Hawthorne, Nathaniel / 2008-07-22 00:00:00

1851
TWICE-TOLD TALES
ETHAN BRAND
A CHAPTER FROM AN ABORTIVE ROMANCE
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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.
"O, 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 Gray-lock."
"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 for the
Unpardonable Sin.
Read more


Parts: 1 2