Gabriel lay as he had lain when Thekla and Eberhard left him. Gretel the orphan and Gretchen Knapp had cared for him well. The cherry blossoms nodded over the little red and brown house, the bees hummed around it. Elsa stood as in a trance, tasting home.... They made Clara welcome, would hold her until her kin that were of the following of Luther could send for her from their own town.
Presently Hauptberg knew that two nuns had left the Convent of the Vale, and that Gabriel Mayr’s daughter Elsa was within the town walls, in the red and brown house with the old dying scholar, with her sister Thekla. Great talk arose in which opinion stood divided. Some cried huge scandal and sacrilege, some held their breath, some cried, Well done! All Germany now was divided into two parties, those two divided into others. The old party, the old Church thundered and threatened, but the new party gathered and came on with the shout of the springtime flood. The Prince in whose rule stood the town of Hauptberg was friendly to the new. If at first it was doubtful, it was soon seen that, so long as the new withstood and grew upon the old, Elsa who had been nun was safe in Hauptberg, and safe those who had helped her escape.
Martin Luther heard of that happening, and preaching in Wittenberg, cried, “See how, God with them, those two came forth! Be of their company, monk and nun, throughout the land! O ye self-immured, do ye not see that ye cannot wall in God? Man cannot wall God in, and woman cannot wall God in! God—yea, in your bodies!—will walk free!”
Others were breaking monastery and convent—this very year came from the Convent at Eisenach Catherine von Bora and her five sister nuns....
In Hauptberg, in the red and brown house behind the cherry trees, Thekla and Elsa kneeled beside their dying father. Gabriel Mayr was conscious, he had a peaceful and clear going forth. He put his hands upon his daughters’ hands, the hands of the three held together. “Thekla and Elsa.... Wider and deeper being for us all—” His hands unclosed, life went out of his body. Thekla and Elsa rose and looked upon the shell beside the ocean.
Summer passed—autumn came, rich and ripe with wheat sheaves and hanging grapes. Thekla and Elsa lived on in the red and brown house and earned for themselves. Then Elsa went to the nearest great city to visit Clara who lived there. Thekla and the young orphan girl kept the house. Eberhard painted a great picture for a guild hall in a town fifty miles away.
Came winter with its grey cloak and its white cloak and on keen, clear nights the tremendous stars. Came again Eberhard. “Thekla, now must we live and work together——”
“Live and work together.”
They gathered neighbours and friends, and before these took each the other’s hands. “We two love, and we will to live and work together——”
So Eberhard came to the red and brown house....