Spikeman made no reply, and the man having attained his object, and observing the other's desire to be rid of him, withdrew.
The countenance of the Assistant expressed chagrin and displeasure as he looked after the retiring form of the serving-man; but presently he buried his face in his hands, leaning his elbows on the tall writing-table that stood before him. In this attitude he remained some little time, and when he removed them, the expression of his face was changed, and his mind evidently filled with other thoughts. The look of vexation had been succeeded by one it is difficult to describe—a kind of smile played around his lips, his eyes sparkled, his color was heightened, and a slight moisture exuded from the corners of his mouth—he was uglier and more repulsive than before. He bent over, and on a piece of paper which lay before him, wrote with a hand that trembled a little—"How fair and how pleasant, art thou O love, for delights." This sentence he scrawled several times, and then taking up the piece of paper, he tore it into small fragments, and scattered them on the floor, after which, composing his face into an austere seeming, he placed his high steeple-crowned hat on his head, and, leaving the building, proceeded in the direction of his dwelling-house. As he advanced leisurely along, he soon heard the sound of a drum beaten through the streets, to summon the people to one of those weekly lectures, in which spiritual instruction was not unfrequently leavened with worldly wisdom and directions for political conduct.
Meetings for religious lecture, on week days, were exceedingly common, and held in high favor; indeed, so attractive were they, that in the language of an old historian, an actor on the spot—"Many poor persons would usually resort to two or three in the week, to the great neglect of their affairs and the damage of the public." To these, the people were summoned by beat of drum, the martial roll of which instrument called them also to muster for defence, upon a hostile alarm, a different tattoo being adopted for the latter purpose. An attempt was at one time made by the magistrates to diminish the frequency of these meetings, as a serious inroad upon the industry of the colony; but the effort was resisted, and that successfully, by the elders, "alleging their tenderness of the church's liberty, as if such a precedent might enthrall them to the civil power, and as if it would cast a blemish upon the elders, which would remain to posterity; that they should need to be regulated by the civil magistrate, and also raise an ill savor of the people's coldness, that would complain of much preaching, &c, whereas liberty for the ordinances was the main end professed of our coming hither." They were social beings, and loved stimulus like the rest of mankind, and had no public amusements. These causes are sufficient to account for the fondness for the weekly lecture; but if to them be superadded the peculiarity of their civil and religious polity, which inculcated an extraordinary affection for each other as God's chosen people destined to communion, not here only, but forever; and the isolation of their situation, cutting them off from participation in the stirring events to which they had been accustomed, we should wonder if they had not met frequently together. The elders, jealous of their influence, showed in this instance, as they did in others, a knowledge of human nature, superior to that of the magistrates, and the latter were glad to retreat from the position they had taken, "lest the people should break their bonds through abuse of liberty," if the wholesome restraint exerted by the elders, by means of the lectures, in order to retain the people in subjection to the civil power, should be withdrawn.
As the Assistant walked on, he began to meet persons coming out of their houses, in obedience to the invitation. There was the staid citizen, whose sobriety bordered on sternness, with hair closely cropped to avoid the "unloveliness of love-locks," covered with a large flapped peaked hat, and arrayed in broad white band and sad-colored garments, on whose arm leaned his wife, or walked independently at his side, bearing on her head a hat of similar shape to her husband's, or else having it protected with hood, or cap, or coif; a white vandyke neckerchief falling over the shoulders, and rising high in the neck; long-waisted bodice of velvet or silk, open in front, and laced down to a point, on which was placed a rosette, with voluminous fardingale of like material, gathered up in folds behind, and supplying, though with more modesty and less bad taste, the place of the more modern "bishop," now happily banished these regions. Behind came the sons and daughters, attired like their parents, and imitating them in gravity of demeanor. There were also some indented apprentices and serving men and serving women, whom either the zeal of their masters and mistresses required, or their own tastes or ideas of duty induced to be present, while here and there, at the corners of the streets, might be seen an occasional Indian, with bow in hand, listening with admiration to the marvellous music of the blood-stirring instrument, and gazing with feelings compounded of fear and envy at the strange people gathering together to a talk with the Great Spirit.
The Assistant Spikeman, as he passed the wayfarers, returned their demure salutations with solemn dignity, as became one in high station, and in whose ears was sounding a call to a meeting of the congregation. Thus exchanging greetings, he proceeded to his house, where, entering the room used by the family as a sitting apartment, he hung up his hat and took a seat. But his agitation did not permit him to remain still, and almost immediately he arose and began to pace the floor. Hearing presently advancing footsteps, he dropped into a chair, and leaning back and shutting his eyes, assumed an expression of pain and lassitude. In a moment the door of the room was opened, and a comely woman of middle age entered, dressed for the "meeting."
"Dear heart," she exclaimed, "here have Eveline and I been waiting for thee this quarter of an hour. You must not, if you are so late, complain of me hereafter, when the lacet of my bodice troubles me, or the plaits of my hair refuse to keep their place, and so I delay thee unreasonably, as thou sayest, though it is all to honor thee; for would it not be unbeseeming for the help-meet of a worshipful Assistant to appear like a common mechanic's wife? But art thou ill?" she added, observing his air of dejection, and instantly changing the tone that had in it something of reproach into one of anxiety; "then will I remain at home to comfort thee."
"No, dame," said her husband, "there is no cause to detain thee from the sanctuary. The godly Mr. Cotton holds forth to-day, and it would be a sinful neglect of privileges. I feel not well myself, and must, therefore, for thy sake, as well as my own, deny myself the refreshment of the good man's counsel. Thou shalt go, to edify me on thy return with what thou mayest remember of his discourse."
But the kind heart of dame Spikeman was not so easily to be diverted from its purpose, and she persisted, with some pertinacity, in a determination to remain, until her husband laid his commands upon her to attend the lecture.
"I will obey," she then said, "sithence it is thy wish; and is it not written, Adam was first made, and then Eve; and I will pray for thee, dear heart, in the congregation, that He will keep thee in all thy ways, nor let the enemy approach to harm or to tempt thee."
Spikeman winced, and perhaps his conscience pricked him at the moment, but he betrayed no confusion as he replied: