YOUNG Goodman
Brown came forth at sunset into the street at 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, ``prithee 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's 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 tonight. But
no, no; 't would 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
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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 a while,'' 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 who
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, interpreting
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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, prithee, 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 nightfall,'' 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.''
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``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
cinquefoil, 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 the 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 fellow-traveller 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
-1037-
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 a while; 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 roadside, 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 so 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 wayside, 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 tiptoe, 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 to-night'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 powwows, 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 or 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
-1038-
ground, faint and overburdened 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
accents of towns-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
forest path 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.
-1039-
``Let us hear
which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come
witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, 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 alter 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 revered pastor. But, irreverently
consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the
church,
-1040-
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 pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, 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 unconcerted 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
-1041-
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 widows' weeds, has given her husband a
drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless
youths have made haste to inherit their fathers' 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, bedchamber,
street, field, or forest -- where crime has been committed, and shall exult to
behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. 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.
-1042-
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,
catechizing 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 skipped 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, waking 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 grandchildren, a
goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse
upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.