A Tale of the Kloster: A Romance of the German Mystics of the CocalicoJabez, Brother
Religion
A Tale of the Kloster: A Romance of the German Mystics of the Cocalico
Jabez, Brother
Christian fiction; Ephrata Cloister -- Fiction; Seventh-Day Baptists -- Fiction
Late in the afternoon of the following day, being now in the wane of
what we have since learned to call the "Indian summer," I was wandering,
somewhat aimlessly I confess, along the borders of the Sisters' close,
when suddenly, on lifting mine eyes from the earth, I perceived one of
the Sisterhood directly in my pathway, but a short distance ahead,
sitting quietly on a projecting root, which, springing from the base of
a towering chestnut tree, formed a comfortable seat.
She had not observed me, I felt sure, and thinking not to disturb her
meditations, for I doubted not she was rapt in contemplation of the
heavenly Bridegroom, I stepped quietly aside into the cover of a near-by
thicket. I hardly had done so when, not far beyond the Sister, a rich,
deep voice rang out in an old German hunting song:
"Out into the woods three hunters went,
On the white deer's chase their wishes bent."
From my hiding-place I saw the form at the foot of the tree sit more
erect in listening posture, and as the face was uplifted, the fair
features of Sister Genoveva met my gaze, such a pensive wistfulness and
tenderness informing every feature of the lovely face turned unwittingly
toward me, I somehow thought of my Bernice, who so soon was called to
her celestial Bridegroom.
Again the fine, strong voice rang out, still nearer:
"Down under the fir-trees' shade they lay,
The same strange dream came to each that day.
"THE FIRST.
"'I dreamt I beat on a sheltering bush,
From out its fold sprang the deer, husch, husch!'"
And now I caught occasional glimpses of the gray fox-skin hunter's cap
Sonnlein wore when on the chase, for I had recognized his voice full
well. Some one else too seemed to know, for I could not help seeing,
e'en though I never have known much of the signs and symptoms of love,
that Sister Genoveva's pensiveness had given way to a gentle smile that
brought an added charm to the wonderful loveliness of the most beautiful
woman I have ever seen.
Still nearer came the trumpet tones:
"THE SECOND.
"'And as he sprang from the hound's hoarse laugh,
I branded him deep on the hide, piff, paff!'"
Where had the scamp learned to sing with such faithfulness to the sense?
I heard plainly the "hound's hoarse laugh," the "piff, paff!" And again
I wondered where he had learned to sing so true. Surely not from our
leader; no Æolian harp about these manly, resounding notes:
"THE THIRD.
"'And as on the earth him slain I saw,
Lustily into the horn I blew, trara!'"
That "trara," like the blast of a hunting horn, transported me to my
boyhood days in the _Vaterland_, where often I had heard the huntsmen
call to each other in the thick forests and mountain glens.
And then mockingly came the stanza:
"So there they lay and bragged these three--
And there, ran by them the white deer--free!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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