 | Twice-told tales |  |
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL.
A PARABLE.[1]
The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house,
pulling lustily at the bell-rope. The old people
of the village came stooping along the street. Children,
with bright faces, tript merrily beside their parents,
or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of
their sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked side-long
at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the sabbath
sunshine made them prettier than on week-days.
When the throng had mostly streamed into the porch,
the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping his eye on
of the clergyman's figure was the signal for the bell to
cease its summons.
`But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his
face?' cried the sexton in astonishment.
All within hearing immediately turned about, and
beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper, pacing slowly
his meditative way towards the meeting-house. With
one accord they started, expressing more wonder than
if some strange minister were coming to dust the
cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit.
`Are you sure it is our parson?' inquired Goodman
Gray of the sexton.
`Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper,' replied the
sexton. `He was to have exchanged pulpits with
Parson Shute of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to
excuse himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral
sermon.'
The cause of so much amazement may appear
sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person
of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed
with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had
starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from
his Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable
in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead,
and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken
by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a
nearer view, it seemed to consist of two folds of crape,
which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth
farther than to give a darkened aspect to all living and
inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him,
good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet
pace, stooping somewhat and looking on the ground,
as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding
kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on
the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were
they, that his greeting hardly met with a return.
`I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was
behind that piece of crape,' said the sexton.
`I don't like it,' muttered an old woman, as she
hobbled into the meeting-house. `He has changed
himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.'
`Our parson has gone mad!' cried Goodman Gray,
following him across the threshold.
A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had
preceded Mr. Hooper into the meeting-house, and set
all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from
twisting their heads towards the door; many stood upright,
and turned directly about; while several little
boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again
with a terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a
rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of the
men's feet, greatly at variance with that hushed repose
which should attend the entrance of the minister. But
Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of
his people. He entered with an almost noiseless step,
bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, and
great-grandsire, who occupied an arm-chair in
the centre of the aisle. It was strange to observe,
how slowly this venerable man became conscious of
something singular in the appearance of his pastor.
He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder,
till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs, and
showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation,
except for the black veil. That mysterious
emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with
his measured breath as he gave out the psalm; it threw
its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he
read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay
heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to
hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?
Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape,
that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced
to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced
congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the
minister, as his black veil to them.
Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher,
but not an energetic one: he strove to win his people
heavenward, by mild persuasive influences, rather than
to drive them thither, by the thunders of the Word.
The sermon which he now delivered, was marked by
the same characteristics of style and manner, as the
general series of his pulpit oratory. But there was
something, either in the sentiment of the discourse
made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had
ever heard from their pastor's lips. It was tinged,
rather more darkly than usual, with the gentle gloom
of Mr. Hooper's temperament. The subject had reference
to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which
we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain
conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting
that the Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power
was breathed into his words. Each member of the
congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of
hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon
them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded
iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their
clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing
terrible in what Mr. Hooper said; at least, no violence;
and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice,
the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand
in hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of
some unwonted attribute in their minister, that they
longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil,
almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered,
though the form, gesture, and voice were
those of Mr. Hooper.
At the close of the services, the people hurried out
with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their
pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits,
the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some
gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with
homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some
talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath-day with
ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious
heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery;
while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at
all, but only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so weakened
by the midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After
a brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in
the rear of his flock. Turning his veiled face from
one group to another, he paid due reverence to the
hoary heads, saluted the middle-aged with kind dignity,
as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young
with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands
on the little children's heads to bless them. Such
was always his custom on the Sabbath-day. Strange
and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy.
None, as on former occasions, aspired to the honor of
walking by their pastor's side. Old Squire Saunders,
doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory, neglected
to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good
clergyman had been wont to bless the food, almost
every Sunday since his settlement. He returned,
therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of
closing the door, was observed to look back upon the
people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the
minister. A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath
the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering
as he disappeared.
`How strange,' said a lady, `that a simple black
veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet,
should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's
face!'
`Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's
intellects,' observed her husband, the physician of the
village. `But the strangest part of the affair is the
effect of this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like
myself. The black veil, though it covers only our
pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person,
and makes him ghost-like from head to foot. Do
you not feel it so?'
`Truly do I,' replied the lady; `and I would not be
alone with him for the world. I wonder he is not
afraid to be alone with himself!'
`Men sometimes are so,' said her husband.
The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances.
At its conclusion, the bell tolled for the
funeral of a young lady. The relatives and friends
were assembled in the house, and the more distant
acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the
good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was
interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper, still
covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate
emblem. The clergyman stepped into the room
where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin,
to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner.
As he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his
forehead, so that, if her eye-lids had not been closed
Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so
hastily caught back the black veil? A person, who
watched the interview between the dead and living,
scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the
clergyman's features were disclosed, the corpse had
slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap,
though the countenance retained the composure of
death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness
of this prodigy. From the coffin, Mr. Hooper
passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence
to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral
prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer,
full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes, that
the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of
the dead, seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest
accents of the minister. The people trembled,
though they but darkly understood him, when he prayed
that they, and himself, and all of mortal race, might
be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been,
for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from
their faces. The bearers went heavily forth, and the
mourners followed, saddening all the street, with the
dead before them, and Mr. Hooper in his black veil
behind.
`Why do you look back?' said one in the procession
to his partner.
`I had a fancy,' replied she, `that the minister and
the maiden's spirit were walking hand in hand.'
`And so had I, at the same moment,' said the
other.
That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village
were to be joined in wedlock. Though reckoned a
melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness
for such occasions, which often excited a sympathetic
smile, where livelier merriment would have been
thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition
which made him more beloved than this. The company
at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience
trusting that the strange awe, which had gathered
over him throughout the day, would now be dispelled.
But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came,
the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same
horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom to
the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the
wedding. Such was its immediate effect on the guests,
that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath
the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles.
The bridal pair stood up before the minister. But the
bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of
the bridegroom, and her death-like paleness caused a
whisper, that the maiden who had been buried a few
hours before, was come from her grave to be married.
If ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that
famous one, where they tolled the wedding-knell.
After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised
a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the
new-married couple, in a strain of mild pleasantry that
like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant,
catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass,
the black veil involved his own spirit in the
horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His
frame shuddered—his lips grew white—he spilt the
untasted wine upon the carpet—and rushed forth into
the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black
Veil.
The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of
little else than Parson Hooper's black veil. That,
and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic
for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the
street, and good women gossiping at their open windows.
It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper
told to his guests. The children babbled of it
on their way to school. One imitative little imp
covered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby
so affrighting his playmates, that the panic seized
himself, and he well nigh lost his wits by his own
waggery.
It was remarkable, that, of all the busy-bodies and
impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to
put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he
did this thing. Hitherto, whenever there appeared the
slightest call for such interference, he had never lacked
advisers, nor shown himself averse to be guided by
their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful
a degree of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure
as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted with this
amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners
chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly
remonstrance. There was a feeling of dread, neither
plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which
caused each to shift the responsibility upon another,
till at length it was found expedient to send a deputation
of the church, in order to deal with Mr. Hooper
about the mystery, before it should grow into a scandal.
Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties.
The minister received them with friendly courtesy,
but became silent, after they were seated, leaving to
his visiters the whole burthen of introducing their important
business. The topic, it might be supposed,
was obvious enough. There was the black veil,
swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead, and concealing
every feature above his placid mouth, on which, at
times, they could perceive the glimmering of a melancholy
smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination,
seemed to hang down before his heart, the
symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.
Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely
of it, but not till then. Thus they sat a considerable
time, speechless, confused, and shrinking uneasily
from Mr. Hooper's eye, which they felt to be fixed
upon them with an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies
returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing
the matter too weighty to be handled, except by
a general synod.
But there was one person in the village, unappalled
by the awe with which the black veil had impressed
all beside herself. When the deputies returned without
an explanation, or even venturing to demand one,
she, with the calm energy of her character, determined
to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be
settling round Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly
than before. As his plighted wife, it should be her
privilege to know what the black veil concealed. At
the minister's first visit, therefore, she entered upon
the subject, with a direct simplicity, which made the
task easier both for him and her. After he had seated
himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil,
but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that
had so overawed the multitude: it was but a double
fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to his
mouth, and slightly stirring with his breath.
`No,' said she aloud, and smiling, `there is nothing
terrible in this piece of crape, except that it hides a
face which I am always glad to look upon. Come,
good sir, let the sun shine from behind the cloud.
First lay aside your black veil: then tell me why you
put it on.'
Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly.
`There is an hour to come,' said he, `when all of us
shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved
friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then.'
`Your words are a mystery too,' returned the young
lady. `Take away the veil from them, at least.'
`Elizabeth, I will,' said he, `so far as my vow may
suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol,
and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and
darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes,
and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends.
No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal
shade must separate me from the world: even you,
Elizabeth, can never come behind it!'
`What grievous affliction hath befallen you,' she
earnestly inquired, `that you should thus darken your
eyes for ever?'
`If it be a sign of mourning,' replied Mr. Hooper,
`I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark
enough to be typified by a black veil.'
`But what if the world will not believe that it is the
type of an innocent sorrow?' urged Elizabeth. `Beloved
and respected as you are, there may be whispers,
that you hide your face under the consciousness of
secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do away
this scandal!'
The color rose into her cheeks, as she intimated
the nature of the rumors that were already abroad in
the village. But Mr. Hooper's mildness did not forsake
him. He even smiled again—that same sad smile,
which always appeared like a faint glimmering of light,
proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil.
`If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough,'
what mortal might not do the same?'
And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy,
did he resist all her entreaties. At length Elizabeth
sat silent. For a few moments she appeared lost in
thought, considering, probably, what new methods
might be tried, to withdraw her lover from so dark a
fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps
a symptom of mental disease. Though of a firmer
character than his own, the tears rolled down her
cheeks. But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling
took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed insensibly
on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in
the air, its terrors fell around her. She arose, and
stood trembling before him.
`And do you feel it then at last?' said he mournfully.
She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her
hand, and turned to leave the room. He rushed forward
and caught her arm.
`Have patience with me, Elizabeth!' cried he passionately.
`Do not desert me, though this veil must
be between us here on earth Be mine, and hereafter
there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness
between our souls! It is but a mortal veil—it is not
for eternity! Oh! you know not how lonely I am, and
how frightened, to be alone behind my black veil. Do
not leave me in this miserable obscurity for ever!'
`Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,'
said she.
`Never! It cannot be!' replied Mr. Hooper.
`Then, farewell!' said Elizabeth.
She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly
departed, pausing at the door, to give one long, shuddering
gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the
mystery of the black veil. But, even amid his grief,
Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem
had separated him from happiness, though the
horrors which it shadowed forth, must be drawn darkly
between the fondest of lovers.
From that time no attempts were made to remove
Mr. Hooper's black veil, or, by a direct appeal, to discover
the secret which it was supposed to hide. By
persons who claimed a superiority to popular prejudice,
it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such
as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise
rational, and tinges them all with its own semblance
of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr.
Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He could not
walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious
was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to
avoid him, and that others would make it a point of
hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The impertinence
of the latter class compelled him to give
up his customary walk, at sunset, to the burial ground;
for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there
would always be faces behind the grave-stones, peeping
at his black veil. A fable went the rounds, that
the stare of the dead people drove him thence. It
observe how the children fled from his approach,
breaking up their merriest sports, while his melancholy
figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused
him to feel, more strongly than aught else, that a
preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads
of the black crape. In truth, his own antipathy to
the veil was known to be so great, that he never willingly
passed before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at
a still fountain, lest, in its peaceful bosom, he should
be affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility
to the whispers, that Mr. Hooper's conscience
tortured him for some great crime, too horrible to be
entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated.
Thus, from beneath the black veil, there
rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin
or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that
love or sympathy could never reach him. It was said,
that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With
self-shudderings and outward terrors, he walked continually
in its shadow, groping darkly within his own
soul, or gazing through a medium that saddened the
whole world. Even the lawless wind, it was believed,
respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside the
veil. But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled, at the
pale visages of the worldly throng as he passed by.
Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the
one desirable effect, of making its wearer a very
efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem—for
a man of awful power, over souls that were in
agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with
a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but
figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial
light, they had been with him behind the black veil.
Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all
dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr.
Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared;
though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation,
they shuddered at the veiled face so near
their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil,
even when death had bared his visage! Strangers
came long distances to attend service at his church,
with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure, because
it was forbidden them to behold his face. But
many were made to quake ere they departed! Once,
during Governor Belcher's administration, Mr. Hooper
was appointed to preach the election sermon. Covered
with his black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate,
the council, and the representatives, and wrought
so deep an impression, that the legislative measures of
that year, were characterized by all the gloom and
piety of our earliest ancestral sway.
In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable
in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal
suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and
dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in
their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid
snows above his sable veil, he acquired a name throughout
the New England churches, and they called him
Father Hooper. Nearly all his parishioners, who
were of mature age when he was settled, had been
borne away by many a funeral: he had one congregation
in the church, and a more crowded one in the
church-yard; and having wrought so late into the
evening, and done his work so well, it was now good
Father Hooper's turn to rest.
Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight,
in the death-chamber of the old clergyman.
Natural connexions he had none. But there was the
decorously grave, though unmoved physician, seeking
only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he
could not save. There were the deacons, and other
eminently pious members of his church. There,
also, was the Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a
young and zealous divine, who had ridden in haste to
pray by the bed-side of the expiring minister. There
was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but one
whose calm affection had endured thus long, in secrecy,
in solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish,
even at the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And
there lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon
the death-pillow, with the black veil still swathed about
his brow and reaching down over his face, so that
each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it
to stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung
from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept
him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and
still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of
his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine
of eternity.
For some time previous, his mind had been confused,
wavering doubtfully between the past and the
present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals,
into the indistinctness of the world to come. There
had been feverish turns, which tossed him from side
to side, and wore away what little strength he had.
But in his most convulsive struggles, and in the wildest
vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained
its sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude
lest the black veil should slip aside. Even if his
bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a
faithful woman at his pillow, who, with averted eyes,
would have covered that aged face, which she had last
beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length the
death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of
mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible
pulse, and breath that grew fainter and fainter, except
when a long, deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to
prelude the flight of his spirit.
The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.
`Venerable Father Hooper,' said he, `the moment
of your release is at hand. Are you ready for the
lifting of the veil, that shuts in time from eternity?'
Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble
motion of his head; then, apprehensive, perhaps, that
his meaning might be doubtful, he exerted himself to
speak.
`Yea,' said he, in faint accents, `my soul hath a
patient weariness until that veil be lifted.'
`And is it fitting,' resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark,
`that a man so given to prayer, of such a blameless
example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal
judgment may pronounce; is it fitting that a father in
the church should leave a shadow on his memory, that
may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my
venerable brother, let not this thing be! Suffer us to
be gladdened by your triumphant aspect, as you go to
your reward. Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let
me cast aside this black veil from your face!'
And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent
forward to reveal the mystery of so many years. But,
exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders
stand aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his
hands from beneath the bed-clothes, and pressed them
strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if
the minister of Westbury would contend with a dying
man.
`Never!' cried the veiled clergyman. `On earth,
never!'
`Dark old man!' exclaimed the affrighted minister,
`with what horrible crime upon your soul are you now
passing to the judgment?'
Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattled in his
throat; but, with a mighty effort, grasping forward
with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back
till he should speak. He even raised himself in bed;
and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death
around him, while the black veil hung down, awful,
at that last moment, in the gathered terrors of a lifetime.
And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there,
now seemed to glimmer from its obscurity, and linger
on Father Hooper's lips.
`Why do you tremble at me alone?' cried he, turning
his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators.
`Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided
me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed
and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the
mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this
piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his
inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best-beloved;
when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of
his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his
sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath
which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and,
lo! on every visage a Black Veil!'
While his auditors shrank from one another, in
mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back upon his
pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on
the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and
a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The
grass of many years has sprung up and withered on
Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the
thought, that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil!
Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody,
of York, Maine, who died about eight years since, made himself
remarkable by the same eccentricity that is here related of
the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol
had a different import. In early life he had accidentally killed
a beloved friend; and from that day till the hour of his own
death, he hid his face from men.
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