Great was the surprise of our dear brothers when we filed silently into the _Saal_, Sonnlein having come down from my back, for we arrived wholly unannounced. After the loving greetings were exchanged over and over, our superintendent ordered a general love feast in Peniel for the following Sabbath to celebrate our safe return and to listen to our report, we having kept an exact diary of our pilgrimage. A full account of the whole journey was written from this diary and the doings of each of us, except Sonnlein, which he minded not in the least, being too young for such older weakness. This account was then handed over to our superintendent and became the property of the Brotherhood. After the events of this pilgrimage were over, we each resumed his usual work and devotions as calmly as though we had not been so long away, only that the day after we arrived I easily found the bushes into which I had with such unchristian violence hurled my staff. I found my traveling comrade lying full length in the depths of the wayside thicket. The iron point was reddish like as if with blood, but I could find no ghastly trail of blood leading away from the staff, but after close examination of the soft earth I did find what I believed were the prints of a woman's shoes, for I knew they were not those made by Sonnlein. Could it be that our old enemy, the witch, had done this thing? Who or what was this baleful influence that hung over our sacred Kloster like some foul miasma? Did this being merely embody the evil that must ever be present in all earthly things? Whence came it? No matter how I turned it over and over in my mind I could not solve the mystery. So far, though our paths had frequently come close to the other, they had not yet crossed in direct conflict, and yet I felt, and even longed, that some day I should come face to face with the sphinx and either she or I be destroyed. There had never seemed any disposition to seek direct injury to me, and yet of all our Brotherhood I apparently was chosen to witness most of her hellish manifestations. Why? I could not tell, for surely I knew not I had ever wittingly injured any one. So weighted down was I by my unexplainable dread that for many a day I had little inclination for work or study or prayer. I could see too, that Sonnlein, though he and the rest knew naught but a wild beast had flown at him, was greatly impressed when I warned him he must not wander into the woods until he was older and abler to take care of himself against the beasts, which warning, it eased my mind much to observe, he heeded as well as a strong, healthy boy can heed anything. CHAPTER XVIII SONNLEIN COMETH TO MAN'S ESTATE For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man. --Bible. Many were the changes that came over our little community while my boy was growing into a man!