Walda: A Novel

by Mary Holland Kinkaid

“Thou wert merciful to me when I was in the stocks,” he said, slowly. “The fool’s memory hath still a knowledge of that day. The fool doth know that, last of all Zanah, Walda Kellar will appear before the elders.”

“That means I need not go to the Untersuchung until this afternoon?” queried Everett.

“Yea, thou shouldst wait until late in the day.” Hans Peter turned as if to run away, but Everett caught him by the sleeve of his gingham shirt.

“Have you been to the meeting-house to-day?” Everett asked, looking at the simple one with such entreaty in his eyes that Hans Peter answered:

“Yea, I have but just come from the place where the prophetess of Zanah hath been keeping her vigil.”

“You went there on an errand, I suppose?”

“I carried orders from the elders.” At this point Hans Peter closed his mouth very tightly and stared stupidly. Everett saw that further questioning would be of no avail.

As soon as he had had breakfast Everett walked out to the timber-land where the Untersuchung was to be held. The elders had chosen a strip of woods near the lake as a place for the ceremonies of the inquisition. The road leading to it was that over which Everett had walked with Walda the first day she visited the cemetery to pray at the grave of Marta Bachmann. About two hundred yards from the shore of the lake a large clearing had been made. A rude platform for the elders had been built between the lake shore and rough benches, which had been arranged in orderly rows beneath the intertwining trees. Everett saw that the line of poplars was beyond the place where the path led into the out-door chapel. Hidden there he could easily escape detection, and he would be near enough to hear most of what was said from the platform. He walked to the farther shore of the little lake, and lay down upon the ground to wait as patiently as he could for the laggard hours to pass. The quiet beauty of the day appealed to him, and, thinking of Walda, he was finally lulled to sleep. It was mid-day when he awoke. He sauntered back to the scene of the Untersuchung. He made a seat for himself at the foot of one of the poplars where the vines were thick. Through the screen of leaves he saw the people slowly gathering. The women occupied the benches nearest him.

By two o’clock all the colonists had assembled. The thirteen elders formed a solemn row, Adolph Schneider holding the middle place, with Wilhelm Kellar at one end of the platform and Gerson Brandt at the other. After a droning hymn and a tedious prayer, those who were candidates for preferment in the colony went before the elders. The men first were catechised by Adolph Schneider, who did not rise from his chair. Everett was astonished to see how few signified ambition for colony honors. When the women’s turn came the applicants greatly outnumbered the men. In both cases those who pleaded for advancement boasted of spiritual conflicts and victories. Their sing-song voices maddened the impatient lover. At last, when he had begun to fear that Walda would not be summoned until the next day, Everett noticed that the people, who had sat stolid and unmoved through the hours of dreary recitative, stirred with something like interest. Everett pulled himself to his feet, and, looking down the road, saw a sight that made his heart beat.

Two by two, a long line of girls approached slowly. All wore the blue gowns of the colony, but white caps and white kerchiefs were substituted for those of every-day use. Each carried in her hand a large hymnbook. When the procession turned into the path of the woodland chapel Everett caught sight of Walda, walking last of all. As they marched slowly onward, the girls chanted a hymn. Walda carried her head in the old, proud way, and her manner reassured the watcher who loved her. She was clothed in a trailing gown, fashioned of the white flannel from the colony mills. The clinging folds brought out the noble lines of her figure. The kerchief crossed upon her bosom was of some thin material of the same tint as the flannel. The cap, pushed back from her brow, revealed the waves of her fair hair, which was confined in two long braids. Her face was pale; her lips were firmly set; her eyes shone with the light of peace and courage. The little procession passed quite near Everett, but, although his heart called to her, and his eyes followed her, she appeared unconscious of his presence. He noticed that her hands hung at her sides, and he read a meaning in the fact that she no longer crossed them upon her breast in the old fashion, signifying that she would keep out the world and all its emotions.