_By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)_
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 hillside 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 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 for the Unpardonable
Sin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that
portentous night when the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, however,
on the mountain-side stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since
he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace,
and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession
of his life. It was a rude, round, towerlike structure, about twenty
feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth
heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so that the blocks
and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at
the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the tower, like an
oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and
provided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame
issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give
admittance into the hillside, it resembled nothing so much as the
private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the
Delectable Mountains[2] were accustomed to show to pilgrims.
There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the
purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the
substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long
deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which
is open to the sky, and grass and wild flowers rooting themselves into
the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and
may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others,
where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford
points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself
on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the
solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to
thought, may be an intensely thoughtful, occupation; as it proved in
the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days
gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.
The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled
himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his
business. At frequent intervals he flung back the clashing weight of
the iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare,
thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long
pole. Within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and
the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while
without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of
the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy
little picture of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic and
coal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child,
shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And when again
the iron door was closed, then reappeared the tender light of the
half-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes
of the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a
flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy
sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished
long and long ago.
The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were
heard ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes
that clustered beneath the trees.
"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's
timidity, yet half infected by it, "Come forward, and show yourself,
like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your head !"
"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man
drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own
fireside."
To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the
kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full
upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appeared
nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a
coarse, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the
staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed his
eyes—which were very bright—intently upon the brightness of the
furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of
note within it.
"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so
late in the day?"
"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is
finished."
"Drunk!—or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have trouble
with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."
The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged
him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much
light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was
afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. And, indeed, even the
lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an
indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with
the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken
eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious
cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him,
and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram feel as if he
were a sane and sensible man, after all.
"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already
been burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone to
lime."
"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as well
acquainted with my business as I am myself."
"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft
many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a
newcomer in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"
"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram,
with a laugh.
"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and
therefore he comes back again,"
"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in
amazement. "I am a newcomer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen
years since you left the foot of Graylock, But, I can tell you, the
good folks still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and
what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln. Well and so you
have found the Unpardonable Sin?"
"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.
"If the 'question is a fair one." proceeded Bartrarn, "where might it
be?"