fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And
even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this
strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into
laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly
reverberated among the hills.

"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in
the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand
has come back, and that he has found the Unpardonable Sin!"

The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no
objection, 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 was out of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased
to be heard treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the
rocky mountain-path, the lime-burner began to regret his
departure. He felt that the little fellow's presence had been a
barrier between his guest and 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 which Heaven could afford no
mercy. That crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed to
overshadow him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil
shapes that asserted their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever
it might be, which it was within the scope of man's corrupted
nature to conceive and cherish. They were all of one family; they
went to and fro between his breast and Ethan Brand's, and carried
dark greetings from one to the other.

Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary
in reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a