Now he bowed to a group of the gossips knitting on a door-stoop in the sun, and now he stooped to set upon its feet a little child that had fallen. At the stocks he dispelled sternly a group of boys who were tickling the feet of the writhing prisoners. Thus, in one of the rarely serene moments of his troubled life, he made his leisurely way. But only his exalted mood, wrapping him as an invisible, impenetrable garment, enabled him to pass thus serenely. To every one else a weight of terror hung like a pall. The awful superstition seemed in the very air they breathed. How unnatural the blue sky! What a relief to their strained nerves would have been another mighty storm! Then might they have shrieked the terror which possessed them, but now the villagers spoke in whispers, so terrible the silence of the bright noonday. And many, although aware of the fact that the evil spirits were mostly abroad at night, yet longed for the darkness to come and cover them. No man dared glance at his neighbour. From one cottage came the cry of a babe yet in swaddling clothes, deserted by its panic-stricken mother, who believed it possessed by an evil spirit. Yet, mechanically the villagers pursued their daily duties. At the tavern, Cotton Mather found Judge Samuel Sewall and the schoolmaster—who acted as clerk in court—conversing over their mugs of sack. Pleased to fall in with such company, he drew his stool up to their table. “Alas, my dear friend,” said the good judge, “this witchery business weighs heavy on my soul! I cannot foresee an end to it, and know not who will next be cried out upon. ’Tis a sorry jest, I wot, but meseemeth, in time, the hangman will be the only man left in this afflicted township. E’en my stomach turns ’gainst my best loved dishes.” On the younger man’s serene, almost exalted face came a humanizing gleam of gentle ridicule. “Then indeed has the Lord used this witchery business to one godly purpose, at least, if you do turn from things of the flesh, Samuel.” A rare sweetness, born of the serenity of his mind and his friendship, was in his glance. “Nay, nay,” spoke the good judge, gruffly, “’tis an ill conscience and an haughty stomach go together. No liking have I for the man who turns from his food. Alas, that such a man should be I and I should be such a man!” he groaned. “The face of that child we condemned troubles me o’ nights.” A menacing frown transformed Cotton Mather’s face, and he was changed from the genial friend into the Protestant priest, imperious in his decisions. He struck his hand heavily on the table. “Shall we, then, be wrought upon by a round cheek and tender years, and shrink from doing the Lord’s bidding? Most evil is the way of such a maid, and more to be dreaded than all the old hags of Christendom.”