Chapter 9 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.

he year 1738 is deeply graven on my memory, because it marked the first death among the Solitary, our Brother Martin Br?mer. 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."

"Nay, nay, Brother Jabez," he replied gently; but I could hear the trembling and the fear in his voice, "It is not my labors, which though toilsome, lie pleasantly on me, because I love my work, and those for whom I labor and strive to please seem to love me for what I do for them"; and indeed this was true, for his gentle, unaffected devotion to us and Him we served made our Brother Martin universally loved.

"But surely," I insisted, "thou'rt not well; thou'rt disturbed and suffering, that I see plainly. I beseech thee tell me what so sorely weighs on thee."

He looked up at me, his pale, bloodless lips quivering, and whispered into mine ear, clutching mine arm and leaning on it as though he needed my protection, "I have seen the Evil One in woman's form," and then he gasped, "I shall surely die."

"Nay, nay, my brother," I replied, as though laughing at his foolish fears, "'tis true the Evil One comes to us at times in woman's form to lure us, as Solomon sayeth, 'to the gates of hell'; but when the fiend comes as such it is not in horrid, repulsive shape, but like those beautiful beings who came to Saint Anthony with such artful, seductive enchantments that none but saint could say them nay. Surely if this Evil One hath appeared to thee thou needst not look for thy immediate dissolution, but mayst expect some grace from the fair devourer."

But my poor brother would not be comforted, and merely stood shaking his head, saying mournfully, "This was no beautiful enchantress; no seductive siren, as thou sayest; 'twas the foul fiend in his foulest, most awful form, long, tangled hair falling every way over a face through which there gleamed eyes on fire with the hatred of hell. I saw the eternal enmity of the Evil One in those piercing eyes."

"Where was all this, Brother Martin?" for I saw he could not be laughed out of his terror.

"Just beyond the oak," he replied; "she was standing in a thicket covered with tangled vines as foul and poisonous as herself. I had all unthinking almost walked into her when suddenly I heard a snarl like some ravenous beast; I saw her horrible claws uplifted as though she were about to spring on me and tear me limb from limb. I jumped back, my heart almost standing still, thinking naught but that my end had come. She came no farther, but contented herself with crouching there and glaring at me with those awful eyes of hate that seemed to burn into my very soul."

"Canst thou go with me where thou hast seen this witch or devil?" I said boldly, although I had not overly much stomach for the venture.

As I said this he drew back and trembled violently as he cried out, "Nay, not even for the very hope of a safe hereafter would I go to that accursed place."

"Then remain there, thou gentle coward, whilst I go," commanded I.

Again he clutched me by the arm and cried out, "Nay, go not, Brother Jabez; even if she touch thee not her look will blast thee like lightning."

"I fear her not," bragged I, and strode away, leaving him shuddering with the terror that had not yet grown cold, and with apprehensions for me.

I had no trouble in finding the thick bush and entangling vines Brother Martin had pointed out to me. As I approached its dark, forbidding front, I trembled like a leaf, and then grew angry at my weakness. Then I went on, resolutely forcing my way into the vile vines that caught me all about my face and body and limbs so that I was ready to affirm naught human could penetrate such a wilderness; but though I looked carefully for any signs that would show that some one or something had thrust itself into these exasperating vines I could find nothing, even though I had in all these years learned much of the ways of the woods and its signs.

In great bewilderment I was about to turn back to chide Brother Martin with having seen nothing but a creature of his own imagining when I saw in a small gully at the farther boundary of the thicket a footprint, small, a woman's surely, in the soft, clayey soil. Had the imprint been that of a cloven foot I could not have been more startled; for I knew that the Sisterhood seldom, if ever, came to the Brother woods, and the good wives and daughters of the near-by settlers were too timid and honest to trespass on our lands. Much perturbed, for I knew this thing boded evil to our community, I walked slowly back to my waiting brother, vague remembrances strangely flitting through my mind, but making no impression at the time, of how Sonnlein had come to me, and the midnight beating of our Brother Beissel.

I found Brother Martin, still pale and fearful, anxiously wanting to know what I had learned. "Nothing," I said, "of witch or devil, but the substantial print of a woman's foot."

"Was there no smell of brimstone? No cloven footprint?" he persisted.

"Nay, thou simple one, else I had told thee. Say thou naught of this; for they who would not believe thee would only laugh at thee, and if any believe what could that avail?"

"Nothing, dear Brother Jabez, nothing," he said mournfully, a strange, fixed look in his wild eyes. "A woman with an evil eye once looked upon my little brother as he lay laughing in the cradle my father had hewn out of a log. Until then the child was strong and healthy, never having been sick; but from that day he wasted away, with naught that could help or cure him, and within a month we laid him down in his little resting-place in the orchard nigh our cabin. They whom the evil eye look upon live not long." And then, as one who goes forth to certain death, he looked up at me smiling bravely through all his fears and said, "If my time hath come, let it come quickly, His servant waiteth."

I found it impossible to free him from this melancholy mood, and so we walked back slowly and sadly to our Kammers, saying nothing more.

A week passed, Brother Martin quietly, with resignation, doing his lowly duties each day; but we all could see he was in failing health. Only he and I knew, however, that the tortures of mind he was enduring far outweighed the lesser pains of the flesh; for I hesitate not to say of saint as well as sinner, that until death be actually at hand, they fear alike the inevitable end.

On a Friday night, just a week from the Friday our brother had seen this thing, the midnight services being over, and the Brethren and Sisters having returned to their Kammers to rest their weary heads on their hard wooden blocks, we were startled by the ringing of the Kloster bell. Clear and loud it pealed through the cold quietness of the night. Like a flash, though I had not thought of it before, I cried out to Brother Obed, who had the adjoining cell, "'Tis Brother Martin," though not more than a half-hour had expired since we had returned, he with us, from our midnight devotions.

Suddenly the pealing notes ceased, and then came the slow, solemn tolling of the bell, a custom followed ever after on the death of any of our number, until forty-eight were measured out, which I knew was about our brother's age. His cell was on the floor below, where I hastened as soon as the last year of his life had been tolled. A number of the Brethren, with bowed heads, stood sadly in the narrow Kammer, in the still narrower doorway and corridor. I had been filled, ere I saw him, with a dread that his death agony might have had its terrors increased a thousand-fold by the awful memory of the witch; for I knew he had never forgotten it. But when I looked down on the slight form and peaceful face resting on the hard bench and still more mortifying pillow, I saw no trace of any overpowering, death-dealing vision. Instead, his face, though greatly wasted and altered, was as composed as though he had merely fallen asleep in the arms of his beloved. The little window looking out from his Kammer, as soon as the last spark of life had died out, had been opened so that his soul could take its flight unhindered and unmolested to that place of pure delights "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

At the funeral, which was the following midnight, as we carried the body out of the Berghaus a bucket of water was poured upon the sill and swept up, and the door immediately closed so that his spirit could not return again to its earthly home, and to make further assurance against such a return three crosses were marked upon the door jamb with red earth.

We buried him who had thus passed away in the prime of his life, down in the meadow nigh to where in later years we built our Brother house. It was a dark, stormy night, no moon and no stars to lighten up the gloom of the sky or the still deeper darkness in our hearts; but with our fagot torchlights sputtering fitfully, almost blown out by the wind at times, we laid him to rest at the midnight hour with all the honors and rites and ceremonies of our holy order.

Thus, on this weird, stormy night, in such contrast to the peace and gentleness of this earnest, zealous warrior of the faith who for almost nine years had abided with us, we left in the meadow his mortal remains, but took back with us the remembrance of his godly services and his truth and fidelity unto his profession and brotherhood during his short life.

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