own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had
met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern.
The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he
had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a
wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily
in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of
night There was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet
with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which,
perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude,
both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.

"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation;
and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, "Faith! Faith!" as if
bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness.

The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the
unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream,
drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off
laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent
sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through
the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it,
and beheld a pink ribbon.

"My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There is no
good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this
world given."

And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did
Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that
he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The
road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at
length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing
onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole
forest was peopled with frightful sounds--the creaking of the trees,
the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes
the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad
roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn.
But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from
its other horrors.

"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him.

"Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with
your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come In