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Young Goodman Brown Nathaniel Hawthorne (1854)

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'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 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

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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."

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"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!"

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"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."

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"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

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 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.

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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

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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. "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

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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

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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!"

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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 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

ourmiserable 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!

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"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.