He was too thoroughly knit up in the habits of a Puritan education to use any form of profane language, but no man knew so well how to produce the startling effect of an oath without swearing; and this day he drove about the field in such a stormy manner that his sons, accustomed as they were to his manners, were alarmed.
"Tell you what," said one of the boys to Abner, "the old man's awful cranky to-day. Reely seems as if he was a little bit sprung. I don't know but he's going crazy!"
[CHAPTER XXX.]
THE CRISIS.
It was a warm, soft June evening. The rosy tints of sunset were just merging into brown shadows over the landscape, the frogs peeped and gurgled in the marshes, and the whippoorwills were beginning to answer each other from the thick recesses of the trees, when the old ministerial chaise of Dr. Cushing might have been seen wending its way up the stony road to the North Poganuc school-house.
The Doctor and his wife were talking confidentially, and Dolly, seated between them, entered with eager sympathy into all they were saying.
They were very happy, with a simple, honest, earnest happiness, for they hoped that the great object of his life and labors was now about to be accomplished, that the power of a Divine Influence was descending to elevate and purify and lift the souls of his people to God.