crape. In truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so
great that he never willingly passed before a mirror nor stooped to
drink at a still fountain lest in its peaceful bosom he should be
affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility to the whispers
that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too
horrible to be entirely concealed or otherwise than so obscurely
intimated. Thus from beneath the black veil there rolled a cloud into
the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor
minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was said
that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings
and outward terrors he walked continually in its shadow, groping
darkly within his own soul or gazing through a medium that saddened
the whole world. Even the lawless wind, it was believed, respected his
dreadful secret and never blew aside the veil. But still good Mr.
Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he
passed by.

Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable
effect of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of
his mysterious emblem--for there was no other apparent cause--he
became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His
converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves,
affirming, though but figuratively, that before he brought them to
celestial light they had been with him behind the black veil. Its
gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections.
Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper and would not yield their
breath till he appeared, though ever, as he stooped to whisper
consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such
were the terrors of the black veil even when Death had bared his
visage. Strangers came long distances to attend service at his church
with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure because it was
forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere
they departed. Once, during Governor Belcher's administration, Mr.
Hooper was appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered with his
black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate, the council and the
representatives, and wrought so deep an impression that the
legislative measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom
and piety of our earliest ancestral sway.

In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long l