An English Sunday has come to be regarded by some as a mere day, and by others as a sad lady in a cap who pulls at the church-bells, with a wish that she was tolling them. Yet, quite unbeknown and unsought by those who have at certain times—as a conceit, whim, or fancy moved them—commanded that a settled ritual should be used to the glory of God, there has come into being a strange sweetness in country places to grace the Sabbath day.
Whatever can in any way stem the horrid waters of rude and hideous violence, has done and will ever do—though the belief may be utter folly—the greatest good to man. Who may not now kneel or rest or loiter, with this excuse to give to the more ardent labourers, that he worships the Lord? Let the High Temple priests still pretend, if such pretence can give to us poor ones a little release from toil.
The pastoral gods still live in mossy corners. Those who know the green places, that have each day a life and being of their own—wearing a new coat as the seasons change—take notice of the Sabbath day as one of the kind ones. It is a day of magic hours, wherein for a moment the pretty sparrow may forget the monstrous hawk.
Even the lonely church-bell, that in Dodder is rung by Daisy Huddy, who has changed her trade through listening to a good storyteller, may be to one who does not mean to attend the call, a pleasant sound to hear. Those who have the will to love this day—and I am a brother to them—reckon it as somewhat more gentle and friendly to man than an ordinary working-day, and are glad to watch the slow and orderly manner in which Tom Huddy, having received a spirited command from Miss Winnie, goes to the well for water.
And with no need to hurry, he fills the bucket with Sunday care, brushes his coat upon which a little dust may have blown, and bears the bucket to his cottage in the same sacramental manner. As he came out, so he returns—this day his own master.
Mr. Huddy has always supposed the Sunday to be a fair maid, who may be looked at but not touched, but who lends to the day a virgin grace that compels all ugly toil, and even week-day clothes, to hide in covered places until the day ends. The feelings of even his Sunday trousers must be respected; it would not suit them to be seen climbing a hedge; they must be worn decently, or else the fair Maid Mary might complain.
A week is a long time. During a week the pains of labour may come upon a woman, the babe may be born, its name chosen, and the child carried to church to be baptized. A girl may be courted, married, and be sorry for it during the same period of time. Shepherd Brine may buy a new pair of boots, kick one of the soles off upon the dern of his own door, and be as bootless as before, in one week. Within a week a man may be taken ill, may suffer sadly, may die, and be buried.
It is something indeed to live from one Sunday to another. Though we cannot stop time, we can take more heed to its going, and every Sunday should be carefully noted.
Even the wych-elm beside the Dodder church gets a Sabbath look, as well as Mr. Titball. The winds knowingly rustle the leaves of the tree and set them a-praying, while during matins, upon a Christmas morning, the bare boughs droop a little and pretend to be pious.
It is all pretence, for when no one knows what truth is, what else is there to do but to pretend? All life is pretence, but never death.
That state stands as the one stone unturned in the fields of folly. In all other matters the world is as we like to make it, for not Jesus alone can turn water into wine. A tiny pool may seem the whole of the wine-dark deep, and Mr. Hayhoe’s back garden can be a wild wilderness—as indeed it is.
Whoever has noticed cows walking upon the Sunday will observe that they are no episcopalians, for, on their way to be milked, they will loiter beside a chapel while a hymn is being sung—especially if it be by Charles Wesley—but pass the church with a flick of their tails to scatter the flies.
Sunday is a day of surprises.
Mr. Hayhoe puts on his surplice inside out. Daisy Huddy, who attends him in the vestry—to the scandal of some—readjusts the garment. Priscilla Hayhoe, with the hat that all admire, sits in the Vicarage pew and finds the correct place for evensong in her prayer-book. She turns the pages with caution, as though she thinks that something odd may creep out of them—a spider, perhaps, or an earwig—for no one knows what one will find in a church, any more than a woman knows what she will find in her own mind. A strange fancy—that she will not wish to tell to any one—will sometimes come into her thoughts as she follows the service in the book. It will but be a wish to follow after a little mouse that she has seen scamper from the altar table and hurry into its hole under the pulpit.
Then Priscilla looks at her book again; she is thinking of green lawns and fair flowers, a shadow cast by a sundial, a fair fountain in a rose garden.