From a barn came the sound of voices singing a psalm, in not very musical tones.
Mistress Forrester was engaging in a Puritan service with a few of the chosen ones, who would not join in what they deemed the Popish ceremonies of the church in the valley. These stern dissenters from the reformed religion were keeping alive that spark which, fanned into a flame some fifty years later, was to sweep through the land and devastate churches, and destroy every outward sign in crucifix, and pictured saint in fair carved niche, and image of seer or king, which were in their eyes the token of that Babylon which was answerable for the blood of the faithful witnesses for Christ!
The stern creed of the followers of Calvin had a charm for natures like Mistress Forrester, who, secure in her own salvation, could afford to look down on those outside the groove in which she walked; and with neither imagination nor any love of the beautiful, she felt a gruesome satisfaction in what was ugly in her own dress and appearance, and a contempt for others who had eyes to see the beauty to which she was blind.
Lucy had come home in a very captious mood, and declaring she was weary and had a pain in her head; she said she needed no supper, and went up to her little attic chamber in the roof of the house.
Mary Gifford laid aside her long veil, and made a bowl of milk and brown bread ready for her boy; and then, while he ate it, pausing between every spoonful to ask his mother some question, she prepared the board for the guests, whom she knew her stepmother would probably bring in from the barn when the long prayer was over.
Ambrose was always full of inquiries on many subjects, and this evening he had much to say about the picture-book Master Tom Sidney showed him—the man in the lions' den, and why they did not eat him up; the men in a big fire that were not burned, because God kept them safe. And then he returned to the hawk and the little bird, and wondered how many more the cruel hawk had eaten for his supper; and, finally, wished God would take care of the little birds, and let the hawk live on mice like the old white owl in the barn. The child's prattle was not heeded as much as sometimes, and Mary's answers were not so satisfactory as usual. He was like his Aunt Lucy, tired, and scarcely as much pleased with his day as he had expected to be; and, finally, his mother carried him off to bed, and, having folded his hands, made him repeat a little prayer, and then he murmured out in a sing-song a verse Ned the cowboy had taught him:—
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Four corners to my bed, Four angels at my head; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed I lie upon. |
Almost before the last word was said, the white lids closed over the violet eyes, and Ambrose was asleep. Mary stood over him for a minute with clasped hands.
'Ah! God keep him safe, nor suffer him to stray where danger lurks,' she said.
Voices below and the sound of heavy feet warned her that the meeting in the barn was over, and her stepmother would require her presence.