"There comes Judge Bacon, white and ugly," said the critical Hiram. "I wonder what he comes to meetin' for. Lord knows he needs it, sly, slippery old sinner! Face's as white as a lily; his heart's as black as a chimney flue afore it's cleaned. He'll get his flue burned out if he don't repent, that's certain. He don't believe the Bible. They say he don't believe in God. Wal, I guess it's pretty even between 'em. Shouldn't wonder if God didn't believe in him neither."
As soon as the afternoon service was over, every horse on the green knew that it was time for him to go home. Some grew restless and whinnied for their masters. Nimble hands soon put them into the shafts or repaired any irregularity of harness. Then came such a scramble of vehicles to the church door for the older persons; while young women and children, venturing further out upon the green, were taken up hastily, that the impatient horses might as soon as possible turn their heads homeward. Clouds of dust began to arise along every outward-going road. In less than ten minutes not a wagon or chaise was seen upon the village green. They were whirling homeward at the very best pace that the horses could raise. Stiff old steeds vainly essayed a nimbler gait, but gave it up in a few rods, and fell back to the steady jog. Young horses, tired of long standing, and with a strong yearning for evening oats, shot along the level ground, rushed up the little hills, or down upon the other side, in the most un-Sunday-like haste. The scene was not altogether unlike the return from a military funeral, to which men march with sad music and slow, but from which they return nimbly marching to the most brilliant quick-step.
In half an hour Norwood was quiet again. The dinner, on Sunday, when for the sake of the outlying population the two services are brought near together in the middle of the day, was usually deferred till the ordinary supper hour. It was evident that the tone of the day was changed. Children were not so strictly held in. There was no loud talking, nor was laughing allowed, but a general feeling sprung up around the table that the severer tasks of the day were ended.
Devout and age-sobered people sat in a kind of golden twilight of meditation. The minister, in his well-ordered house, tired with a double service, mingled thoughts both glad and sad. His tasks were ended. He was conscious that he had manfully done his best. But that best doing, as he reflected upon it, seemed so poor, so unworthy of the nobleness of the theme, and so relatively powerless upon the stubborn stuff of which his people's dispositions were made, that there remained a vague, unquiet sense of blame upon his conscience.
It was Dr. Wentworth's habit to walk with his family in the garden, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. If early, Rose was usually his company; in the afternoon the whole family, Agate Bissell always excepted. She had in full measure that peculiar New England feeling that Sunday is to be kept by staying in the house, except such time as is spent at church. And though she never, impliedly even, rebuked the doctor's resort to his garden, it was plain that deep down in her heart she thought it an improper way of spending Sunday; and in that view she had the secret sympathy of almost all the noteworthy villagers. Had any one, upon that day, made Agate a visit, unless for some plain end of necessity or mercy, she would have deemed it a personal affront.
Sunday was the Lord's day. Agate acted as if any use of it for her own pleasure would be literal and downright stealing.
"We have six days for our own work. We ought not to begrudge the Lord one whole day."
Two circumstances distressed honest Agate's conscience. The one was that the incursion of summer visitors from the city was tending manifestly to relax the Sabbath, especially after the church services. The other was that Dr. Wentworth would occasionally allow Judge Bacon to call in and discuss with him topics suggested by the sermons. She once expressed herself in this wise:--
"Either Sunday is worth keeping, or it is not. If you do keep it, it ought to be strictly done. But lately Sunday is raveling out at the end. We take it on like a summer dress, which in the morning is clean and sweet, but at night it is soiled at the bottom and much rumpled all over."
Dr. Wentworth sat with Rose on one side and her mother on the other, in the honeysuckle corner, where the west could be seen, great trees lying athwart the horizon and checkering the golden light with their dark masses. Judge Bacon had turned the conversation upon this very topic.