"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 unknownman drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even atmy own fireside."To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door ofthe kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smotefull upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye thereappeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of aman in a coarse, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin,with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixedhis eyes- which were very bright- intently upon the brightness ofthe furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some objectworthy of note within it.
"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you,so late in the day?""I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, itis finished.""Drunk!- or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall havetrouble with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, andbegged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be somuch light; for that there was something in the man's face which hewas afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, eventhe lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by anindescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage,with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and thosedeeply-sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance ofa mysterious cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turnedtowards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartramfeel as if he were a sane and sensible man, after all.
"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble hasalready been burning three days. A few hours more will convert thestone to lime.""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 samecraft many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But youare a newcomer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?""The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" askedBartram, with a laugh.
"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought,and therefore he comes back again.""What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, inamazement. "I am a newcomer here, as you say, and they call iteighteen years since you left the foot of Gray-lock. 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 itbe?"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 seekingthroughout the world for what was the closest of all things tohimself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what washidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It wasthe same slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the lime-burnerwhen it heralded the wayfarer's approach.
The solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. Laughter, whenout of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state offeeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. Thelaughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child- the madman'slaugh- the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot- are sounds that wesometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poetshave imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfullyappropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt hisnerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, andburst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and wasindistinctly reverberated among the hills.
"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern inthe village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand hascome back, 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 rocky mountainpath, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. He felt thatthe little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guestand himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a manwho, 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. The lime-burner's own sins rose up withinhim, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes thatasserted their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be,which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceiveand cherish. They were all of one family; they went to and fro betweenhis breast and Ethan Brand's, and carried dark greetings from one tothe other.
Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary inreference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadowof the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, afterso long absence that the dead people, dead and buried for years, wouldhave had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he.
