As he lay there sleeping in all the sweet innocence of childhood and health, I looked first at him and then out through the little window at the perfect beauty of God's handiwork in his heavens, and then I went to my rest, proud to be a son of him who created me in his image and who had put me into a world which, though full of dark and evil deeds, yet held in it, if we only looked aright, so much of beauty and joy and peace and love.
CHAPTER VIII
OUR FIRST LOSS
Let nothing make thee sad or fretful,
Or too regretful;
Be still;
What God hath ordered must be right,
Then find in it thine own delight,
My will.
—Paul Fleming.
The year 1738 is deeply graven on my memory, because it marked the first death among the Solitary, our Brother Martin Brämer. Secondly, because his death followed so swift upon the appearance of that strange being, woman, witch, or devil, who, time and again, thrust herself so violently into our lives.
In the first month of the new year, and on a day when the sun was shining clear and bright, there being no snow on the ground, I was on my way to the Brother woods for an armful of firewood for the hall. Close upon where the Brother woods merged into the Sister woods stood a mighty oak within a little clearing on the Brothers' side, a favorite haunt of the Solitary for their rare moments of rest from their daily work.
I had about reached the clearing under the shelter of the wide-reaching arms of the old oak when suddenly, for I was in my customary fashion of deep meditation with mine eyes toward the ground, I walked into Brother Martin, almost overthrowing him, for that our tailor was so small and slight. However, we gravely saluted each other as though naught had happened; for each knew it had been a mere accident, and were about to pass on when I caught sight of his face, and saw from his more than usual pallid features and the twitching lips that he was suffering from some great shock. Never of robust health he had not been well lately, and I thought he was suffering more than usual from his infirmity.
I hailed him with brotherly solicitude, "Thou art not well, Brother Martin! I fear the Solitary press upon thee too sorely for thy keeping of them clad as becomes their orders."