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!"

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