Episode 4

The moon was bright on high; the blue firmament appeared to glowwith an inherent brightness; the greater stars were burning in theirspheres; the northern lights threw their mysterious glare far over thehorizon; the few small clouds aloft were burdened with radiance; butthe sky, with all its variety of light, was scarcely so brilliant asthe earth. The rain of the preceding night had frozen as it fell, and,by that simple magic, had wrought wonders. The trees were hung withdiamonds and many-colored gems; the houses were overlaid withsilver, and the streets paved with slippery brightness; a frigid glorywas flung over all familiar things, from the cottage chimney to thesteeple of the meetinghouse, that gleamed upward to the sky. Thisliving world, where we sit by our firesides, or go forth to meetbeings like ourselves, seemed rather the creation of wizard power,with so much of the resemblance to known objects that a man mightshudder at the ghostly shape of his old beloved dwelling, and theshadow of a ghostly tree before his door. One looked to beholdinhabitants suited to such a town, glittering in icy garments, withthe motionless features, cold, sparkling eyes, and just sensationenough in their frozen hearts to shiver at each other's presence.

By this fantastic piece of description, and more in the same style,I intended to throw a ghostly glimmer round the reader, so that hisimagination might view the town through a medium that should takeoff its every-day aspect, and make it a proper theatre for so wild ascene as the final one. Amid this unearthly show, the wretched brotherand sister were represented as setting forth, at midnight, through thegleaming streets, and directing their steps to a graveyard, whereall the dead had been laid, from the first corpse in that ancienttown, to the murdered man who was buried three days before. As theywent, they seemed to see the wizard gliding by their sides, or walkingdimly on the path before them. But here I paused, and gazed into thefaces of my two fair auditors, to judge whether, even on the hillwhere so many had been brought to death by wilder tales than this, Imight venture to proceed. Their bright eyes were fixed on me; theirlips apart. I took courage, and led the fated pair to a new-madegrave, where for a few moments, in the bright and silent midnight,they stood alone. But suddenly there was a multitude of people amongthe graves.

Each family tomb had given up its inhabitants, who, one by one,through distant years, had been borne to its dark chamber, but nowcame forth and stood in a pale group together. There was the grayancestor, the aged mother, and all their descendants, some witheredand full of years, like themselves, and others in their prime;there, too, were the children who went prattling to the tomb, andthere the maiden who yielded her early beauty to death's embrace,before passion had polluted it. Husbands and wives arose, who had lainmany years side by side, and young mothers who had forgotten to kisstheir first babes, though pillowed so long on their bosoms. Many hadbeen buried in the habiliments of life, and still wore their ancientgarb; some were old defenders of the infant colony, and gleamedforth in their steel-caps and bright breast-plates, as if startingup at an Indian war-cry; other venerable shapes had been pastors ofthe church, famous among the New England clergy, and now leaned withhands clasped over their gravestones, ready to call the congregationto prayer. There stood the early settlers, those old illustrious ones,the heroes of tradition and fireside legends, the men of history whosefeatures had been so long beneath the sod that few alive could haveremembered them. There, too, were faces of former townspeople, dimlyrecollected from childhood, and others, whom Leonard and Alice hadwept in later years, but who now were most terrible of all, by theirghastly smile of recognition. All, in short, were there; the dead ofother generations, whose moss-grown names could scarce be read upontheir tombstones, and their successors, whose graves were not yetgreen; all whom black funerals had followed slowly thither nowreappeared where the mourners left them. Yet none but souls accursedwere there, and fiends counterfeiting the likeness of departed saints.

The countenances of those venerable men, whose very features hadbeen hallowed by lives of piety, were contorted now by intolerablepain or hellish passion, and now by an unearthly and derisivemerriment. Had the pastors prayed, all saintlike as they seemed, ithad been blasphemy. The chaste matrons, too, and the maidens withuntasted lips, who had slept in their virgin graves apart from allother dust, now wore a look from which the two trembling mortalsshrank, as if the unimaginable sin of twenty worlds were collectedthere. The faces of fond lovers, even of such as had pined into thetomb, because there their treasure was, were bent on one anotherwith glances of hatred and smiles of bitter scorn, passions that areto devils what love is to the blest. At times, the features of thosewho had passed from a holy life to heaven would vary to and fro,between their assumed aspect and the fiendish lineaments whence theyhad been transformed. The whole miserable multitude, both sinfulsouls and false spectres of good men, groaned horribly and gnashedtheir teeth, as they looked upward to the calm loveliness of themidnight sky, and beheld those homes of bliss where they must neverdwell. Such was the apparition, though too shadowy for language toportray; for here would be the moonbeams on the ice, glitteringthrough a warrior's breast-plate, and there the letters of atombstone, on the form that stood before it; and whenever a breezewent by, it swept the old men's hoary heads, the women's fearfulbeauty, and all the unreal throng, into one indistinguishable cloudtogether.

Episodes
1 Episode 1
2 Episode 2
3 Episode 3
4 Episode 4
5 Episode 5
6 Episode 6
7 Episode 7
8 Episode 8
9 Episode 9
10 Episode 10
11 Episode 11
12 Episode 12
13 Episode 13
14 Episode 14
15 Episode 15
16 Episode 16
17 Episode 17
18 Episode 18
19 Episode 19
20 Episode 20
21 Episode 21
22 Episode 22
23 Episode 23
24 Episode 24
25 Episode 25
26 Episode 26
27 Episode 27
28 Episode 28
29 Episode 29
30 Episode 30
31 Episode 31
32 Episode 32
33 Episode 33
34 Episode 34
35 Episode 35
36 Episode 36
37 Episode 37
38 Episode 38
39 Episode 39
40 Episode 40
41 Episode 41
42 Episode 42
43 Episode 43
44 Episode 44
45 Episode 45
46 Episode 46
47 Episode 47
48 Episode 48
49 Episode 49
50 Episode 50
51 Episode 51
52 Episode 52
53 Episode 53
54 Episode 54
55 Episode 55
56 Episode 56
57 Episode 57
58 Episode 58
59 Episode 59
60 Episode 60
61 Episode 61
62 Episode 62
63 Episode 63
64 Episode 64
65 Episode 65
66 Episode 66
67 Episode 67
68 Episode 68
69 Episode 69
70 Episode 70
71 Episode 71
72 Episode 72
73 Episode 73
74 Episode 74
75 Episode 75
76 Episode 76
77 Episode 77
78 Episode 78
79 Episode 79
80 Episode 80
81 Episode 81
82 Episode 82
83 Episode 83
84 Episode 84
85 Episode 85
86 Episode 86
87 Episode 87
88 Episode 88
89 Episode 89
90 Episode 90
91 Episode 91
92 Episode 92
93 Episode 93
94 Episode 94
95 Episode 95
96 Episode 96
97 Episode 97
98 Episode 98
99 Episode 99
100 Episode 100
101 Episode 101
102 Episode 102
103 Episode 103
104 Episode 104
105 Episode 105
106 Episode 106
107 Episode 107
108 Episode 108
109 Episode 109
110 Episode 110
111 Episode 111
112 Episode 112
113 Episode 113
114 Episode 114
115 Episode 115
116 Episode 116
117 Episode 117
118 Episode 118
119 Episode 119
120 Episode 120
121 Episode 121
122 Episode 122
123 Episode 123
124 Episode 124
125 Episode 125
126 Episode 126
127 Episode 127
128 Episode 128
129 Episode 129
130 Episode 130
131 Episode 131
132 Episode 132
133 Episode 133
134 Episode 134
135 Episode 135
136 Episode 136
137 Episode 137
138 Episode 138
139 Episode 139
140 Episode 140
141 Episode 141
142 Episode 142
143 Episode 143
144 Episode 144
145 Episode 145
Episodes

Updated 145 Episodes

1
Episode 1
2
Episode 2
3
Episode 3
4
Episode 4
5
Episode 5
6
Episode 6
7
Episode 7
8
Episode 8
9
Episode 9
10
Episode 10
11
Episode 11
12
Episode 12
13
Episode 13
14
Episode 14
15
Episode 15
16
Episode 16
17
Episode 17
18
Episode 18
19
Episode 19
20
Episode 20
21
Episode 21
22
Episode 22
23
Episode 23
24
Episode 24
25
Episode 25
26
Episode 26
27
Episode 27
28
Episode 28
29
Episode 29
30
Episode 30
31
Episode 31
32
Episode 32
33
Episode 33
34
Episode 34
35
Episode 35
36
Episode 36
37
Episode 37
38
Episode 38
39
Episode 39
40
Episode 40
41
Episode 41
42
Episode 42
43
Episode 43
44
Episode 44
45
Episode 45
46
Episode 46
47
Episode 47
48
Episode 48
49
Episode 49
50
Episode 50
51
Episode 51
52
Episode 52
53
Episode 53
54
Episode 54
55
Episode 55
56
Episode 56
57
Episode 57
58
Episode 58
59
Episode 59
60
Episode 60
61
Episode 61
62
Episode 62
63
Episode 63
64
Episode 64
65
Episode 65
66
Episode 66
67
Episode 67
68
Episode 68
69
Episode 69
70
Episode 70
71
Episode 71
72
Episode 72
73
Episode 73
74
Episode 74
75
Episode 75
76
Episode 76
77
Episode 77
78
Episode 78
79
Episode 79
80
Episode 80
81
Episode 81
82
Episode 82
83
Episode 83
84
Episode 84
85
Episode 85
86
Episode 86
87
Episode 87
88
Episode 88
89
Episode 89
90
Episode 90
91
Episode 91
92
Episode 92
93
Episode 93
94
Episode 94
95
Episode 95
96
Episode 96
97
Episode 97
98
Episode 98
99
Episode 99
100
Episode 100
101
Episode 101
102
Episode 102
103
Episode 103
104
Episode 104
105
Episode 105
106
Episode 106
107
Episode 107
108
Episode 108
109
Episode 109
110
Episode 110
111
Episode 111
112
Episode 112
113
Episode 113
114
Episode 114
115
Episode 115
116
Episode 116
117
Episode 117
118
Episode 118
119
Episode 119
120
Episode 120
121
Episode 121
122
Episode 122
123
Episode 123
124
Episode 124
125
Episode 125
126
Episode 126
127
Episode 127
128
Episode 128
129
Episode 129
130
Episode 130
131
Episode 131
132
Episode 132
133
Episode 133
134
Episode 134
135
Episode 135
136
Episode 136
137
Episode 137
138
Episode 138
139
Episode 139
140
Episode 140
141
Episode 141
142
Episode 142
143
Episode 143
144
Episode 144
145
Episode 145

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