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Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at SalemVillage; but put his head back after crossing the threshold, toexchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wifewas aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street,letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while shecalled to Goodman Brown.

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when herlips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey untilsunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman istroubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard ofherself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, ofall nights in the year."

"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nightsin the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. Myjourney, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs bedone 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, cost thoudoubt me already, and we but three months married?"

"Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons; "and mayyou find all well when you come back."

"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and goto bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee."

So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, beingabout to turn the corner by the meeting-hduse, he looked back andsaw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholyair, in spite of her pink ribbons.

"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What awretch 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 adream had warned her what work is to be done to-night. But no, no;'t would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel onearth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and followher to heaven."

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felthimself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose.He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees ofthe forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creepthrough, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely ascould be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, thatthe traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerabletrunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footstepshe may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said GoodmanBrown 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 anddecent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose atGoodman Brown's approach and walked onward side by side with him. "You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old Southwas striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteenminutes agone."

"Faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a tremorin 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 itwhere these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned,the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in thesame rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerableresemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression thanfeatures. Still they might have been taken for father and son. Andyet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, andas simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one whoknew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at thegovernor's dinner table or in King William's court, were itpossible that his affairs should call him thither. But the onlything about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was hisstaff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiouslywrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itselflike a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an oculardeception, assisted by the uncertain light.

"Come, Goodman Brown," cried his fellow-traveller, "this is a dullpace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are sosoon 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 toreturn whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thouwot'st of."

"Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let uswalk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince theenot thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forestyet."

"Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuminghis 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 andgood Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be thefirst 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 aswell acquainted with your family as with ever a one among thePuritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather,the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly throughthe streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father apitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indianvillage, in King Philip's war. They were my good friends, both; andmany a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returnedmerrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for theirsake."

"If it be as thou gayest," replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel theynever spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing thatthe least rumor of the sort would have driven them from NewEngland. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, andabide no such wickedness."

"Wickedness or not," said the traveller with the twisted staff, "Ihave a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deaconsof many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; theselectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a majority ofthe Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. Thegovernor and I, too--But these are state secrets."

"Can this be so?" cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement athis undisturbed companion. "Howbeit, I have nothing to do with thegovernor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule fora simple husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, howshould I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at SalemVillage? Oh, his voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day andlecture day."

Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but nowburst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself soviolently that his snakelike staff actually seemed to wriggle insympathy.

"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted he again and again; then composing himself,"Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don't kill mewith laughing."

"Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown,considerably nettled, "there is my wife, Faith. It would break herdear 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 onehobbling before us that Faith should come to any harm."

As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, inwhom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, whohad taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral andspiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin. "A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in thewilderness at nightfall," said he. "But with your leave, friend, Ishall take a cut through the woods until we have left thisChristian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whomI was consorting with and whither I was going."

"Be it so," said his fellow-traveller. "Betake you the woods' andlet me keep the path."

Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch hiscompanion, who advanced softly along the road until he had comewithin a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was makingthe best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, andmumbling some indistinct words--a prayer, doubtless--as she went.The traveller put forth his staff and touched her withered neckwith 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, GoodmanBrown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But--wouldyour 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, andcinquefoil, and wolf's bane--"

"Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said theshape of old Goodman Brown.

"Ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cacklingaloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, andno horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell methere is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. Butnow your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be therein a twinkling."

"That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I may not spare you myarm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will."

So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumedlife, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent tothe Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could nottake cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and,looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentinestaff, but this fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him ascalmly as if nothing had happened.

"That old woman taught me my catechism," said the young man; andthere was a world of meaning in this simple comment.

They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhortedhis companion to make good speed and persevere in the path,discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring upin the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by himself. Asthey went, he plucked: a branch of maple to serve for a walkingstick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, whichwere wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them theybecame strangely withered and dried up as with a week's sunshine.Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in agloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on thestump of a tree and refused to go any farther.

"Friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. Not anotherstep will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman dochoose 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 afterher?"

"You will think better of this by and by," said his acquaintance,composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feellike moving again, there is my staff to help you along."

Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and wasas speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepeninggloom. The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applaudinghimself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he shouldmeet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye ofgood old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that verynight, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely andsweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant andpraiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horsesalong the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself withinthe verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that hadbrought him thither, though now so happily turned from it.

On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave oldvoices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled soundsappeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the youngman's hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloomat that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steedswere visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by thewayside, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for amoment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart whichthey must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stoodon tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his headas far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexedhim the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thingpossible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and DeaconGookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when boundto some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet withinhearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.

"Of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "Ihad rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night's meeting. Theytell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth andbeyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besidesseveral of the Indian powwows, who, after their fashion, knowalmost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is agoodly young woman to be taken into communion."

"Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of theminister. "Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, youknow, until I get on the ground."

The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely inthe empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church hadever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then,could these holy men be journeying so deep into the heathenwilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support,being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened withthe heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubtingwhether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the bluearch, and the stars brightening in it.

"With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm againstthe devil!" cried Goodman Brown.

While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament andhad lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring,hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The bluesky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this blackmass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, asif from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful soundof voices. Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish theaccents of towns-people of his own, men and women, both pious andungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and hadseen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinctwere the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but themurmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came astronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshineat Salem Village, but never until now from a cloud of night. Therewas one voice, of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with anuncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, itwould grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, bothsaints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.

"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony anddesperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying,"Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her allthrough the wilderness.

The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, whenthe unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was ascream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fadinginto far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving theclear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something flutteredlightly 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 isno good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to theeis this world given."

And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, didGoodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a ratethat he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk orrun. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, andvanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the darkwilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guidesmortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightfulsounds--the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, andthe yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distantchurch bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller,as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself thechief 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 mewith your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow,come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as wellfear him as he fear you."

In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothingmore frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew amongthe black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, nowgiving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shoutingforth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughinglike demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideousthan when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac onhis course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red lightbefore him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearinghave been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against thesky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempestthat had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed ahymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of manyvoices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of thevillage meetinghouse. The verse died heavily away, and waslengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the soundsof the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together.Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by itsunison with the cry of the desert.

In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glaredfull upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in bythe dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude,natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surroundedby four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched,like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that hadovergrown the summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high intothe night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendenttwig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose andfell' a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, thendisappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of thedarkness, 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 betweengloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day atthe council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath afterSabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over thecrowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirmthat the lady of the governor was there. At least there were highdames 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 espythem. Either the sudden gleams of light flashing over the obscurefield bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of thechurch members of Salem Village famous for their especial sanctity.Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts ofthat venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverentlyconsorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, theseelders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, therewere men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretchesgiven over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even ofhorrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not fromthe wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scatteredalso among their pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, orpowwows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideousincantations than any known to English witchcraft.

"But where is Faith?" thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came intohis heart, he trembled.

Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, suchas the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that ournature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more.Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse afterverse was sung, and still the chorus of the desert swelled betweenlike the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal ofthat dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the roaring wind,the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice ofthe unconcerted wilderness were mingling and according with thevoice of guilty man in homage to the prince of all. The fourblazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discoveredshapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above the impiousassembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forthand formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared afigure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slightsimilitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of theNew England churches.

"Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice that echoed through thefield and rolled into the forest.

At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of thetrees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathfulbrotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. Hecould have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead fatherbeckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath,while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand towarn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreatone step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister andgood old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazingrock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, ledbetween Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, andMartha Carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen ofhell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneaththe canopy of fire.

"Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion ofyour race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny.My children, look behind you!"

They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame,the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleameddarkly on every visage.

"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverencedfrom youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank fromyour own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness andprayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in myworshipping assembly. This night it shall be granted you to knowtheir secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church havewhispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; howmany a woman, eager for widows' weeds, has given her husband adrink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom howbeardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers' wealth;and how fair damsels--blush not, sweet ones--have dug little gravesin the carder, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant'sfuneral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shallscent out all the places--whether in church, bed-chamber, street,field, or forest--where crime has been committed, and shall exultto behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty bloodspot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in everybosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts,and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than humanpower--than my power at its utmost--can make manifest in deeds. Andnow, my children, look upon each other."

They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, thewretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, tremblingbefore that unhallowed altar.

"Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep andsolemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if hisonce angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race."Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped thatvirtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is thenature 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 despairand triumph.

And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yethesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basinwas hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water,reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, aliquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and prepareto lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might bepartakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guiltof others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be oftheir own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith athim. What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to eachother, shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw!

"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resistthe wicked one."

Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when hefound himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar ofthe wind which died heavily away through the forest. He staggeredagainst the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig,that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldestdew.

The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street ofSalem Village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The goodold minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get anappetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed ablessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from thevenerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin wasat domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heardthrough the open window. "What God cloth the wizard pray to?" quothGoodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood inthe early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girlwho had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brownsnatched 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 intosuch joy at sight of him that she skipped along the street andalmost kissed her husband before the whole village. But GoodmanBrown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on withouta greeting.

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed awild dream of a witch-meeting?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen foryoung Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, adistrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night ofthat fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation weresinging a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sinrushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. Whenthe minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence,and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of ourreligion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and offuture bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turnpale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the grayblasphemer and his hearers. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, heshrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, whenthe family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered tohimself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And whenhe had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse,followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren,a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved nohopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.