Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed
with charcoal, sat watching his kiln at nightfall, while his
little son played at building houses with the scattered fragments
of marble, when, on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar
of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind
shaking the boughs of the forest.

"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play,
and pressing betwixt his father's knees.

"Oh, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner;
"some merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared
not laugh loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof
of the house off. So here 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
the noise frightens me!"

"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will
never make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother
in you. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark!
Here comes the merry fellow now. You shall see that there is no
harm in him."

Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat
watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan
Brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his search