"Yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary wanderer; "it is no
delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!"
While these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in
the area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of
the hut. A number of the youth of the village, young men and girls,
had hurried up the hillside, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand,
the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. Finding
nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect,--nothing but a
sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into
the fire, as if he fancied pictures among the coals,--these young
people speedily grew tired of observing him. As it happened, there was
other amusement at hand. An old German Jew, travelling with a
diorama[4] on his back, was passing down, the mountain road towards
the village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of
eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them company to
the lime-kiln.
"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your
pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!"
"O yes, Captain," answered the Jew,--whether as a matter of courtesy
or craft, he styled everybody Captain,--"I shall show you, indeed,
some very superb pictures!"
So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and
girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded
to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings,
as specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the
face to impose upon his circle of spectators.
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