After a few customary salutations, the teacher began:--"How fine and elevated a thing it is that the seventh day is hallowed by religion and kept clear of labor! If things were otherwise, people would die of over-work. If, for instance, in the heat of midsummer harvesters were to work day by day without intermission until all was gathered in, no one could endure it."
At first Hedwig and the old man listened in surprise; but soon Hedwig said, "Were you here already when the parson allowed us to turn the hay on Sunday in haying-time, because it rained so long and the hay might have been spoiled? I was out in the field too, but it seemed as if every pitchforkful was as heavy again as it ought to be. I felt as if somebody was holding my arm; and all next day, and all next week, the world was like upside-down, and it was as if there hadn't been a Sunday for a whole year."
The teacher looked at Hedwig with beaming eyes. There was her grandmother to the life. Turning to the old man, he said, "You must remember the time when they introduced the decades into France?"
"Ducats, do you mean? why, they come from Italy."
"I mean decades. They ordained that people should rest every tenth day, instead of every seventh. Then everybody fell sick also. The number seven is repeated in a mysterious manner throughout the whole course of nature, and must not be arbitrarily removed."
"Why, they must have been crazy! A Sunday every ten days! ha, ha!" said the old man.
"Do you know the story of the lord who is hewn in stone in our church here, with the dog?" asked Hedwig.
"No: tell it."
"He was one of those fellows, too, that didn't keep holy the Sunday. He was a lord----"
"Lord of Isenburg and Nordstetten," explained her grand-uncle.