Anthology of
fantastic tales
"Every
narrative is a journey of discovery" Nadine Gordimer
The Young Goodman Brown
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown YOUNG GOODMAN
BROWN came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head
back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young
wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into
the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she
called to Goodman Brown. "Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and
rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "pr'y thee, put off
your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is
troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she is afeard of herself,
sometimes. Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the
year!" "My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown,
"of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My
journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt
now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and
we but three months married!" "Then God bless you!" said Faith,
with the pink ribbons, "and may you find all well, when you come
back." "Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear
Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee." So they parted;
and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the
meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after
him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink
ribbons. "Poor little
Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I, to
leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke,
there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be
done to-night. But, no, no! 'twould kill her to think it. Well; she's a blessed
angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow
her to Heaven." With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown
felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had
taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which
barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately
behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such
a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the
innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely
footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude. "There may
be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself;
and he glanced fearfully behind him, as he added, "What if the devil
himself should be at my very elbow!" His head being turned back, he passed
a crook of the road, and looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in
grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose, at
Goodman Brown's approach, and walked onward, side by side with him. "You
are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old South was
striking, as I came through Boston; and that is full fifteen minutes
agone." "Faith kept me back awhile," replied the young man, with
a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though
not wholly unexpected. It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that
part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned,
the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of
life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps
more in expression than features. Still, they might have been taken for father
and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger,
and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the
world, and would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner-table, or in
King William's court, were it possible that his affairs should call him
thither. But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable,
was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously
wrought, that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living
serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the
uncertain light. "Come, Goodman Brown!" cried his fellow-traveller,
"this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you
are so soon weary." "Friend," said the other, exchanging his
slow pace for a full stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it
is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter
thou wot'st of." "Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent,
smiling apart. "Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I
convince thee not, thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest,
yet." "Too far, too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously
resuming his walk. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand,
nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good
Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name
of Brown, that ever took this path and kept--" "Such company, thou
wouldst say," observed the elder person, interrupting his pause.
"Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family
as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped
your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly
through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought your father a
pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in
King Philip's War. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk
have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain
be friends with you, for their sake." "If it be as thou sayest,"
replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel they never spoke of these matters. Or,
verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven
them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and
abide no such wickedness." "Wickedness or not," said the
traveller with the twisted staff, "I have a very general acquaintance here
in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with
me; the selectmen, of divers towns, make me their chairman; and a majority of the
Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I,
too--but these are state-secrets." "Can this be so!" cried
Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion.
"Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have
their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. But, were I to
go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister,
at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble, both Sabbath-day and
lecture-day!" Thus far, the elder traveller had listened with due gravity,
but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently
that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. "Ha! ha!
ha!" shouted he, again and again; then composing himself, "Well, go
on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, pr'y thee, don't kill me with laughing!"
"Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown,
considerably nettled, "there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little
heart; and I'd rather break my own!" "Nay, if that be the case,"
answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not, for
twenty old women like the one hobbling before us, that Faith should come to any
harm." As he spoke, he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path,
in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had
taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual
adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin. "A marvel, truly,
that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness, at night-fall!" said
he. "But, with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods,
until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she
might ask whom I was consorting with, and whither I was going." "Be
it so," said his fellow-traveller. "Betake you to the woods, and let
me keep the path." Accordingly, the young man turned aside, but took care
to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road, until he had come
within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of
her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct
words, a prayer, doubtless, as she went. The traveller put forth his staff, and
touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail. "The
devil!" screamed the pious old lady. "Then Goody Cloyse knows her old
friend?" observed the traveller, confronting her, and leaning on his
writhing stick. "Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship, indeed?" cried
the good dame. "Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip,
Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But--would your
worship believe it?--my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I
suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all
anointed with the juice of smallage and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane--"
"Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said the
shape of old Goodman Brown. "Ah, your worship knows the recipe,"
cried the old lady, cackling aloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready
for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for
they tell me, there is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night.
But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a
twinkling." "That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I
may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse, but here is my staff, if you
will." So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed
life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to Egyptian Magi.
Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up
his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse
nor the serpentine staff, but his fellowtraveller alone, who waited for him as
calmly as if nothing had happened. "That old woman taught me my
catechism!" said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this
simple comment. They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller
exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path,
discoursing so aptly, that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the
bosom of his auditor, than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked
a branch of maple, to serve for a walking-stick, and began to strip it of the
twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his
fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up, as with a
week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly,
in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of
a tree, and refused to go any farther. "Friend," said he, stubbornly,
"my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if
a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil, when I thought she was going
to Heaven! Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith, and go after
her?" "You will think better of this by-and-by," said his
acquaintance, composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself awhile; and when you
feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along." Without more
words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of
sight, as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few
moments by the road-side, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how
clear a conscience he should meet the minister, in his morning-walk, nor shrink
from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his, that
very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but purely and sweetly
now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations,
Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable
to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty
purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it. On
came the hoof-tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices,
conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass
along the road, within a few yards of the young man's hiding-place; but owing,
doubtless, to the depth of the gloom, at that particular spot, neither the
travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the
small boughs by the way-side, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even
for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky, athwart which they
must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tip-toe,
pulling aside the branches, and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst,
without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could
have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the
minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do,
when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within
hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. "Of the two,
reverend Sir," said the voice like the deacon's, I had rather miss an
ordination-dinner than tonight's meeting. They tell me that some of our
community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut
and Rhode-Island; besides several of the Indian powows, who, after their
fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a
goodly young woman to be taken into communion." "Mighty well, Deacon
Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the minister. "Spur up, or
we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the
ground." The hoofs clattered again, and the voices, talking so strangely
in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been
gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be
journeying, so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught
hold of a tree, for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and
overburthened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky,
doubting whether there really was a Heaven above him. Yet, there was the blue
arch, and the stars brightening in it. "With Heaven above, and Faith
below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!" cried Goodman Brown.
While he still gazed upward, into the deep arch of the firmament, and had
lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across
the zenith, and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible,
except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly
northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused
and doubtful sound of voices. Once, the listener fancied that he could
distinguish the accent of town's-people of his own, men and women, both pious
and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion-table, and had seen
others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds,
he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest,
whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones,
heard daily in the sunshine, at Salem village, but never, until now, from a
cloud of night. There was one voice, of a young woman, uttering lamentations,
yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it
would grieve her to obtain. And all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners,
seemed to encourage her onward. "Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a
voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying
-- "Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her, all
through the wilderness. The cry of grief, rage, and terror, was yet piercing
the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a
scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off
laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above
Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught
on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.
"My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There
is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this
world given." And maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long,
did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate, that he
seemed to fly along the forestpath, rather than to walk or run. The road grew
wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving
him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward, with the
instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with
frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and
the yell of Indians; while, sometimes the wind tolled like a distant
church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all
Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the
scene, and shrank not from its other horrors. "Ha! ha! ha!" roared
Goodman Brown, when the wind laughed at him. "Let us hear which will laugh
loudest! Think not to frighten me with your deviltry! Come witch, come wizard,
come Indian powow, come devil himself! and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as
well fear him as he fear you!" In truth, all through the haunted forest,
there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he
flew, among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now
giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such
laughter, as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him.
The fiend in his own shape is less hideous, than when he rages in the breast of
man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he
saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a
clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky,
at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven
him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a
distance, with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar
one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and
was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the
benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried
out; and his cry was lost to his own ear, by its unison with the cry of the
desert. In the interval of silence, he stole forward, until the light glared
full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark
wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either
to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops
aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of
foliage, that had overgrown the summit of the rock, was all on fire, blazing
high into the night, and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent
twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a
numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and
again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary
woods at once. "A grave and dark-clad company!" quoth Goodman Brown.
In truth, they were such. Among them, quivering to-and-fro, between gloom and
splendor, appeared faces that would be seen, next day, at the council-board of
the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly
heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in
the land. Some affirm, that the lady of the governor was there. At least, there
were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a
great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young
girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden
gleams of light, flashing over the obscure field, bedazzled Goodman Brown, or
he recognized a score of the church-members of Salem village, famous for their
especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts
of that venerable saint, his reverend pastor. But, irreverently consorting with
these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these
chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of
spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected
even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the
wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered, also, among
their palefaced enemies, were the Indian priests, or powows, who had often
scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to
English witchcraft. "But, where is Faith?" thought Goodman Brown;
and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled. Another verse of the hymn arose,
a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which
expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far
more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was
sung, and still the chorus of the desert swelled between, like the deepest tone
of a mighty organ. And, with the final peal of that dreadful anthem, there came
a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and
every other voice of the unconverted wilderness, were mingling and according
with the voice of guilty man, in homage to the prince of all. The four blazing
pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of
horror on the smoke-wreaths, above the impious assembly. At the same moment,
the fire on the rock shot redly forth, and formed a glowing arch above its
base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore
no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the
New-England churches. "Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice, that
echoed through the field and rolled into the forest. At the word, Goodman Brown
stepped forth from the shadow of the trees, and approached the congregation,
with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood, by the sympathy of all that was
wicked in his heart. He could have well nigh sworn, that the shape of his own
dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke-wreath,
while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him
back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to
resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized
his arms, and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form
of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the
catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen
of hell. A rampant hag was she! And there stood the proselytes, beneath the
canopy of fire. "Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to
the communion of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature and your
destiny. My children, look behind you!" They turned; and flashing forth,
as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend-worshippers were seen; the smile of
welcome gleamed darkly on every visage. "There," resumed the sable
form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier
than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives
of righteousness, and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet, here are they all,
in my worshipping assembly! This night it shall be granted you to know their
secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton
words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for
widow's weeds, has given her husband a drink at bed-time, and let him sleep his
last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youth have made haste to inherit their
father's wealth; and how fair damsels-- blush not, sweet ones--have dug little
graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant's funeral. By
the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the
places--whether in church, bed-chamber, street, field, or forest--where crime
has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt,
one mighty bloodspot. Far more than this! It shall be yours to penetrate, in
every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and
which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power--than my power
at its utmost!--can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon
each other." They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches,
the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before
that unhallowed altar. "Lo! there ye stand, my children," said the
figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad, with its despairing awfulness,
as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race.
"Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were
not all a dream! Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil
must be your only happiness. Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of
your race!" "Welcome!" repeated the fiend-worshippers, in one
cry of despair and triumph. And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed,
who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness, in this dark world. A basin
was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the
lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the
Shape of Evil dip his hand, and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their
foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious
of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be
of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him.
What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each other,
shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw! "Faith!
Faith!" cried the husband. "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked
One!" Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not. Hardly had he spoken, when he
found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind,
which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and
felt it chill and damp, while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire,
besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew. The next morning, young Goodman
Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a
bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard, to
get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing,
as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint, as if to
avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy
words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the
wizard pray to?" quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old
Christian, stood in the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a
little girl, who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown
snatched away the child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the
corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons,
gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him, that she
skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village.
But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without
a greeting. Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a
wild dream of a witch-meeting? Be it so, if you will. But, alas! it was a dream
of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a
distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that
fearful dream. On the Sabbath-day, when the congregation were singing a holy
psalm, he could not listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his
ear, and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the
pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open Bible,
of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant
deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn
pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and
his hearers. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of
Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he
scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned
away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse,
followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grand-children, a goodly
procession, besides neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his
tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.
With affection,
Ruben
