Mosses from an old manse
Clerk of the Weather was observed to steal from the table and thrust
his head between the purple and golden curtains of one of the windows.
“My fellow-guests,” he remarked aloud, after carefully noting the signs
of the night, “I advise such of you as live at a distance to be going
as soon as possible; for a thunder-storm is certainly at hand.”
“Mercy on me!” cried Mother Carey, who had left her brood of chickens
and come hither in gossamer drapery, with pink silk stockings. “How
shall I ever get home?”
All now was confusion and hasty departure, with but little superfluous
leave-taking. The Oldest Inhabitant, however, true to the rule of those
long past days in which his courtesy had been studied, paused on the
threshold of the meteor-lighted hall to express his vast satisfaction
at the entertainment.
“Never, within my memory,” observed the gracious old gentleman, “has it
been my good fortune to spend a pleasanter evening or in more select
society.”
The wind here took his breath away, whirled his three-cornered hat into
infinite space, and drowned what further compliments it had been his
purpose to bestow. Many of the company had bespoken will-o’-the-wisps
to convoy them home; and the host, in his general beneficence, had
engaged the Man in the Moon, with an immense horn-lantern, to be the
guide of such desolate spinsters as could do no better for themselves.
But a blast of the rising tempest blew out all their lights in the
twinkling of an eye. How, in the darkness that ensued, the guests
contrived to get back to earth, or whether the greater part of them
contrived to get back at all, or are still wandering among clouds,
mists, and puffs of tempestuous wind, bruised by the beams and rafters
of the overthrown castle in the air, and deluded by all sorts of
unrealities, are points that concern themselves much more than the
writer or the public. People should think of these matters before they
trust themselves on a pleasure-party into the realm of Nowhere.
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
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; ’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 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 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.”
“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.”