IXHow Meisensepp DiedAthome we had a book calledThe 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 andberries 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 thesleeping 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 athis 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 criednow; 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.
Athome we had a book calledThe 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 andberries 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 thesleeping 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 athis 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 criednow; 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.
Footnote:
[9]Gemsbart: a little tuft of hair on the chamois' breast.