Part 8

And the man of experience told us of the shape of the railway-sleepers, which were usually cut from the block in pairs, before being sawn asunder, and which, with their six corners, looked not unlike a coffin.

We turned back then and there, and as we went along the edge of the field, where the grass was nice and smooth, my father said to me:

"This gives us a good chance of laughing at ourselves, lest others should. That's the way things go: when we've fallen out with a man, we put down everything that's bad to him and are as blind as if Satan had stuck his horns into our eyes. When all is said, even those two wood-cutters are not so black as they appear to be. Still, I shall be glad when they have cleared out. And this much I do know: Clements buys no more larch of me."

"Because you have none left," was my wise comment on that.

Father did not seem to hear.

The wood-cutters went at last and the larch-wood sleepers with them. The red-brown stumps remained behind; and in their pores stood bright drops of rosin.

"It shows that they were not Christians," I remember my father saying, "that they did not cut a cross in a single stump."

For, at that time, it was still the custom, in the forest, for the wood-cutters to carve a little cross with the axe into each stump as soon as the tree had fallen. Why, I was never quite able to discover: it was probably for the same reason that makes the blacksmith give two taps with his hammer on the anvil, after the red-hot iron is removed. These things are intended to thwart the devil, who, as everybody knows, is never idle and interferes in all the works of man.

My father, whose whole life was bound up with the cross, went afterwards and cut crosses in the larch-stumps. And so things in the forest were once more in order and peaceful, as they used to be.

And that is the story of the strange wood-cutters, the children of the world, who had penetrated into our far-away forest-nook like the first wave of the turbulent sea of the world. How small this wave was and what an amount of unrest, discontent, and vexation was washed up with it! Gradually, the strange elements were forgotten: even mother ended by overcoming her indignation. Only our little serving-maid remained restless and wistful, even after the wave had flowed back again, and her eyes were often red with crying.

FOOTNOTE:

[8] _Halbnarr_: half-fool. According to German folk-lore, it is only the half-idiots who are really dangerous.--_Translator's Note._

IX

How Meisensepp Died

At home we had a book called _The Lives of Jesus Christ, Our Lady, and of many of God's Saints: a spiritual treasure by Peter Cochem_. It was an old book, the leaves were grey, and each chapter began with wonderful big letters in black and red. The wooden cover was worm-eaten in many places, and a mouse had nibbled away one of the leathern flaps. Since my grandfather's death there was nobody in our house who could have read it; no wonder, then, that these creatures had taken possession of it, and thus gained their bodily sustenance from the spiritual treasure. Then came I, the little book-worm, chasing the little beasts out of the book and devouring it myself instead. I read out of it daily to the members of our household. The younger farm-lads and girls did not care much for this new custom, for they dared not joke and yodel during the reading; the older people, however, being rather more God-fearing, listened devoutly and said, "It's just as if the parson were preaching; so solemnly done and with such a loud voice!"

I got quite a reputation as an able reader, and was much sought after. Whenever anybody in the neighbourhood lay ill or dying, or was even dead already, and there was watch being kept by the corpse during the night, my father was asked to let me go and read. On such occasions I took the weighty book under my arm and set off. It was hard work carrying it, for at that time I was but a little shrimp of a fellow.

Once, late at night, when I was already asleep in the sweet-scented hay-loft where I sometimes had my bed in summer-time, I was awakened by one of our men tugging at my coverlet. "You must get up quickly, Peter, get up! Meisensepp has sent his daughter, and begs that you'll come and read to him--he's dying. Get up!"

Of course, I got up, dressed myself hastily, took the book, and went with the girl from our house up across the heath and through the forest. Meisensepp's hut stood quite alone in the midst of the forest.

Meisensepp had been gamekeeper and woodward in his younger years; latterly he occupied himself mostly with sharpening saws for the wood-cutters. Then suddenly this severe illness overtook him.

While the girl and I were going through the wilderness in the still, starlit night neither of us spoke a word. Silently we went on together. Only once she whispered, "Let me have the book, Peter; I'll carry it for you."

"You couldn't do it," I answered; "you're even smaller than me."

After a two hours' tramp the girl said, "There's the light."

We saw a faint gleam coming from the window of Meisensepp's house. Going nearer, we met the priest who had administered the Last Sacrament to the dying man.

"Father, is he going to get well?" asked the girl, fearfully.

"He is not so very old," said the priest. "God's will be done, children; God's will be done."

And he went on, while we went into the house.

It was small, and, after the manner of forest huts, living-room and bedroom were all one with the kitchen. On the hearth in an iron holder a pine-torch was burning which veiled the ceiling in a cloud of smoke. Near by, on a bundle of straw, two little boys lay sleeping. I knew them well, for we had often gathered mushrooms and berries together in the woods and lost our herds while doing it: they were a few years younger than I. By the wall of the stove sat Sepp's wife, giving the breast to the baby and looking with wide-open eyes into the flame of the pine-torch; and behind the stove, on the only bed in the house, lay the sick man. He was sleeping; his face was wasted, the greyish hair and the beard round the chin had been cut short, which made the whole head appear smaller to me than formerly when I had seen Sepp on the way to church. Through his pale, half-open lips fluttered the broken breathing.

On our entrance his wife got up gently, made some apology for having had me disturbed in my sleep, and invited me to sit down and eat what the priest had left of a dish of eggs which still stood on the table.

And so, seated on the chair that was still warm from the holy man's sitting, I was soon actually eating with the same fork which he had carried to his mouth!

"Now he's sleeping fairly well," whispered the woman, indicating the sick man. "A little while ago he was constantly pulling threads from the coverlet."

I knew it was looked upon as a bad omen when a sick person pulled at and dug into the coverlet: "He's digging his grave," they say with us. I therefore answered, "Yes, that's what my father did, too, when he had typhoid fever; still, he got well again."

"I think so, too," she said; "and the priest was saying the same thing. I am so glad my Sepp has always gone to confession so regular, and I feel quite hopeful about his getting well again. Only," she added very low, "the light keeps flickering to and fro the whole time."

According to popular belief, when the light flickers, it is an omen that someone's candle is burning low in the socket. I believed in this sign myself, but to reassure the poor woman I said, "There's such a draught coming through the window, I can feel it too." She laid the sleeping baby upon the straw--the girl who had fetched me had already gone to rest there--and we stopped the cracks of the window with tow.

Then the woman said, "You'll stay with me overnight, won't you, Peter? I shouldn't know how to get along otherwise; and when he awakes you will read to us? I am sure you'll do us this kindness, won't you?"

I opened the book and looked for a suitable piece, but Father Cochem has not written much that would be of consolation to poor suffering mankind. Father Cochem's opinion is that God is infinitely just and that men are unutterably bad, and nine-tenths of them are bound straight for hell.

Maybe it is so, I used to think to myself; but even if it is one ought not to say so, because people would only worry, and for the rest would most likely remain as bad as ever. If they had wanted to mend, they would have done so long ago.

Terrifying thoughts went like a hissing adder through Cochem's book. Whenever I had to do with indifferent people, who only listened to me on account of my fine loud preaching voice, I thundered forth all the horrors and the eternal damnation of mankind with real pleasure; but when by a sick-bed I used to exert my imagination to the utmost while reading out of the book, in order to soften the hard sayings, to moderate the hideous representations of the Four Last Things, and to give a friendlier tone to the whole thought of the zealous Father.

And now again I planned how, while apparently reading from the book, I would speak to Meisensepp words from another Book about poverty, patience, and love towards our fellows, and how the true imitation of Christ consisted in the practice of these, and how--when the last hour should strike--this would lead us by way of a gentle death right into heaven.

At last Sepp awoke. He turned his head, looked at his wife and sleeping children, then, seeing me, he said in a loud, clear voice, "So you've come, Peter? God reward you for it! But we shall hardly have time for reading to-day. Anne, please wake the children up."

The woman shuddered, her hand went to her heart, but she said quietly, "Are you worse again, Seppel? You've been sleeping so nicely."

He saw at once that her calmness was not genuine.

"Don't you fret, wife," he said, "it must be so in this world. Wake the children up now, but gently, so that you don't scare them."

The poor woman went to the bed of straw, and with trembling hand shook the bundle, and the little ones started up only half awake.

"Anne, I beg you don't pull the children about so," the sick man reproached her, with a weaker voice, "and let little Martha sleep, she doesn't understand things yet."

I remained seated by the table, and my heart burned within me. The little family gathered round the bed, sobbing aloud.

"Quietly now," said Sepp to the children; "mother will let you sleep all the longer to-morrow morning. Josefa, draw the shirt together over your breast or you will get cold.--Now then, children, you must always be brave and good and obedient to your mother, and when you are grown up you must stand by her and don't leave her. All my days I've toiled and moiled, but for all that I've nothing else to leave you beyond this house, with the little garden and the ridge-acre with the stacks. If you want to divide it up, do so in a brotherly way; but it is better to keep the little property together, and keep the home going, somehow, and till the ground. Beyond that I make no will. I love you all alike. Don't forget me, and now and then say an Our Father for me. And you four boys, I beg from my very heart, don't start poaching--it leads to no good. Give me your hand on it. There, that's right! If one of you would like to learn saw-sharpening--I have earned many a penny with it and the tools are all there. And then, as you know already, if you plant potatoes on the ridge-acre, you must do so in May. It's quite true, what my father always used to say, 'Of potatoes it is said: "Plant me in April, I come when I will; plant me in May, I'm there in a day."' Bear that saying in mind! There, now go to bed again, or you will catch cold; always take care of your health; health is everything. Go to sleep, children."

The sick man became silent and fell to plucking at his covering again.

Turning to me the woman whispered, "I don't like it, he's talking too much." When a very sick person becomes suddenly talkative that too is looked upon as a bad omen with us.

Then he lay quite exhausted. The woman lit a death-taper.

"Not yet, Anne, not yet," he murmured, "a little later; but give me a drop of water, will you?"

After drinking he said, "Ah, fresh water is a good thing after all! Take good care of the well. Yes, and don't let me forget, the black breeches and the blue jacket--you know--and outside behind the door, where the saws hang, there leans the planing board; lay it across the grindstone and the bench--it will serve for the three days. To-morrow early, when Woodman Josel comes, he'll help to lay me out. But mind that the cat isn't about; cats are attracted and know at once when there is a corpse anywhere. It's all arranged what they'll do with me down at the Parish Church.--My brown coat and the big hat, give them to the poor. And to Peter you must give something because of his coming up here. Perhaps he will be good enough to read to-morrow. It will be a fine day to-morrow, but don't go far from home, for fear an accident might happen, when there's candles left burning in the entrance. Later on, Anne, look in the bedstraw and you will find an old stocking with a few gold pieces in it."

"Seppel, don't exert yourself with talking so much," sobbed the wife.

"Well, well, Anne--but I must tell you everything. We'll not be much longer together now. We have had twenty years, Anne. You have been everything to me; no one can repay you for what you have been to me. I shall never forget it, not in death, nor in heaven neither. I am only glad that in my last hour I am still able to talk to you, and that I am clear in my head to the last."

"Don't fret yourself, Seppel," murmured the wife, bending over him.

"No," he answered quietly, "with me it's just as it was with my father: content in life, content in death. You be the same, and don't take it too much to heart. Even though each of us must go as we came, alone, still we belong to each other and I shall keep you a place in heaven, Anne, close by my side. Only, for God's sake, bring the children up well."

The children lay quiet. It was very still, and it seemed to me as if, somewhere in the room, I could hear a slight whirring and humming.

Suddenly, Seppel called out, "Now, Anne, light the candle, quick!"

The woman ran about the room looking for matches, and yet the torch was still burning. "Now he is going to die!" she moaned.

When at last the red wax-taper was alight, and she had given it him and he held it clasped with both his hands, and she had taken the vessel of holy water from the shelf, she became apparently quite calm and prayed aloud: "Jesus, Mary, help him! Oh, Saints of God, stand by him in his direst need, do not let his soul be lost! Jesus, I pray by Thy holiest suffering! Mary, I call upon Thy seven Sacred Dolours! And Thou, his guardian angel, when the soul must quit the body, lead it at last to heavenly joy!"

And she prayed long. She neither sobbed nor cried now; not a single tear stood in her eye, she was wholly the devout petitioner and intercessor.

At length she became silent, bent over her husband's face, watched his weak breathing and whispered, "God be with you, Seppel; greet my parents for me and all our kinsfolk there in Eternity. God bless and keep you, my dearest man! May the holy angels attend you, and the Lord Jesus in His mercy await you at the heavenly door."

Perhaps he no longer heard her. His pale, half-open lips gave no answer. His eyes stared at the ceiling. The wax candle, held upright in the folded hands, was burning; it did not flicker. The flame was still and bright as a snow-white bud, his breath moved it no more.

"Now it's over--he's dead and gone from me!" cried his wife in a shrill, heartrending voice; then sank down upon a stool and began to weep bitterly. The children, now again wakened, wept with her, all except the baby, who was smiling.

The hour weighed upon us heavy as a stone. At last the poor woman--the widow--rose, dried her tears and laid two fingers on the eyes of the dead. The wax candle burned until the morning dawned.

A messenger had passed through the forest. Then came the Woodman Josel. He sprinkled the dead with holy water, murmuring, "So they go, one after the other."

Then they dressed Meisensepp out in his best clothes, carried him into the porch, and laid him on the board.

I left the book on the table for the vigil of the following nights at which I had promised the poor woman to read. When I was ready to go, she brought a green hat on which was fastened a spreading "Gemsbart."[9]

"Will you take the hat with you for your father?" she asked; "my Seppel has always been so fond of your father. The Gemsbart you may keep yourself as a remembrance. Say an Our Father for him now and then."

I uttered my thanks and cast one more timid look at the bier. There lay Sepp stretched at full length, and his hands folded across his breast. And I went away down through the forest. How bright and fresh with dew, how full of the song of birds, full of the scent of flowers--how full of life the forest was! And in the hut, stretched on the bier, lay a dead man.

I can never forget that night and that morning--that death amidst the forest's infinite source of life.

To this day I keep the Gemsbart in memory of Meisensepp. And whenever a desire for the pleasures of this world gets hold of me, or when doubts of God's grace to man, or fear of my own possibly far-off, possibly quite near end assail me, I just stick Sepp's Gemsbart in my hat.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] Gemsbart: a little tuft of hair on the chamois' breast.

X

The Corpus Christi Altar

When the triumphant Saviour passes through the village in the shape of bread, they greet Him with palms. The palm of the alps is the birch. Even as the little fir-trees are doomed to lose their lives at Christmas-time, so do the birches at Corpus Christi. They are dragged to the village by the hundred, on great drays, and planted in rows on both sides of the streets through which the procession is intended to go. And, as they stand there in the fresh-turned earth, with their graceful branches rustling in the soft wind, it is as though they were still leading the young and happy lives of their brothers and sisters in the woods. And no one notices that the trunk stands in the earth without its roots, chopped off by the axe, that the sap no longer courses through its veins, that, in a few days, the pretty little notched and heart-shaped leaves will turn yellow; nor does the caterpillar on a yielding branch, as it dreams of its coming butterfly existence, suspect that it is rocking upon a corpse.

Life is fulfilled: lo, the Lord cometh.

At the Corpus Christi procession, the gospels are read in the open air at four different spots. For this purpose, the people set up four altars, so that "the Lord God may rest on His journey." By ancient custom, it falls to him upon whose ground the altar is to stand to erect this altar. Its several parts, all nicely carved and painted, have rested during the year in a dark corner of the loft and are now brought forth, cleansed of their dust and cobwebs and put together in the open. The result is often a noble building of the chapel order, with altar-table, tabernacle, worshipping angels, candlesticks and all. Farm-labourers, who but yesterday were digging manure, to-day prove themselves accomplished architects, building the altar before the sun-down and surrounding it with a little wood of birch or larch. The head of the house places all the images of the saints which he possesses on the altar, or fastens them high up on the pillars. The farmer's wife brings gaudy pots of crimson peonies to adorn the altar; and the little girls strew flowers and rose-leaves as a carpet for the steps.

The bells begin to ring, the mortars boom, music swells far and wide over the roofs, lights burn in every window; and the time has come for the farmer to light the candles on his altar too. Soon the first pennants come in sight, the hum is heard of the men's prayers and the echo of the women's singing; and the long lines of children approach, the girls in white, carrying gaily-coloured banners above their heads. Finally, the band, with shrill trumpets and rumbling drums, and then the _baldachino_, the red canopy upheld by four men, and, under it, surrounded by ministrants and acolytes, the priest, carrying the gleaming monstrance high before his face.

The monstrance, as we all know, is the house in which the Host resides surrounded by a wreath of golden rays, resting on a crescent-shaped holder and protected by a crystal glass.

The most important factor in this procession is faith; and that is present in abundance. They worship not the bread, but the symbolic mystery in whose lap rests our eternal destiny. It is really incorrect to speak of the worship of images, or of the idolatry of the heathen: they all mean one and the same thing, the symbolic divine mystery which each represents to himself after his own fashion and feels according to his nature. And the power to transfer the intangible, endless mystery to a substance which our senses can apprehend and thus to enter into more intimate relations with it: that power is the gift of faith.

The files of people reach the open-air altar and the foremost have to pass along until the priest arrives at the spot. When there, he places the Sacrament in the tabernacle and reads some verses from one of the four gospels. Then, to the booming of the cannon, he lifts the monstrance, turns with it to the four points of the compass and blesses the meadows, the fields and the air, that the summer may be fruitful and no storm destroy the husbandman's labour. And the procession moves on.

This is in the larger villages. In the small mountain districts, the feast is celebrated more simply, but no less solemnly. As, in such places, all the lanes and streets are formed of live trees and shrubs, there is no need to set up birches, except at the wayside crucifixes, where they keep holy guard, one on the right and one on the left. As the people of small places have not four altars to erect, there is a small, portable altar, a little four-legged table with a white cloth to cover it and a tabernacle with angels painted on a blue ground kneeling before the "Holy Name." Above this is a little canopy with gold tassels. Behind are straps by means of which a boy can take the altar on his back and carry it, during the procession, from one gospel-place to the other.

They have one of these little altars at Kathrein am Hauenstein. Should you care to see it, it stands, in summer, in the church, in front of the great picture of the Fourteen Helpers.[10] It has stood there as long as I can remember; and, in my young days, it was the duty and the privilege of Kaunigl, him with the hare-lip, to carry it from gospel-place to gospel-place. As soon as one gospel was read and the procession starting on its way again, he strapped the altar to his back, took the candlesticks and the hassock in his hands and hurried over the hill by the short cut through the woods, so as to obtain a lead and set up the altar in the next place. He would fix a stone or two under the feet of the little table to prevent any rocking, put the hassock in position and light the candles; and, by that time, the first banner was once more in sight.