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?"
Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.'
"Here!" replied he.
And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an
involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking
throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to
himself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was
hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. It was the
same slow, heavy laugh that had almost appalled the lime-burner when
it heralded the wayfarer's approach.
The solitary mountain side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out
of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of
feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice.
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