"I shall ask, then, good brother, that our friend who sayeth his name is Thomas Seymour be affirmed that he will speak the truth."
And then as the stranger faced about toward the pulpit, our justice with his full, round voice that ever sounded to me like some strong, deep toned bell, said to the stranger:
"Dost thou, Thomas Seymour, solemnly and truly declare and affirm that thou wilt tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and so thou dost affirm?"
To which the stranger as solemnly replied, and yet distinctly in the breathless silence of the hall, "Yea!"
And now, after all these long years, my boy found his own, right name; and mine own reputation, often so bitterly assailed by those who held not with our mode of life, was cleansed from all stain and dishonor; for truly "a good name is better than great riches."
And thus our good brother, Thomas Seymour, whom many present with us this day vouched to be one of our most devout and influential English Sabbatarians, from Coventry, had come all this long journey merely to honor us with his presence; but in the providence of God destined to find his brother's son and to have all this dark mystery about Brother Alburtus and the witch and Sonnlein made as light as day.
Briefly, as our Brother Seymour related it to us, he and his brother David, known to us as Brother Alburtus, with his wife Elizabeth and their boy, Charles, our Brother Thomas being a bachelor, had lived together in Coventry. By the fall of a tree, which they were felling nigh their cabin, Brother Alburtus received the great gash across his brow, the hurt taking his mind from him so that one day he wandered away leaving no more trace of his departure than if he had been taken up into the sky, only that he had frequently after his hurt spoken ramblingly about joining the hermits on the Cocalico. Inquiry among the Solitary showed he was not with them; for it was not until some years after Sonnlein and I came to Ephrata that Brother Alburtus joined our community, and where and how he lived ere that no one ever knew. Some weeks after he had left his wife, she, unable longer to endure her suspense, left suddenly with the little boy, while our brother Thomas was absent from the cabin. She and the child also were swallowed up so completely by the wilderness that with all his long searching naught could he find of them, though he had visited the Conestogas, on a rumor that there was a white woman living with them, but they could not or would not tell him aught. At last, almost heartbroken and despairing of finding the lost ones, whom he now believed to be dead from the wild beasts, or starvation, or the Indians, he left Coventry, not returning again for over ten years after the loss of his brother David and his wife and child.
More we never learned, but it was clear to all that the fearsome witch was the wife of Brother Alburtus, that he was David Seymour, the brother of Thomas Seymour, and that Sonnlein was the baby. Many an eye was dimmed in the Saal at the plain, unadorned recital of our brother's tale, as we thought of all the long years of darkened mind that had held our Brother Alburtus, so that he knew not his own boy though so nigh; but most of all our hearts went out in a great sorrow for that poor woman who half crazed by unwearying search and ever-recurring disappointment had suffered all these years the bitter pangs of separation from husband and child; and I know many a silent prayer arose from our hearts for those two who at last were sleeping side by side in that rude, mountain grave.
Indeed, it was a relief to our strained feelings when Johann, who long ago had forgiven the beating Sonnlein had given him, turned toward mine enemy yelling at him, "If thou leavest not at once with thy devil's grin, thou wilt be hurled into the creek," whereat mine enemy, abashed for once, slunk out of the hall like a whipped beast.
Surely there is not much else to relate of this marriage, though I shall never forget how lost and lonesome I felt, like a father bereft of his son, when our justice asked Sonnlein—and ever hath he been Sonnlein to me—"Dost thou, Charles Seymour, take this woman, our Genoveva, to be thy lawful wedded wife," my boy responded proudly, "Yea." And then, as I remember it, our justice asked our lovely Genoveva a like question if she would take him to be her husband, and upon her low "Yea," our justice pronounced them husband and wife, and promptly saluted her with such a willing smack as made even the Sisters titter, while poor Brother Ezechial hung his head still lower, blushing to his very ears.