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 cloth 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 meetinghouse, 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.
|
|
|