The common people manifested their opinions more openly . Pearson was a man of some consideration , being a representative to the General Court and an approved lieutenant in the train-bands , yet within a week after his adoption of Ilbrahim he had been both hissed and hooted . Once , also , when walking through a solitary piece of woods , he heard a loud voice from some invisible speaker , and it cried , `` What shall be done to the backslider ? Lo ! the scourge is knotted for him , even the whip of nine cords , and every cord three knots . '' These insults irritated Pearson 's temper for the moment ; they entered also into his heart , and became imperceptible but powerful workers toward an end which his most secret thought had not yet whispered . * * * * * On the second Sabbath after Ilbrahim became a member of their family , Pearson and his wife deemed it proper that he should appear with them at public worship . They had anticipated some opposition to this measure from the boy , but he prepared himself in silence , and at the appointed hour was clad in the new mourning-suit which Dorothy had wrought for him . As the parish was then , and during many subsequent years , unprovided with a bell , the signal for the commencement of religious exercises was the beat of a drum . At the first sound of that martial call to the place of holy and quiet thoughts Tobias and Dorothy set forth , each holding a hand of little Ilbrahim , like two parents linked together by the infant of their love . On their path through the leafless woods they were overtaken by many persons of their acquaintance , all of whom avoided them and passed by on the other side ; but a severer trial awaited their constancy when they had descended the hill and drew near the pine-built and undecorated house of prayer . Around the door , from which the drummer still sent forth his thundering summons , was drawn up a formidable phalanx , including several of the oldest members of the congregation , many of the middle-aged and nearly all the younger males . Pearson found it difficult to sustain their united and disapproving gaze , but Dorothy , whose mind was differently circumstanced , merely drew the boy closer to her and faltered not in her approach . As they entered the door they overheard the muttered sentiments of the assemblage ; and when the reviling voices of the little children smote Ilbrahim 's ear , he wept . The interior aspect of the meeting-house was rude . The low ceiling , the unplastered walls , the naked woodwork and the undraperied pulpit offered nothing to excite the devotion which without such external aids often remains latent in the heart . The floor of the building was occupied by rows of long cushionless benches , supplying the place of pews , and the broad aisle formed a sexual division impassable except by children beneath a certain age . Pearson and Dorothy separated at the door of the meeting-house , and Ilbrahim , being within the years of infancy , was retained under the care of the latter . The wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their rusty cloaks as he passed by ; even the mild-featured maidens seemed to dread contamination ; and many a stern old man arose and turned his repulsive and unheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy , as if the sanctuary were polluted by his presence . He was a sweet infant of the skies that had strayed away from his home , and all the inhabitants of this miserable world closed up their impure hearts against him , drew back their earth-soiled garments from his touch and said , `` We are holier than thou . ''
Ilbrahim , seated by the side of his adopted mother and retaining fast hold of her hand , assumed a grave and decorous demeanor such XXXXX might befit a person of matured taste and understanding who should find himself in a temple dedicated to some worship which he did not recognize , but felt himself bound to respect .
Around against as at in into of than to without