But he would not be persuaded, and he went to church as always. She rode with him upon the pillion. Mrs. Hannah rode the fat plough horse.
By the windows and doors of the Meeting-House were nailed the grim and grinning heads of wolves, freshly slain. In the stocks before the Meeting-House were two Quaker women, the one in an extremity of despair and cold (for there was some ice upon the ground) and the other brazen, screaming out profanities and laughing in her disgrace. Upon the roof-walk paced back and forth Captain Buzzey, of the train-band troop, beating his drum in great long rolls, summoning all to come and worship.
Inside the Church Mrs. Hannah and Doll sat together on the women’s side, and Mr. Bilby, as befitted his station in the community, sat close to the minister. After certain psalms, prayers, etc., Mr. Zelley held forth from the Book of Judith for the space of two hours. There were announcements by the clerk, etc., and then Mr. Zelley again ascended the scaffold. Couched in proper form, he read how Titus, son of Deacon Ephraim Thumb, and Doll, foster child of Jared Bilby, engaged themselves for holy wedlock and desired the pronouncement of these banns.
His voice was drowned by a sharp and most piteous lamentation. At first none knew from where this infernal sound had come. Deacon looked to deacon, wife to wife. Mr. Cuppy, the tithing-man, ran up and down among the wretched small boys. Mr. Zelley stopped in astonishment, looking first up, as if he thought the sound had come from the corn crib in the loft of the Church—or from Heaven—and then down, as though seeking its source from Hell. Doll Bilby was on her feet, her arms outstretched, addressing her foster father. Her voice rose and died out. None there could ever repeat what it was she said. That noon, in the noon-house, between the two services, men and women got together whispering, wondering, and asking each what it was that Bilby’s saucy jade had—to her own unending shame and to the great indignity of the sacred service—dared to pipe forth.
Mr. Zelley—the least disturbed of all—saw to it that Bilby and his beloved Doll be got to horse and to home, without waiting for the second service. He was perplexed and harassed by the occurrence, and refused to discuss with his deacons what would be a fitting punishment for the young woman, although most were agreed that it would be the stocks or the pillory. Instead of listening to the discussions in the noon-house, he went out of doors and stood before the evil women in the stocks, exhorting them in the name of Christ Jesus to repent and to be forgiven. Theodate Gookin, a stout child, mocked them and pelted them with small apples. This action of the child enraged Mr. Zelley more than had the foul blasphemies of the Quakers. He roughly ordered Theodate to lay off his own warm overcoat. This he spread kindly upon the back of the most insufferable of the blasphemers. By which act of charity, he stilled her lying tongue, and reproved the levity of the child who would sport about and enjoy himself on the Lord’s Day.
4
Evil cursing bears bitter fruit. Mr. Bilby, though struck down, swears to the innocency of his Destroyer and makes a Pious End.
Bilby went stiffly to his horse, his mouth drawn, his face grey. His wife got on the pillion behind him and soon left Doll (on the fat work animal) far behind. When the girl got to the house, she did not seem to understand why her foster mother shook her fist, spat, and made at her with a warming-pan. She did not seem to know that she had cursed the man—that kind man, whom she loved.
Mr. Bilby suffered from a cruel congestion of the lights. Mr. Kleaver said from the first there was little chance to save him. For on one day came the surgeon, with his saddle-bags stuffed with motherwort and goldenrod, and on the next came the minister with his big Bible, and on the third day they were like to send for Goody Goochey, the woman who had the laying-out of the dead—so sick was he.
But he delayed his passage into eternity, fighting death with hardly Christian resignation; for to your true Christian the years spent on this world must seem but as the nine months which the child spends in the womb. His death-day is in fact his birthday into the kingdom of God. Should he fight against death any more than the infant should fight against birth?