ETHAN BRAND
A CHAPTER FROM AN ABORTIVE ROMANCE
Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed withcharcoal, sat watching his kiln at nightfall, while his little sonplayed at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when,on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar of laughter, notmirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs ofthe forest.
"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, andpressing betwixt his father's knees.
"Oh, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner; "somemerry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loudenough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. Sohere he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylock."
"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse,middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So thenoise frightens me!"
"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will nevermake a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. Ihave known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes themerry fellow now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."
Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watchingthe same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitaryand meditative life, before he began his search for the UnpardonableSin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since thatportentous night when the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, however,on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changedsince he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of itsfurnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that tookpossession of his life. It was a rude, round, tower-like structureabout twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with ahillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; sothat the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads,and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of thetower, like an over-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in astooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. With the smokeand jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door,which seemed to give admittance into the hill-side, it resemblednothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, whichthe shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to show topilgrims.
There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for thepurpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of thesubstance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and longdeserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, whichis open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting themselves intothe chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, andmay yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others,where the limeburner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, affordpoints of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himselfon a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with thesolitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined tothought, may be an intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in thecase of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in daysgone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.
The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubledhimself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to hisbusiness. At frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight ofthe iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare,thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a longpole. Within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, andthe burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; whilewithout, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy ofthe surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddylittle picture of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic andcoal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child,shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And when, again,the iron door was closed, then reappeared the tender light of thehalf-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapesof the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was aflitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosysunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanishedlong and long ago.
The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps wereheard ascending the hill-side, and a human form thrust aside the bushesthat clustered beneath the trees.
"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son'stimidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show yourself,like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!"
"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown mandrew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my ownfireside."
To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of thekiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote fullupon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appearednothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in acoarse brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with thestaff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed hiseyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of thefurnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy ofnote within it.
"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, solate in the day?"
"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it isfinished."
"Drunk!--or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have troublewith the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."
The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and beggedhim to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so muchlight; for that there was something in the man's face which he wasafraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even thelime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by anindescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, withthe grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunkeneyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysteriouscavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him,and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if hewere a sane and sensible man, after all.
"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has alreadybeen burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone tolime."
"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as wellacquainted with my business as I am myself."
"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craftmany a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are anewcomer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"
"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram,with a laugh.
"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, andtherefore he comes back again."
"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, inamazement. "I am a new-comer here, as you say, and they call iteighteen years since you left the foot of Graylock. But, I can tellyou, the good folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the villageyonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln.Well, and so you have found the Unpardonable Sin?"
"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.
"If the question is a fair one," proceeded Bartram, "where might it be?"
Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.
"Here!" replied he.
And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by aninvoluntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughoutthe world for what was the closest of all things to himself, andlooking into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no otherbreast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the same slow, heavylaugh, that had almost appalled the lime-burner when it heralded thewayfarer's approach.
The solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out ofplace, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state
of feeling,may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter ofone asleep, even if it be a little child,--the madman's laugh,--thewild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,--are sounds that we sometimestremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets have imaginedno utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as alaugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as thisstrange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughterthat rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberatedamong the hills.
"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in thevillage, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has comeback, and that he has found the Unpardonable Sin!"
The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made noobjection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. He sat on a log of wood,looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child wasout of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heardtreading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rockymountain-path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. He feltthat the little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guestand himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who,on his own confession, had committed the one only crime for whichHeaven could afford no mercy. That crime, in its indistinct blackness,seemed to overshadow him, and made his memory riotous with a throng ofevil shapes that asserted their kindred with the Master Sin, whateverit might be, which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature toconceive and cherish. They were all of one family; they went to and frobetween his breast and Ethan Brand's, and carried dark greetings fromone to the other.
Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary inreference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow ofthe night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after solong absence, that the dead people, dead and buried for years, wouldhave had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. EthanBrand, it was said, had conversed with Satan himself in the lurid blazeof this very kiln. The legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, butlooked grisly now. According to this tale, before Ethan Brand departedon his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hotfurnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in order to confer withhim about the Unpardonable Sin; the man and the fiend each laboring toframe the image of some mode of guilt which could neither be atoned fornor forgiven. And, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top,the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensestelement of fire until again summoned forth to share in the dreadfultask of extending man's possible guilt beyond the scope of Heaven'selse infinite mercy.
While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts,Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. Theaction was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that healmost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot, from theraging furnace.
"Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he wasashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, formercy's sake, bring out your Devil now!"
"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? Ihave left him behind me, on my track. It is with such half-way sinnersas you that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I dobut act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like alime-burner, as I was once."
He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward togaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierceglow that reddened upon his face. The lime-burner sat watching him, andhalf suspected this strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke afiend, at least to plunge into the flames, and thus vanish from thesight of man. Ethan Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed thedoor of the kiln.
"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven timeshotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. But Ifound not there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"
"What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then heshrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question shouldbe answered.
"It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied Ethan Brand,standing erect with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of hisstamp. "A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect thattriumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God,and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! The only sin thatdeserves a recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again,would I incur the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribution!"
"The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "Hemay be a sinner like the rest of us,--nothing more likely,--but, I'llbe sworn, he is a madman too."
Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with EthanBrand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the roughmurmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerousparty, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush.Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest thevillage tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunkflip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked theirpipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since Ethan Brand'sdeparture. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voicestogether in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine andnarrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open space before thelime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot withlight, that the whole company might get a fair view of Ethan Brand, andhe of them.
There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous man, nowalmost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at thehotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was thestage-agent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted andsmoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown,bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown,had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffingwhat seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty yearsbefore. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less onaccount of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor ofbrandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas andexpressions, as well as his person. Another well-remembered, thoughstrangely altered, face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people stillcalled him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiledshirtsleeves and tow-cloth trousers. This poor fellow had been anattorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp practitioner, andin great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, andtoddy, and cocktails, imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night,had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and degreesof bodily labor, till at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into asoap-vat. In other words, Giles was now a soap-boiler, in a small way.He had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a part of one foothaving been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by thedevilish grip of a steam-engine. Yet, though the corporeal hand wasgone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump,Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingerswith as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. Amaimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom theworld could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in thisor any previous stage of his misfortunes, since he had still kept upthe courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, and with hisone hand--and that the left one--fought a stern battle against want andhostile circumstances.
Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain pointsof similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of difference. It was thevillage doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier periodof his life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to EthanBrand during the latter's supposed insanity. He was now apurple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, withsomething wild, ruined, and desperate in his talk, and in all thedetails of his gesture and manners. Brandy possessed this man like anevil spirit, and m
ade him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and asmiserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him suchwonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which medicalscience could impart, that society caught hold of him, and would notlet him sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and fro upon his horse,and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all thesick-chambers for miles about among the mountain towns, and sometimesraised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite as often, nodoubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon.The doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as somebody said,in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always alight withhell-fire.
These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted Ethan Brand eachafter his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of thecontents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he wouldfind something far better worth seeking than the Unpardonable Sin. Nomind, which has wrought itself by intense and solitary meditation intoa high state of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low andvulgar modes of thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was nowsubjected. It made him doubt--and, strange to say, it was a painfuldoubt--whether he had indeed found the Unpardonable Sin, and found itwithin himself. The whole question on which he had exhausted life, andmore than life, looked like a delusion.
"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have madeyourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! I havedone with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts and foundnothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!"
"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the wayyou respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell youthe truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boyJoe has. You are but a crazy fellow,--I told you so twenty yearsago,-neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fitcompanion of old Humphrey, here!"
He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thinvisage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person hadbeen wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whomhe met for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with acompany of circus-performers, and occasionally tidings of her came tothe village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance asshe rode on horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on thetight-rope.
The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazedunsteadily into his face.
"They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing hishands with earnestness. "You must have seen my daughter, for she makesa grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did shesend any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?"
Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. That daughter, fromwhom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the Esther of ourtale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, EthanBrand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted,absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process.
"Yes," he murmured, turning away from the hoary wanderer, "it is nodelusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!"
While these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in thearea of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of thehut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, hadhurried up the hill-side, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand, thehero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. Finding nothing,however, very remarkable in his aspect,--nothing but a sunburntwayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fireas if he fancied pictures among the coals,--these young people speedilygrew tired of observing him. As it happened, there was other amusementat hand. An old German Jew travelling with a diorama on his back, waspassing down the mountain-road towards the village just as the partyturned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of theday, the showman had kept them company to the lime-kiln.
"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see yourpictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!"
"Oh yes, Captain," answered the Jew,--whether as a matter of courtesyor craft, he styled everybody Captain,--"I shall show you, indeed, somevery superb pictures!"
So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men andgirls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceededto exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, asspecimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the faceto impose upon his circle of spectators. The pictures were worn out,moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy withtobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Somepurported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in Europe;others represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea-fights; and inthe midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,--whichmight have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, itwas only the showman's,--pointing its forefinger to various scenes ofthe conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. When, withmuch merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibitionwas concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the box.Viewed through the magnifying-glasses, the boy's round, rosy visageassumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense Titanic child,the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other featureoverflowing with fun at the joke. Suddenly, however, that merry faceturned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easilyimpressed and excitable child had become sensible that the eye of EthanBrand was fixed upon him through the glass.
"You make the little man to be afraid, Captain," said the German Jew,turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage from his stoopingposture. "But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to seesomewhat that is very fine, upon my word!"
Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back,looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently;for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment,beheld only a vacant space of canvas.
"I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman.
"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremberg, with a dark smile, "Ifind it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,--this Unpardonable Sin! Bymy faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carryit over the mountain."
"Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnaceyonder!"
The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderlydog--who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laidclaim to him--saw fit to render himself the object of public notice.Hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog,going round from one to another, and, by way of being sociable,offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would takeso much trouble. But now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerablequadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestionfrom anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, toheighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter thanit should have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuitof an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard sucha tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,--asif one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and mostunforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about wentthe cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity ofhis tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity;until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolishold dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The nextmoment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in hisdeportment, as when he first scraped acquaintance with the company.
As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter,clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performerresponded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, butappeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amusethe spectators.
Meanwhile, Ethan Brand
had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, asit might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his owncase and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh,which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inwardbeing. From that moment, the merriment of the party was at an end; theystood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should bereverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it tomountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. Then,whispering one to another that it was late,--that the moon was almostdown,-that the August night was growing chill,--they hurried homewards,leaving the lime-burner and little Joe to deal as they might with theirunwelcome guest. Save for these three human beings, the open space onthe hill-side was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. Beyondthat darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on the stately trunks andalmost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure ofsapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay thegigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. Andit seemed to little Joe--a timorous and imaginative child--that thesilent forest was holding its breath until some fearful thing shouldhappen.
Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of thekiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, hebade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest.
"For myself, I cannot sleep," said he. "I have matters that it concernsme to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do in the oldtime."
"And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I suppose,"muttered Bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with theblack bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as manydevils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the better for asnooze. Come, Joe!"
As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at thewayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit hadan intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man hadenveloped himself.
When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of thekindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that issuedthrough the chinks of the door. These trifles, however, once sofamiliar, had but the slightest hold of his attention, while deepwithin his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change thathad been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devotedhimself. He remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,--how thedark forest had whispered to him,--how the stars had gleamed uponhim,--a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by,and ever musing as it burned. He remembered with what tenderness, withwhat love and sympathy for mankind and what pity for human guilt andwoe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwardsbecame the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had thenlooked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine,and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; withwhat awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, andprayed that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Thenensued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress,disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea thatpossessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone oncultivating his powers to the highest point of which they weresusceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborerto stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth,laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamberafter him. So much for the intellect! But where was the heart? That,indeed, had withered,--had contracted,--had hardened,--had perished! Ithad ceased to partake of the universal throb. He had lost his hold ofthe magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man, openingthe chambers or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holysympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he wasnow a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of hisexperiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets,and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as weredemanded for his study.
Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment thathis moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with hisintellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitabledevelopment,--as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, deliciousfruit of his life's labor,--he had produced the Unpardonable Sin!
"What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" said Ethan Brand tohimself. "My task is done, and well done!"
Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascendingthe hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circumference ofthe lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. It was a spaceof perhaps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of theupper surface of the immense mass of broken marble with which the kilnwas heaped. All these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble wereredhot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame,which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within a magic circle, andsank and rose again, with continual and multitudinous activity. As thelonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blastingheat smote up against his person with a breath that, it might besupposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment.
Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flamesplayed upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light whichalone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on theverge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.
"O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into whosebosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose brotherhoodI have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O starsof heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward andupward!--farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly element ofFire,-henceforth my familiar friend! Embrace me, as I do thee!"
That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavilythrough the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes ofhorror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present inthe rude hovel, when they opened their eyes to the daylight.
"Up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "Thank Heaven,the night is gone, at last; and rather than pass such another, I wouldwatch my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand,with his humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no such mightyfavor, in taking my place!"
He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold ofhis father's hand. The early sunshine was already pouring its gold uponthe mountain-tops, and though the valleys were still in shadow, theysmiled cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hasteningonward. The village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled awaygently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow ofthe great hand of Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible;the little spires of the two churches pointed upwards, and caught afore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gildedweather-cocks. The tavern was astir, and the figure of the old,smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the stoop.Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. Scatteredlikewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains, there wereheaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down intothe valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, ofthe same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of theupper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds thatrested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailedin air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into theheavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dreamto look at it.
To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature soreadily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattlingdown the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while Echocaught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied andelaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim tolittle share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, eachcontributing a strain of airy sweetness.
/> Little Joe's face brightened at once.
"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strangeman is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!"
"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the firego down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are notspoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel liketossing him into the furnace!"
With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln.After a moment's pause, he called to his son.
"Come up here, Joe!" said he.
So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. Themarble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its surface,in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly convertedinto lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who,after long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the ribs--strange tosay--was the shape of a human heart.
"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in someperplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into whatlooks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, mykiln is half a bushel the richer for him."
So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fallupon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled intofragments.
The Snow Image Page 3