第140章

Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse afterverse was sung, and still the chorus of the desert swelled between,like the deepest tone of a mighty organ. And, with the final peal ofthat dreadful anthem, there came a sound, as if the roaring wind,the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice ofthe unconverted wilderness, were mingling and according with the voiceof guilty man, in homage to the prince of all. The four blazingpines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes andvisages of horror on the smoke-wreaths, above the impious assembly. Atthe same moment, the fire on the rock shot redly forth, and formed aglowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. Withreverence be it spoken, the apparition bore no slight similitude, bothin garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches.

"Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice, that echoed throughthe field and rolled into the forest.

At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of thetrees, and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathfulbrotherhood, by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. Hecould have well nigh sworn, that the shape of his own dead fatherbeckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke-wreath, while awoman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn himback. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step,nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good oldDeacon Gookin seized his arms, and led him to the blazing rock.

Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led betweenGoody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier,who had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampanthag was she! And there stood the proselytes, beneath the canopy offire.

"Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communionof 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 darklyon every visage.

"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverencedfrom youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank fromyour own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness, andprayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet, here are they all, in myworshipping assembly! This night it shall be granted you to know theirsecret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whisperedwanton 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 youthhave made haste to inherit their father's wealth; and how fairdamsels- blush not, sweet ones- have dug little graves in thegarden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant's funeral. Bythe sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out allthe places-whether in church, bed-chamber, street, field, or forest-where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the wholeearth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot. Far more than this!

It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery ofsin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly suppliesmore evil impulses than human power- than my power at its utmost-can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon eachother."They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, thewretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, tremblingbefore that unhallowed altar.

"Lo! there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep andsolemn tone, almost sad, with its despairing awfulness, as if his onceangelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending uponone another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all adream! Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil mustbe your only happiness. Welcome, again, my children, to thecommunion of your race!""Welcome!" repeated the fiend-worshippers, in one cry of despairand triumph.

And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yethesitating on the verge of wickedness, in this dark world. A basin washollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened bythe 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 markof baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of themystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, bothin deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. Thehusband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. Whatpolluted 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 resistthe Wicked One!"Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not. Hardly had he spoken, when hefound himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of thewind, which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered againstthe rock, and felt it chill and damp, while a hanging twig, that hadbeen all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.