Walda: A Novel

by Mary Holland Kinkaid

His words caused even the most stoical of the elders to turn pale. It meant much to the colony to lose the school-master from among those who managed the affairs of the community.

The people heard and yet appeared not to believe their ears. The square became so quiet that when Piepmatz, hanging in his cage from a rafter of the inn-porch, sang the one bar of the love-song, the bird-voice reached every one in the throng, and presently broke the spell of amazement that held the villagers.

“Thy case shall be taken up presently,” said Karl Weisel, who was the first to recover from astonishment. “Thy sin is minor to his, in that thou didst not love the prophetess.”

“Mine offence is greater than his,” answered Gerson Brandt. He had gained complete control of himself, and he spoke in a voice clear and unfaltering. “I have loved Walda Kellar even from the days of her childhood with a love that is stronger than all else in life. I had thought that mine affection was merely that of a teacher, a counsellor, a friend, until, through the stranger, it became known to me that I loved her who might have been the prophetess as a man loveth the woman whom the Lord hath sent into the world for him to cherish until death. There is no word of extenuation for me. I love Walda Kellar with the longing to claim her from Zanah and all the world.”

He paused, as if the flood-gates of his heart had broken, and the tide of his emotion drowned his words. Stephen Everett, who had listened with a shamed sense of his own good-fortune, gazed upon the school-master’s face until he was compelled to turn his eyes away, for he saw despair and pain so deeply graven there that the pity of it brought tears.

“In the heat of what I thought a righteous anger I did order the stranger to be bound,” Gerson Brandt said, after a brief pause. “But there, in the place of the Untersuchung, it was made clear to me that jealousy actuated me unworthily to use my power as an elder. For that offence, I crave Stephen Everett’s pardon and Zanah’s forgiveness.”

The people were stirred with indignation and sorrow. They began to speak to one another, but Gerson Brandt compelled them to hear him to the end.

“I would ask you to release the prisoner and to give Walda Kellar into his keeping. The love I bear for this daughter of Zanah hath in it that which giveth me the strength to surrender my heart’s desire, and so I crave for her the happiness that cometh through the love of another man. I plead with you to consent to the marriage of Stephen Everett and Walda Kellar. Send them forth into the world together this night. Delay not in meting out to them the judgment that will give them joy. The punishment is mine.”

Gerson Brandt leaned against one of the supports of the stocks. He was dimly conscious that the elders whispered to one another and that the people gathered in groups to talk earnestly.

The afternoon was far advanced. A golden haze had settled upon the valley. Above his head the dry leaves of the trees were rustled by a gentle wind that soothed his spirit. He was conscious of a sudden faintness. His little world, the colony of Zanah, slipped away from him for a moment, but he remembered that he had not won his battle for Walda’s freedom, and he steadied himself, calling all his senses to serve him until the end of the day’s ordeal.