Black Forest Village Stories Part 13

Mike received the same invitation as he was "greasing his old nag's Sunday boots,"--as he termed getting up his hoof's for market. He whistled a naughty tune, but stopped in the middle of it, for he well knew what was coming. He was glad of the chance to prepare himself for a good counter-sermon, a few sentences of which he already mumbled between his teeth.

On Sunday morning the parson took for his text, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm cx.x.xii. 1.) He showed that all the happiness and joy of earth is void and vapid if not shared between those who have slept in the same mother's womb; he said that parents can neither be happy here nor at peace hereafter if their children are sundered by hatred, envy, or malice; he referred to Cain and Abel, and spoke of fratricide as the first venomous fruit of the fall. All this was uttered in a full, resounding voice, of which the farmers said, "It pries the walls apart." Alas! it is often almost easier to move stone walls than to soften the hard heart of man. Barbara wept bitter tears over the evil ways of her brothers; and, although the parson declared again and again that he did not allude to any one in particular, but desired one and all to lay their hands on their hearts and ask themselves whether the true love for their kindred was in them, yet every one was content to think, "That's for Mike and Conrad: the shoe fits them exactly."

The two latter stood near each other, Mike chewing his cap, which he held between his teeth, and Conrad listening with open mouth. Once their eyes met, and then Mike dropped his cap and stooped down quickly to pick it up.

The hymn at the close had a calm, pacifying influence; but, before the last sounds had died away, Mike was out of the church, and knocked at the door of the parsonage. Finding it locked, he went into the garden.

He stood before the beehives, and watched their restless labor.

"They never know when Sunday comes."

And he thought, "I have no Sunday either, with my traffic; but then I have no real working-day." Again he thought how many hundred brothers lived together in a beehive, all working like the old folks. He did not dwell upon such reflections, however. He made up his mind that the parson should not bridle him; and when he looked at the graveyard he remembered the last words of Conrad, and his hand clenched.

In the parsonage he found the parson and Conrad in earnest conversation. The parson appeared to have given up the expectation of his coming. He offered him a chair; but Michael answered, pointing to his brother,--

"No offence to your reverence, but I never sit down where he is. Your reverence hasn't been long in the village yet, and don't know his tricks. He is a hypocritical doughface, but false and underhanded. All the children imitate him," he continued, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth: "'How's Mike coming on?'" and here he gave the well-known pantomime again.

"Your reverence," he went on, trembling with rage, "he is the cause of all my mishap: he has ruined my peace at home, and so I have sold myself to the devil for horses. You've prophesied it, you bloodhound!"

he roared at his brother: "I'll hang myself with a halter yet, but your turn shall come first."

The parson gave the brothers time to vent their wrath, only exerting his dignity so far as to prevent personal violence. He knew that after their anger was poured out love must appear also; yet he was half deceived.

At last the two brothers sat motionless and speechless, though breathing hard. Then the parson began to speak words of kindness: he opened all the secret corners of the heart, but in vain; they both looked at the floor. He depicted the sufferings of their dead parents: Conrad sighed, but did not look up. The parson gathered up all his powers; his voice surged like that of an avenging prophet; he told them how after death they would appear before the Lord's judgment-seat, and how the Lord would cry, "Woe be unto you, ye hardened of heart! Ye have lived in hatred, ye have withheld the grasp of a brother's hand from each other: go, and suffer the torments of h.e.l.l, riveted together!"

There was silence. Conrad wiped his eyes with his sleeve, got up from his chair, and said, "Mike!"

The sound had been so long unheard that Mike started and looked up.

Conrad went up to him and said, "Mike, forgive me." The hands of the brothers were firmly clasped, and the hand of the parson seemed to shed a blessing on them both.

All the village rejoiced when Mike and Conrad were seen coming down the little hill by the town-house, hand in hand.

They did not relinquish their grasp until they had reached home: it was as if they desired to make up for the long privation. But here they hastened to tear off the padlocks; then, going into the garden, they tore away the dividing hedge, heedless of the cabbage destroyed in the operation.

Then they went to their sister's, and sat side by side at the dinner-table.

In the afternoon they sat in church together, each holding one side of their mother's hymn-book.

They lived in harmony from that day forth.

IVO, THE GENTLEMAN.

1.

THE FIRST Ma.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Valentine the carpenter.]

One Sat.u.r.day afternoon the busy sound of the hammer and of the adze was heard on the green hill-top which served the good folks of Nordstetten as their public gathering-place in the open air. Valentine the carpenter, with his two sons, was making a scaffolding designed to serve no less a purpose than that of an altar and a pulpit. Christian the tailor's son Gregory was to officiate at his first ma.s.s and to preach his first sermon.

Ivo, Valentine's youngest son, a child of six years of age, a.s.sisted his father with a mien which betokened that he considered his services indispensable. With his bare head and feet he ran up and down the timbers nimbly as a squirrel. When a beam was being lifted, he cried, "Pry under!" as l.u.s.tily as any one, put his shoulder to the crowbar, and puffed as if nine-tenths of the weight fell upon him. Valentine liked to see his little boy employed. He would tell him to wind the twine on the reel, to carry the tools where they were wanted, or to rake the chips into a heap. Ivo obeyed all these directions with the zeal and devotion of a self-sacrificing patriot. Once, when perched upon the end of a plank for the purpose of weighing it down, the motion of the saw shook his every limb, and made him laugh aloud in spite of himself: he would have fallen off but for the eagerness with which he held on to his position and endeavored to perform his task in the most workmanlike manner.

At last the scaffolding was finished. Lewis the saddler was ready to nail down the carpets and hanging. Ivo offered to help him too; but, being gruffly repelled, he sat down upon his heap of chips, and looked at the mountains, behind which the sun was setting in a sea of fire.

His father's whistle aroused him, and he ran to his side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Valentine and his son folded their hands as the vesper-bell rang.]

"Father," said Ivo, "I wish I was in Hochdorf."

"Why?"

"Because it's so near to heaven, and I should like to climb up once."

"You silly boy, it only seems as if heaven began there. From Hochdorf it is a long way to Stuttgard, and from there it is a long way to heaven yet."

"How long?"

"Well, you can't get there until you die."

Leading his little son with one hand, and carrying his tools in the other, Valentine pa.s.sed through the village. Was.h.i.+ng and scouring was going on everywhere, and chairs and tables stood before the houses,--for every family expected visitors for the great occasion of the morrow.

As Valentine pa.s.sed Christian the tailor's house, he held his hand to his cap, prepared to take it off if anybody should look out. But n.o.body did no: the place was silent as a cloister. Some farmers' wives were going in, carrying bowls covered with their ap.r.o.ns, while others pa.s.sed out with empty bowls under their arms. They nodded to each other without speaking: they had brought wedding-presents for the young clergyman, who was to be married to his bride the Church.

As the vesper-bell rang, Valentine released the hand of his son, who quickly folded his hands: Valentine also brought his hands together over his heavy tools and said an Ave.

Next morning a clear, bright day rose upon the village. Ivo was dressed by his mother betimes in a new jacket of striped Manchester cloth, with b.u.t.tons which he took for silver, and a newly-washed pair of leathern breeches. He was to carry the crucifix. Mag, Ivo's eldest sister, took him by the hand and led him into the street, "so as to have room in the house." Having enjoined upon him by no means to go back, she returned hastily. Wherever he came he found the men standing in knots in the road. They were but half dressed for the festival, having no coats on, but displaying their dazzling white s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. Here and there women or girls were to be seen running from house to house without bodices, and with their hair half untied. Ivo thought it cruel in his sister to have pushed him out of the house as she had done. He would have been delighted to have appeared like the grown folks,--first in negligee, and then in full dress amid the tolling of bells and the clang of trumpets; but he did not dare to return, or even to sit down anywhere, for fear of spoiling his clothes. He went through the village almost on tip-toe. Wagon after wagon rumbled in, bringing farmers and farmers'

wives from abroad: at the houses people welcomed them and brought chairs to a.s.sist them in getting down. All the world looked as exultingly quiet and glad as a community preparing to receive a hero who had gone forth from their midst and was returning after a victory.

From the church to the hill-top the road was strewn with flowers and gra.s.s, which sent forth aromatic odors. The squire was seen coming out of Christian the tailor's house, and only covered his head when he found himself in the middle of the street. Soges had a new sword, brightly j.a.panned and glittering in the sun.

The squire's wife soon followed, leading her daughter Barbara, who was but six years old, by the hand. Barbara was dressed in bridal array.

She wore the veil and the wreath upon her head, and a beautiful gown.

As an immaculate virgin, she was intended to represent the bride of the young clergyman, the Church.

At the first sound of the bell the people in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves disappeared as if by magic. They retired to their houses to finish their toilet: Ivo went on to the church.

Amid the ringing of all the bells, the procession at last issued from the church-door. The pennons waved, the band of music brought from Horb struck up, and the audible prayers of the men and women mingled with the sound. Ivo, with the schoolmaster at his side, took the lead, carrying the crucifix. On the hill the altar was finely decorated; the chalices and the lamps and the spangled dresses of the saints flashed in the sun, and the throng of wors.h.i.+ppers covered the common and the adjoining fields as far as the eye could reach. Ivo hardly took courage to look at the "gentleman," meaning the young clergyman, who, in his gold-laced robe, and bare head crowned with a golden wreath, ascended the steps of the altar with pale and sober mien, bowing low as the music swelled, and folding his small white hands upon his breast. The squire's Barbara, who carried a burning taper wreathed with rosemary, had gone before him and took her stand at the side of the altar. The ma.s.s began; and at the tinkling of the bell all fell upon their faces, and not a sound would have been heard, had not a flight of pigeons pa.s.sed directly over the altar with that fluttering and chirping noise which always accompanies their motion through the air. For all the world Ivo would not have looked up just then; for he knew that the Holy Ghost was descending, to effect the mysterious transubstantiation of the wine into blood and the bread into flesh, and that no mortal eye can look upon Him without being struck with blindness.

The chaplain of Horb now entered the pulpit, and solemnly addressed the "primitiant."

Then the latter took his place. Ivo sat near by, on a stool: with his right arm resting on his knee, and his chin upon his hand, he listened attentively. He understood little of the sermon; but his eyes hung upon the preacher's lips, and his mind followed his intentions, if not his thoughts.

When the procession returned to the church amid the renewed peal of the bells and triumphant strains of music, Ivo clasped the crucifix firmly with both his hands: he felt as if new strength had been given him to carry his G.o.d before him.

As the crowd dispersed, every one spoke in raptures of the "gentleman,"

and of the happiness of the parents of such a son. Christian the tailor and his wife came down the covered stairs of the church-hill in superior bliss. Ordinarily they attracted little attention in the village; but on this occasion all crowded around them with the greatest reverence, to present their congratulations. The young clergyman's mother returned thanks with tearful eyes: she could scarcely speak for joyous weeping. Ivo heard his cousin, who had come over from Rexingen, say that Gregory's parents were now obliged to address their son with the formal p.r.o.noun "they," by which strangers and great personages are spoken to, instead of the simple "thee and thou," by which German villagers converse with each other.

"Is that so, mother?" he asked.