The Devil

It could not be denied. During a good many years he had been to one funeral and two christenings; and, except for these rare occasions, had entirely abstained from attending any religious ceremonies. And Mavis too had gradually become slack in the performance of her spiritual duties. On Sunday mornings there was the dinner to think about. She still liked to cook the great weekly feast herself. Moreover, after six days of genuine labor, Sunday's fundamental purport as a day of rest is apt to overshadow its symbolic aspects as a day set apart for communion with things impalpable. The Abbey Church was too far off, even if it had not been out of the question for other reasons. It required a walk of two fat miles to get to Rodchurch, and one had to start early if one did not want to arrive there hot and flustered; again there was the risk of rain overtaking one in one's best dress. Every fine Sunday she used to talk at breakfast of intending to go to the morning service; and at dinner of intending to go to the evening service.

If she carried either the first or the second intention into effect, it was Dale's custom to go along the road and meet her returning. And this he now prepared to do, on a warm dry April morning, when obviously there could be no fear of rain and she had set out in her best directly after breakfast.

Dale loved the quiet and the freedom from interruption of these Sunday mornings; he enjoyed the luxury of being able to smoke in the office while he made up his books, and reveled in the lolling ease of the old porter's chair as he read Saturday's Courier and the last number of Answers. To-day he was peculiarly conscious of the soothing Sunday hush that had fallen widely on the land. All the doors and windows stood open, so that the soft air flowed like water through and through the house, making it an undivided part of the one great generous flooding atmosphere, and giving sensations of vast space and free activities as well as those produced by guarded comfort and motionless repose. The only sounds that reached him were the droning of bees in a border of spring flowers, the pawing of a horse in the stables, the pipe of young voices in the orchard; and all three sounds were pleasant to his ear. How could they be otherwise; since they spoke of three such pleasant things as awakening life, rewarded toil, and contented fatherhood?

When presently he went up-stairs to change his coat, he stood by a window and looked down at the peaceful little realm that fate had given to him. The sunlight was glittering on the red tiles of the clustered roofs, the brown thatch of the ricks, and the white cobblestones of a corner of the yard; and the blossom of pears and apples was pink and white, as if a light shower of colored snow had just fallen on the still leafless trees. Beneath the orchard branches he could see his children and Norah playing among the daffodils that grew wild in the grass; the light all about them was faintly blue and unceasingly tremulous and he stood watching, listening, smiling, thinking.