twitching
throughout all her frame. But Pastor Nolan was not a keen observer upon
this occasion; he was absorbed with his own little wonders and
perplexities. His wonder was that of a carnal man--who that pretty
stranger might be, who had seemed, on his first coming, so glad to see
him, but had vanished instantly, apparently not to reappear. And,
indeed, I am not sure if his perplexity was not that of a carnal man
rather than that of a godly minister, for this was his dilemma. It was
the custom of Salem (as we have already seen) for the minister, on
entering a household for the visit which, among other people and in
other times, would have been termed a 'morning call,' to put up a
prayer for the eternal welfare of the family under whose roof-tree he
was. Now this prayer was expected to be adapted to the individual
character, joys, sorrows, wants, and failings of every member present;
and here was he, a young pastor, alone with a young woman, and he
thought--vain thoughts, perhaps, but still very natural--that the
implied guesses at her character, involved in the minute supplications
above described, would be very awkward in a tete-a-tete prayer; so,
whether it was his wonder or his perplexity, I do not know, but he did
not contribute much to the conversation for some time, and at last, by
a sudden burst of courage and impromptu hit, he cut the Gordian knot by
making the usual proposal for prayer, and adding to it a request that
the household might be summoned. In came Lois, quiet and decorous; in
came Nattee, all one impassive, stiff piece of wood,--no look of
intelligence or trace of giggling near her countenance. Solemnly
recalling each wandering thought, Pastor Nolan knelt in the midst of
these three to pray. He was a good and truly religious man, whose name
here is the only thing disguised, and played his part bravely in the
awful trial to which he was afterwards subjected; and if at the time,
before he went through his fiery persecutions, the human fancies which
beset all young hearts came across his, we at this day know that these
fancies are no sin. But now he prays in earnest, prays so heartily for
himself, with such a sense of his own spiritual need and spiritual
failings, that each one of his hearers feels as if a prayer and a
supplication had gone up for each of them. Even Nattee muttered the few
words she knew of the Lord's Prayer; gibberish though the disjointed
nouns and verbs might be, the poor creature s