at every new-comer as a friend until we have tried him," suggested Leonhard. "We decide that everybody shall be tested before we accept him. And isn't it the best way? Better than to be disappointed, when we have set our heart on a man—or a woman."
"I do not know—I cannot account for it," said Mr. Loretz. Then with a sudden start he laid his right hand on the page before him, and with a great pleased smile in his deep-set, small blue eyes he said: "Here is your name. I felt sure I should find it: I felt certain it was down. See here, on my grandfather's page—Leonhard Marten, Herrnhut, 1770. How do you like that?"
"I like it well," said Leonhard, bending over the book and examining the close-fisted autograph set down strongly in unfading ink. Had he found an ancestor at last? What could have amazed him as much?
"What have you found?" asked Mrs. Loretz, who had heard these remarks in the next room, where she was actively making preparations for the breakfast, which already sent forth its odorous invitations.
"We have found the name," answered her husband. "Come and see. I have read it, I dare say, a hundred times: that was what made me feel that an old friend had come."
"That means," said the good woman, hastening in at her husband's call, and reading the name with a pleased smile—"that means that you belong to us. I thought you did. I am glad."
Were these folk so intent on securing a convert that in these various ways they made the young stranger feel that he was not among strangers in this unknown Spenersberg? Nothing was farther from their thought: they only gave to their kindly feeling hearty utterance, and perhaps spoke with a little extra emphasis because the constraint they secretly felt in consequence of their household trouble made them unanimous in the effort to put it out of sight—not out of this stranger's sight, but out of their own.
"Perhaps you will stop with us a while, and maybe write your name on my page before you go," said Loretz, afraid that his wife had gone a little too far.
"Without a single test?" Leonhard answered. "Haven't we just agreed that we wise men don't take each other on trust, as they did in our grandfathers' day?"
"A man living in Herrnhut in 1770 would not have for a descendant a—a man I could not trust," said Loretz, closing the book and placing it in its chamois covering again. "Breakfast, mother, did you say?"
"Have you wanted ink?" asked Sister Benigna, entering at that instant. "Are we writing in the sacred birthday book?"
"Not yet," said Leonhard hastily, the color rising to his face in a way to suggest forked lightning somewhere beyond sight.
"You have wanted ink, and are too kind to let me know," she said. "I emptied the bottle copying music for the children yesterday."
"The ink was put to a better use then than I could have found for it this morning," said Leonhard.
And Mrs. Loretz, who looked into the room just then, said to herself, as her eyes fell on him, "Poor soul! he is in trouble."
In fact, this thought was in Leonhard's mind as he went into breakfast with the family: "A deuced good friend I have proved—to Wilberforce! Isn't there anybody here clear-eyed enough to see that it would be like forgery to write my name down in a book of friendship?"
The morning meal was enlivened by much more than the usual amount of talk. Leonhard was curious to know about Herrnhut, that old home of Moravianism, and the interest which he manifested in the history Loretz was so eager to communicate made him in turn an object of almost affectionate attention. That he had no facts of private biography to communicate in turn did net attract notice, because, however many such facts he might have ready to produce, by the time Loretz had done talking it was necessary that the day's work should begin.
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER VIII.
CONFERENCE MEETING.
The school-room was a large apartment in the basement of the factory which had been used as a drying-room until it became necessary to find for the increasing numbers of the little flock more spacious accommodations. The basement was entered by a door at the end of the building opposite that by which the operatives entered the factory, and the hours were so timed that the children went and came without disturbance to themselves or others. The path that led to the basement door was neatly bordered with flowering plants and bushes, and sunlight was always to be found there, if anywhere in the valley, from eight o'clock till two.
Leonhard walked to the factory with Sister Benigna, to whose conduct Loretz had consigned him when called away by the tower bell.
At the door of the basement Mr. Wenck was standing with a printed copy of Handel's sacred oratorio of The Messiah in his hand. Evidently he was waiting for Sister Benigna.
But when she had said to Leonhard, "Pass on to the other end of the building and you will find the entrance, and Mr. Spener's office in the corner as you enter," and Leonhard had thanked her, and bowed and passed on, and she turned to Mr. Wenck, it was very little indeed that he said or had to say about the music which he held in his hand.
"I have no doubt that all the preparation necessary for to-morrow evening is being made," he said. "You may need this book. But I did not come to talk about it. Sister Benigna," he continued in a different tone, and a voice not quite under his control, "is it not unreasonable to have passed a sleepless night thinking of Albert and Elise?"
"Very unreasonable." But he had not charged her, as she supposed, with that folly, as his next words showed.
"It is, and yet I have done it—only because all this might have been so easily avoided."
"And yet it was unavoidable," said she, looking toward the school-room door as one who had no time to waste in idle talk.
"Not that I question the wisdom of the resort if all were of one mind," said Mr. Wenck, who had the dreary all-day before him, and was not in the least pressed for time. "But I can see that even on the part of Brother Loretz the act was not a genuine act of faith."
Startled by the expression the minister was giving to her secret thoughts, Benigna exclaimed, "And yet what can be done?"
"Nothing," he answered. "If Loretz should yield to Spener, and if I should—do you not see he has had everything his own way here?—he would feel that nothing could stand in opposition to him. If he were a different man! And they are both so young!"
"I know that Elise has a conscience that will hold her fast to duty," said Benigna, but she did not speak hopefully: she spoke deliberately, however, thinking that these words conscience and duty might arrest the minister's attention, and that he would perhaps, by some means, throw light upon questions which were constantly becoming more perplexing to her. Was conscience an unfailing guide? Was one person's duty to be pronounced upon by another without scruple, and defined with unfaltering exactness? But the words had not arrested the minister's attention.
"If they could only see that there is nothing to be done!" said he. "Oh, they will, Benigna! Had they only the faith, Benigna!"
"Yet how vain their sacrifice, for they have it not!" said she. And as if she would not prolong an interview which must be full of pain, because no light could proceed from any words that would be given them to speak, Sister Benigna turned abruptly toward the basement door when she had said this, and entered it without bestowing a parting glance even on the minister.
He walked away after an instant's hesitation: indeed there was nothing further to be said, and she did well to go.
Going homeward by a path which led along the hillside above the village street, he must pass the small house separated from all others—the house which was the appointed resting-place of all who lived in Spenersberg to die there—known as the Corpse-house. To it the bodies of deceased persons were always taken after death, and there they remained until the hour when they were carried forth for burial.
As Mr. Wenck approached he saw that the door stood open: a few steps farther, and this fact was accounted for. A bent and wrinkled old woman stood there with a broom in her hand, which she had been using in a plain, straight-forward manner.
"Ah, Mary," he said, "what does this mean, my good woman?"
"It is the minister," she answered in a low voice, curtseying. "I was moved to come here this morning, sir, and see to things. It was time to be brushing up a little, I thought. It is a month now since the last."
"I will take down the old boughs then, and garnish the walls with new ones. And have you looked at the lamp too, Mary?"
"It is trimmed, sir," said the woman; and the minister's readiness to assist her drew forth the confession: "I was thinking on my bed in the night-watches that it must be done. There will one be going home soon. And it may be myself, sir. I could not have been easy if I had not come up to tidy the house."
Having finished her task, which was a short one and easily performed, the woman now waited to watch the minister as he selected cedar boughs and wove them into wreaths, and suspended them from the walls and rafters of the little room; and it comforted the simple soul when, standing in the doorway, the good man lifted his eyes toward heaven and said in the words of the church litany:
From error and misunderstanding,
From the loss of our glory in Thee,
From self-complacency,
From untimely projects,
From needless perplexity,
From the murdering spirit and devices of Satan,
From the influence of the spirit of this world,
From hypocrisy and fanaticism,
From the deceitfulness of sin,
From all sin,
Preserve us, gracious Lord and God—
and devoutly she joined in with him in the solemn responsive cry.
It was very evident that the minister's work that day was not to be performed in his silent home among his books.
On the brightest day let the sun become eclipsed, and how the earth will pine! What melancholy will pervade the busy streets, the pleasant fields and woods! How disconsolately the birds will seek their mates and their nests!
The children came together, but many a half hour passed during which the shadow of an Unknown seemed to come between them and their teacher. The bright soul, was she too suffering from an eclipse? Does it happen that all souls, even the most valiant, most loving, least selfish, come in time to passes so difficult that, shrinking back, they say, "Why should I struggle to gain the other side? What is there worth seeking? Better to end all here. This life is not worth enduring"? And yet, does it also come to pass as certainly that these valiant, unselfish, loving ones will struggle, fight, climb, wade, creep on, on while the breath of life remains in them, and never surrender? It seemed as if Sister Benigna had arrived at a place where her baffled spirit stood still and felt its helplessness. Could she do nothing for Elise, the dear child for whose happiness she would cheerfully give her life, and not think the price too dear?
By and by the children were aware that Sister Benigna had come again among them: the humblest little flower lifted up its head, and the smallest bird began to chirp and move about and smooth its wings.
Sister Benigna! what had she recollected?—that but a single day perhaps was hers to live, and here were all these children! As she turned with ardent zeal to her work—which indeed had not failed of accustomed conduct so far as routine went—tell me what do you find in those lovely eyes if not the heavenliest assurances? Let who will call the scene of this life's operations a vale of tears, a world of misery, a prison-house of the spirit, here is one who asks for herself nothing of honors or riches or pleasures, and who can bless the Lord God for the glory of the earth he has created, and for those everlasting purposes of his which mortals can but trust in, and which are past finding out. Children, let us do our best to-day, and wait until to-morrow for to-morrow's gifts. This exhortation was in the eyes, mien, conduct of the teacher, and so she led them on until, when they came to practice their hymns for the festival, every little heart and voice was in tune, and she praised them with voice so cheerful, how should they guess that it had ever been choked by anguish or had ever fainted in despair?
O young eyes saddening over what is to you a painful, insoluble problem! yet a little while and you shall see the mists of morning breaking everywhere, and the great conquering sun will enfold you too in its warm embrace: the humble laurels of the mountain's side, even as the great pines and cedars of the mountain's crest, have but to receive and use what the sterile rock and the blinding cloud, the wintry tempest and the rain and the summer's heat bestow, and lo! the heights are alive with glory. But it is not in a day.
[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER IX.
WILL THE ARCHITECT HAVE EMPLOYMENT?
On entering the factory, Leonhard met Loretz near the door talking with Albert Spener. When he saw Leonhard, Loretz said, "I was just saying to Mr. Spener that I expected you, sir, and how he might recognize you; but you shall speak for yourself. If you will spend a little time looking about, I shall be back soon: perhaps Mr. Spener—"
"Mr. Leonhard Marten, I believe," said Mr. Albert Spener with a little exaggeration of his natural stiffness. Perhaps he did not suspect that all the morning he had been manifesting considerable loftiness toward Loretz, and that he spoke in a way that made Leonhard feel that his departure from Spenersberg would probably take place within something less than twenty-four hours.
Yet within half an hour the young men were walking up and down the factory, examining machinery and work, and talking as freely as if they had known each other six months. They were not in everything as unlike as they were in person. Spener was a tall, spare man, who conveyed an impression of mental strength and physical activity. He could turn his hand to anything, and attempt anything that was to be done by skillful handicraft; and whether he could use his wits well in shaping men, let Spenersberg answer. His square-shaped head was covered with bright brown hair, which had a reddish tinge, and his moustache was of no stinted growth: his black eyes penetrated and flashed, and could glow and glare in a way to make weakness and feebleness tremble. His quick speech did not spare: right and left he used his swords of thought and will. Fall in! or, Out of the way! were the commands laid down by him since the foundations of Spenersberg were laid. In the fancy-goods line he might have made of himself a spectacle, supposing he could have remained in the trade; but set apart here in this vale, the centre of a sphere of his own creation, where there was something at stake vast enough to justify the exercise of energy and authority, he had a field for the fair play of all that was within him—the worst and the best. The worst that he could be he was—a tyrant; and the best that he could be he was—a lover. Hitherto his tyrannies had brought about good results only, but it was well that the girl he loved had not only spirit and courage enough to love him, but also faith enough to remove mountains.
If Leonhard had determined that he would make a friend of Spener before he entered the factory, he could not have proceeded more wisely than he did. First, he was interested in the works, and intent on being told about the manufacture of articles of furniture from a product ostensibly of such small account as the willow; then he was interested in the designs and surprised at the ingenious variety, and curious to learn their source, and amazed to hear that Mr. Spener had himself originated more than half of them. Then presently he began to suggest designs, and at the end of an hour he found himself at a table in Spener's office drawing shapes for baskets and chairs and tables and ornamental devices, and making Spener laugh so at some remark as to be heard all over the building.
"You say you are an architect," he said after Leonhard had covered a sheet of paper with suggestions written and outlined for him, which he looked at with swiftly-comprehending and satisfied eyes. "What do you say to doing a job for me?"
"With all my heart," answered Leonhard, "if it can be done at once."
These words were in the highest degree satisfactory. Here was a man who knew the worth of a minute. He was the man for Spener. "Come with me," he said, "and I'll show you a building-site or two worth putting money on;" and so they walked together out of the factory, crossed a rustic foot-bridge to the opposite side, ascended a sunny half-cleared slope and passed across a field; and there beneath them, far below, rolled the grand river which had among its notable ports this little Spenersberg.
"What do you think of a house on this site, sir?" asked Spener, looking with no small degree of satisfaction around him and down the rocky steep.
"I think I should like to be commissioned to build a castle with towers and gates of this very granite which you could hew out by the thousand cord from the quarry yonder. What a perfect gray for building!"
"I have always thought I would use the material on the ground—the best compliment I could pay this place which I have raised my fortune out of," said Spener.
"There's no better material on the earth," said Leonhard.
"But I don't want a castle: I want a house with room enough in it—high ceilings, wide halls, and a piazza fifteen or twenty feet wide all around it."
"Must I give up the castle? There isn't a better site on the Rhine than this."
"But I'm not a baron, and I live at peace with my neighbors—at least with outsiders." That last remark was an unfortunate one, for it brought the speaker back consciously to confront the images which were constantly lurking round him—only hid when he commanded them out of sight in the manfulness of a spirit that would not be interfered with in its work. He sat looking at Leonhard opposite to him, who had already taken a note-book and pencil from his pocket, and, planting his left foot firmly against one of the great rocks of the cliff, he said, "Loretz tells me you stayed all night at his house."
"Yes, he invited me in when I inquired my way to the inn."
"Sister Benigna was there?"
"She wasn't anywhere else," said Leonhard, looking up and smiling. "Excuse the slang. If you are where she is, you may feel very certain about her being there."
"Not at all," said Albert, evidently nettled into argument by the theme he had introduced. "She is one of those persons who can be in several places at the same time. You heard them sing, I suppose. They are preparing for the congregation festival. It is six years since we started here, but we only built our church last year: this year we have the first celebration in the edifice, and of course there is great preparation."
"I have been wondering how I could go away before it takes place ever since I heard of it."
"If you wonder less how you can stay, remain of course," said Spener with no great cordiality: he owed this stranger nothing, after all.
"It will only be to prove that I am really music-mad, as they have been telling me ever since I was born. If that is the case, from the evidences I have had since I came here I think I shall recover."
"What do you mean?" asked Spener.
"I mean that I see how little I really know about the science. I never heard anything to equal the musical knowledge and execution of Loretz's daughter and this Sister Benigna you speak of."
"Ah! I am not a musician. I tried the trombone, but lacked the patience. I am satisfied to admire. And so you liked the singers? Which best?"
"Both."
"Come, come—what was the difference?"
"The difference?" repeated Leonhard reflecting.
Spener also seemed to reflect on his question, and was so absorbed in his thinking that he seemed to be startled when Leonhard, from his studies of the square house with the wide halls and the large rooms with high ceilings, turned to him and said, "The difference, sir, is between two women."
"No difference at all, do you mean? Do you mean they are alike? They are not alike."
"Not so alike that I have seen anything like either of them."
"Ah! neither have I. For that reason I shall marry one of them, while the other I would not marry—no, not if she were the only woman on the continent."
"You are a fortunate man," said Leonhard.
"I intend to prove that. Nothing more is necessary than the girl's consent—is there?—if you have made up your mind that you must have her."
"I should think you might say that, sir."
"But you don't hazard an opinion as to which, sir."
"Not I."
"Why not?"
"It might be Miss Elise, if—"
"If what?"
"I am not accustomed to see young ladies in their homes. I have only fancied sometimes what a pretty girl might be in her father's house."
"Well, sir?" said Spener impatiently.
"A young lady like Miss Elise would have a great deal to say, I should suppose."
"Is she dumb? I thought she could talk. I should have said so."
"I should have guessed, too, that she would always be singing about the house."
"And if not—what then?"
"Something must be going wrong somewhere. So you see it can't be Miss Elise, according to my judgment."
Spener laughed when this conclusion was reached.
"Come here again within a month and see if she can talk and sing," said he with eyes flashing. "Perhaps you have found that it is as easy to frighten a bugbear out of the way as to be frightened by one. I never found, sir, that I couldn't put a stumbling-block out of my path. We have one little man here who is going to prove himself a nuisance, I'm afraid. He is a good little fellow, too. I always liked him until he undertook to manage my affairs. I don't propose to give up the reins yet a while, and until I do, you see, he has no chance. I am sorry about it, for I considered him quite like a friend; but a friend, sir, with a flaw in him is worse than an enemy. I know where to find my enemies, but I can't keep track of a man who pretends to be a friend and serves me ill. But pshaw! let me see what you are doing."
Leonhard was glad when the man ceased from discoursing on friendship—a favorite theme among Spenersbergers, he began to think—and glad to break away from his work, for he held his pencil less firmly than he should have done.
Spener studied the portion completed, and seemed surprised as well as pleased. "You know your business," said he. "Be so good as to finish the design."
Then returning the book to Leonhard, he looked at his watch. "It is time I went to dinner," he said. "Come with me. Loretz knows you are with me, and will expect you to be my guest to-day." So they walked across the field, but did not descend by the path along which they had ascended. They went farther to the east, and Spener led the way down the rough hillside until he came to a point whence the descent was less steep and difficult. There he paused. A beautiful view was spread before them. Little Spenersberg lay on the slope opposite: between ran the stream, which widened farther toward the east and narrowed toward the west, where it emptied into the river. Eastward the valley also widened, and there the willows grew, and looked like a great garden, beautiful in every shade of green.
"I should not have the river from this point," said Spener, "but I should have a great deal more, and be nearer the people: I do not think it would be the thing to appear even to separate myself from them. I have done a great deal not so agreeable to me, I assure you, in order to bring myself near to them. One must make sacrifices to obtain his ends: it is only to count the cost and then be ready to put down the money. Suppose you plant a house just here."
"How could it be done?"
"You an architect and ask me!"
"Things can be planted anywhere," answered Leonhard, "but whether the cost of production will not be greater than the fruit is worth, is the question. You can have a platform built here as broad as that the temple stood on if you are willing to pay for the foundations."
"That is the talk!" said Spener. "Take a square look, and let me know what you can do toward a house on the hillside. You see there is no end of raw material for building, and it is a perfect prospect. But come now to dinner."
CAROLINE CHESEBRO.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]