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the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne. the custom-house introductory to "the scarlet letter" it is a little remarkable, that—though disinclinedto talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—anautobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressingthe public. the first time was three or four years since, when i favoured the reader—inexcusably,and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author couldimagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an old manse.and now—because, beyond my deserts, i was

happy enough to find a listener or two onthe former occasion—i again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years'experience in a custom-house. the example of the famous "p. p., clerk of this parish,"was never more faithfully followed. the truth seems to be, however, that when he casts hisleaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume,or never take it up, but the few who will understand him better than most of his schoolmatesor lifemates. some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves insuch confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusivelyto the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large onthe wide world, were certain to find out the

divided segment of the writer's own nature,and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. it is scarcelydecorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. but, as thoughts arefrozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with hisaudience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, thoughnot the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawedby this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, andeven of ourself, but still keep the inmost me behind its veil. to this extent, and withinthese limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating eitherthe reader's rights or his own.

it will be seen, likewise, that this custom-housesketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as explaininghow a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofsof the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. this, in fact—a desire to putmyself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among thetales that make up my volume—this, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personalrelation with the public. in accomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable,by a few extra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life not heretofore described,together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author happenedto make one.

in my native town of salem, at the head ofwhat, half a century ago, in the days of old king derby, was a bustling wharf—but whichis now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commerciallife; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides;or, nearer at hand, a nova scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood—at thehead, i say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which,at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid yearsis seen in a border of unthrifty grass—here, with a view from its front windows adown thisnot very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice ofbrick. from the loftiest point of its roof,

during precisely three and a half hours ofeach forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but withthe thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating thata civil, and not a military, post of uncle sam's government is here established. itsfront is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneathwhich a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. over the entrance hoversan enormous specimen of the american eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before herbreast, and, if i recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrowsin each claw. with the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappyfowl, she appears by the fierceness of her

beak and eye, and the general truculency ofher attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warnall citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadowswith her wings. nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this verymoment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, i presume,that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. but she has no greattenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—isapt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a ranklingwound from her barbed arrows. the pavement round about the above-describededifice—which we may as well name at once

as the custom-house of the port—has grassenough growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn by anymultitudinous resort of business. in some months of the year, however, there often chancesa forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier tread. such occasions might remindthe elderly citizen of that period, before the last war with england, when salem wasa port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, whopermit her wharves to crumble to ruin while their ventures go to swell, needlessly andimperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at new york or boston. on some such morning,when three or four vessels happen to have arrived at once usually from africa or southamerica—or to be on the verge of their departure

thitherward, there is a sound of frequentfeet passing briskly up and down the granite steps. here, before his own wife has greetedhim, you may greet the sea-flushed ship-master, just in port, with his vessel's papers underhis arm in a tarnished tin box. here, too, comes his owner, cheerful, sombre, graciousor in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now accomplished voyage has been realizedin merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk ofincommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. here, likewise—the germ of thewrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchant—we have the smart young clerk,who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventuresin his master's ships, when he had better

be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. anotherfigure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recentlyarrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. nor must we forget the captainsof the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from the british provinces; a rough-lookingset of tarpaulins, without the alertness of the yankee aspect, but contributing an itemof no slight importance to our decaying trade. cluster all these individuals together, asthey sometimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for thetime being, it made the custom-house a stirring scene. more frequently, however, on ascendingthe steps, you would discern— in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriaterooms if wintry or inclement weathers—a

row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashionedchairs, which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. oftentimes they wereasleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and asnore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all otherhuman beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anythingelse but their own independent exertions. these old gentlemen—seated, like matthewat the receipt of custom, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolicerrands—were custom-house officers. furthermore, on the left hand as you enterthe front door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a loftyheight, with two of its arched windows commanding

a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf,and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of derby street. all threegive glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around thedoors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, andsuch other wharf-rats as haunt the wapping of a seaport. the room itself is cobwebbed,and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewherefallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness ofthe place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broomand mop, has very infrequent access. in the way of furniture, there is a stove with avoluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a

three-legged stool beside it; two or threewooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and—not to forget the library—onsome shelves, a score or two of volumes of the acts of congress, and a bulky digest ofthe revenue laws. a tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communicationwith other parts of the edifice. and here, some six months ago—pacing from corner tocorner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wanderingup and down the columns of the morning newspaper—you might have recognised, honoured reader, thesame individual who welcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glimmeredso pleasantly through the willow branches on the western side of the old manse. butnow, should you go thither to seek him, you

would inquire in vain for the locofoco surveyor.the besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears hisdignity and pockets his emoluments. this old town of salem—my native place,though i have dwelt much away from it both in boyhood and maturer years—possesses,or did possess, a hold on my affection, the force of which i have never realized duringmy seasons of actual residence here. indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned,with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretendto architectural beauty—its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, butonly tame—its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of thepeninsula, with gallows hill and new guinea

at one end, and a view of the alms-house atthe other—such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonableto form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. and yet, though invariablyhappiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for old salem, which, in lack of a betterphrase, i must be content to call affection. the sentiment is probably assignable to thedeep and aged roots which my family has stuck into the soil. it is now nearly two centuriesand a quarter since the original briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his appearancein the wild and forest-bordered settlement which has since become a city. and here hisdescendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil,until no small portion of it must necessarily

be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, fora little while, i walk the streets. in part, therefore, the attachment which i speak ofis the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. few of my countrymen can know what itis; nor, as frequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock, need they consider itdesirable to know. but the sentiment has likewise its moral quality.the figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur,was present to my boyish imagination as far back as i can remember. it still haunts me,and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which i scarcely claim in referenceto the present phase of the town. i seem to have a stronger claim to a residence hereon account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked,

and steeple-crowned progenitor—who cameso early, with his bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a statelyport, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace—a stronger claim than formyself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. he was a soldier, legislator,judge; he was a ruler in the church; he had all the puritanic traits, both good and evil.he was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the quakers, who have remembered him in theirhistories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, whichwill last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although thesewere many. his son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous inthe martyrdom of the witches, that their blood

may fairly be said to have left a stain uponhim. so deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the charter-street burial-ground,must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! i know not whether theseancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of heaven for theircruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them in anotherstate of being. at all events, i, the present writer, as their representative, hereby takeshame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them—as i haveheard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long yearback, would argue to exist—may be now and henceforth removed.

doubtless, however, either of these sternand black-browed puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for hissins that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with somuch venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself.no aim that i have ever cherished would they recognise as laudable; no success of mine—ifmy life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deemotherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. "what is he?" murmurs one greyshadow of my forefathers to the other. "a writer of story books! what kind of businessin life—what mode of glorifying god, or being serviceable to mankind in his day andgeneration—may that be? why, the degenerate

fellow might as well have been a fiddler!"such are the compliments bandied between my great grandsires and myself, across the gulfof time! and yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwinedthemselves with mine. planted deep, in the town's earliest infancyand childhood, by these two earnest and energetic men, the race has ever since subsisted here;always, too, in respectability; never, so far as i have known, disgraced by a singleunworthy member; but seldom or never, on the other hand, after the first two generations,performing any memorable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public notice.gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight; as old houses, here and there about the streets,get covered half-way to the eaves by the accumulation

of new soil. from father to son, for abovea hundred years, they followed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in each generation,retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditaryplace before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered againsthis sire and grandsire. the boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin,spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, anddie, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. this long connexion of a family with one spot,as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and thelocality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surroundhim. it is not love but instinct. the new

inhabitant—who came himself from a foreignland, or whose father or grandfather came—has little claim to be called a salemite; he hasno conception of the oyster-like tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his thirdcentury is creeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations have been embedded.it is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old woodenhouses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, andthe chillest of social atmospheres;—all these, and whatever faults besides he maysee or imagine, are nothing to the purpose. the spell survives, and just as powerfullyas if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. so has it been in my case. i felt it almostas a destiny to make salem my home; so that

the mould of features and cast of characterwhich had all along been familiar here—ever, as one representative of the race lay downin the grave, another assuming, as it were, his sentry-march along the main street—mightstill in my little day be seen and recognised in the old town. nevertheless, this very sentimentis an evidence that the connexion, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last besevered. human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and re-planted,for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. my children have had otherbirth-places, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike theirroots into unaccustomed earth. on emerging from the old manse, it was chieflythis strange, indolent, unjoyous attachment

for my native town that brought me to filla place in uncle sam's brick edifice, when i might as well, or better, have gone somewhereelse. my doom was on me. it was not the first time, nor the second, that i had gone away—asit seemed, permanently—but yet returned, like the bad halfpenny, or as if salem werefor me the inevitable centre of the universe. so, one fine morning i ascended the flightof granite steps, with the president's commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the corpsof gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility as chief executive officer of the custom-house. i doubt greatly—or, rather, i do not doubtat all—whether any public functionary of

the united states, either in the civil ormilitary line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself.the whereabouts of the oldest inhabitant was at once settled when i looked at them. forupwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independent position of the collectorhad kept the salem custom-house out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, whichmakes the tenure of office generally so fragile. a soldier—new england's most distinguishedsoldier—he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself securein the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had beenthe safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake. general millerwas radically conservative; a man over whose

kindly nature habit had no slight influence;attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change, evenwhen change might have brought unquestionable improvement. thus, on taking charge of mydepartment, i found few but aged men. they were ancient sea-captains, for the most part,who, after being tossed on every sea, and standing up sturdily against life's tempestuousblast, had finally drifted into this quiet nook, where, with little to disturb them,except the periodical terrors of a presidential election, they one and all acquired a newlease of existence. though by no means less liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity,they had evidently some talisman or other that kept death at bay. two or three of theirnumber, as i was assured, being gouty and

rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden, never dreamedof making their appearance at the custom-house during a large part of the year; but, aftera torpid winter, would creep out into the warm sunshine of may or june, go lazily aboutwhat they termed duty, and, at their own leisure and convenience, betake themselves to bedagain. i must plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the official breath of more thanone of these venerable servants of the republic. they were allowed, on my representation, torest from their arduous labours, and soon afterwards—as if their sole principle oflife had been zeal for their country's service—as i verily believe it was—withdrew to a betterworld. it is a pious consolation to me that, through my interference, a sufficient spacewas allowed them for repentance of the evil

and corrupt practices into which, as a matterof course, every custom-house officer must be supposed to fall. neither the front northe back entrance of the custom-house opens on the road to paradise. the greater part of my officers were whigs.it was well for their venerable brotherhood that the new surveyor was not a politician,and though a faithful democrat in principle, neither received nor held his office withany reference to political services. had it been otherwise—had an active politicianbeen put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of making head against a whigcollector, whose infirmities withheld him from the personal administration of his office—hardlya man of the old corps would have drawn the

breath of official life within a month afterthe exterminating angel had come up the custom-house steps. according to the received code in suchmatters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in a politician, to bring every oneof those white heads under the axe of the guillotine. it was plain enough to discernthat the old fellows dreaded some such discourtesy at my hands. it pained, and at the same timeamused me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beatenby half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individualas myself; to detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-pastdays, had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten boreas himselfto silence. they knew, these excellent old

persons, that, by all established rule—and,as regarded some of them, weighed by their own lack of efficiency for business—theyought to have given place to younger men, more orthodox in politics, and altogetherfitter than themselves to serve our common uncle. i knew it, too, but could never quitefind in my heart to act upon the knowledge. much and deservedly to my own discredit, therefore,and considerably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency,to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the custom-house steps. they spenta good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tiltedback against the walls; awaking, however, once or twice in the forenoon, to bore oneanother with the several thousandth repetition

of old sea-stories and mouldy jokes, thathad grown to be passwords and countersigns among them. the discovery was soon made, i imagine, thatthe new surveyor had no great harm in him. so, with lightsome hearts and the happy consciousnessof being usefully employed—in their own behalf at least, if not for our beloved country—thesegood old gentlemen went through the various formalities of office. sagaciously under theirspectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels. mighty was their fuss about littlematters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones to slip betweentheir fingers whenever such a mischance occurred—when a waggon-load of valuable merchandise hadbeen smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps,

and directly beneath their unsuspicious noses—nothingcould exceed the vigilance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock,and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel. insteadof a reprimand for their previous negligence, the case seemed rather to require an eulogiumon their praiseworthy caution after the mischief had happened; a grateful recognition of thepromptitude of their zeal the moment that there was no longer any remedy. unless people are more than commonly disagreeable,it is my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them. the better part of my companion'scharacter, if it have a better part, is that which usually comes uppermost in my regard,and forms the type whereby i recognise the

man. as most of these old custom-house officershad good traits, and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, wasfavourable to the growth of friendly sentiments, i soon grew to like them all. it was pleasantin the summer forenoons—when the fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest of thehuman family, merely communicated a genial warmth to their half torpid systems—it waspleasant to hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all tipped against thewall, as usual; while the frozen witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and camebubbling with laughter from their lips. externally, the jollity of aged men has much in commonwith the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humour, haslittle to do with the matter; it is, with

both, a gleam that plays upon the surface,and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch and grey, mouldering trunk.in one case, however, it is real sunshine; in the other, it more resembles the phosphorescentglow of decaying wood. it would be sad injustice, the reader mustunderstand, to represent all my excellent old friends as in their dotage. in the firstplace, my coadjutors were not invariably old; there were men among them in their strengthand prime, of marked ability and energy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and dependentmode of life on which their evil stars had cast them. then, moreover, the white locksof age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair.but, as respects the majority of my corps

of veterans, there will be no wrong done ifi characterize them generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothingworth preservation from their varied experience of life. they seemed to have flung away allthe golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities ofharvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memory with the husks. they spoke withfar more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, to-day's, or tomorrow'sdinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonderswhich they had witnessed with their youthful eyes. the father of the custom-house—the patriarch,not only of this little squad of officials,

but, i am bold to say, of the respectablebody of tide-waiters all over the united states—was a certain permanent inspector. he might trulybe termed a legitimate son of the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or rather born inthe purple; since his sire, a revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port,had created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ageswhich few living men can now remember. this inspector, when i first knew him, was a manof fourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-greenthat you would be likely to discover in a lifetime's search. with his florid cheek,his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, andhis hale and hearty aspect, altogether he

seemed—not young, indeed—but a kind ofnew contrivance of mother nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no businessto touch. his voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the custom-house, had nothingof the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out ofhis lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. looking at him merelyas an animal—and there was very little else to look at—he was a most satisfactory object,from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extremeage, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at or conceived of.the careless security of his life in the custom-house, on a regular income, and with but slight andinfrequent apprehensions of removal, had no

doubt contributed to make time pass lightlyover him. the original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of hisanimal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixtureof moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barelyenough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. he possessed no powerof thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities: nothing, in short, but a fewcommonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper which grew inevitably outof his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, inlieu of a heart. he had been the husband of three wives, all long since dead; the fatherof twenty children, most of whom, at every

age of childhood or maturity, had likewisereturned to dust. here, one would suppose, might have been sorrow enough to imbue thesunniest disposition through and through with a sable tinge. not so with our old inspector.one brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences. thenext moment he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant: far readier than the collector'sjunior clerk, who at nineteen years was much the elder and graver man of the two. i used to watch and study this patriarchalpersonage with, i think, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there presentedto my notice. he was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one point of view; so shallow,so delusive, so impalpable such an absolute

nonentity, in every other. my conclusion wasthat he had no soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as i have already said, but instincts; andyet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his character been put together that therewas no painful perception of deficiency, but, on my part, an entire contentment with whati found in him. it might be difficult—and it was so—to conceive how he should existhereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem; but surely his existence here, admittingthat it was to terminate with his last breath, had been not unkindly given; with no highermoral responsibilities than the beasts of the field, but with a larger scope of enjoymentthan theirs, and with all their blessed immunity from the dreariness and duskiness of age.

one point in which he had vastly the advantageover his four-footed brethren was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it hadmade no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. his gourmandism was a highlyagreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster.as he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowmentby devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of hismaw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher'smeat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. his reminiscences of goodcheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savour of pigor turkey under one's very nostrils. there

were flavours on his palate that had lingeredthere not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as thatof the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. i have heard him smackhis lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been food for worms.it was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising upbefore him—not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation,and seeking to reduplicate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual:a tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken,or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the daysof the elder adams, would be remembered; while

all the subsequent experience of our race,and all the events that brightened or darkened his individual career, had gone over him withas little permanent effect as the passing breeze. the chief tragic event of the oldman's life, so far as i could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived anddied some twenty or forty years ago: a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table,proved so inveterately tough, that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcase, andit could only be divided with an axe and handsaw. but it is time to quit this sketch; on which,however, i should be glad to dwell at considerably more length, because of all men whom i haveever known, this individual was fittest to be a custom-house officer. most persons, owingto causes which i may not have space to hint

at, suffer moral detriment from this peculiarmode of life. the old inspector was incapable of it; and, were he to continue in officeto the end of time, would be just as good as he was then, and sit down to dinner withjust as good an appetite. there is one likeness, without which my galleryof custom-house portraits would be strangely incomplete, but which my comparatively fewopportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in the merest outline. it is thatof the collector, our gallant old general, who, after his brilliant military service,subsequently to which he had ruled over a wild western territory, had come hither, twentyyears before, to spend the decline of his varied and honourable life.

the brave soldier had already numbered, nearlyor quite, his three-score years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of his earthlymarch, burdened with infirmities which even the martial music of his own spirit-stirringrecollections could do little towards lightening. the step was palsied now, that had been foremostin the charge. it was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning his hand heavilyon the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the custom-house steps,and, with a toilsome progress across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace.there he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the figures thatcame and went, amid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths, the discussionof business, and the casual talk of the office;

all which sounds and circumstances seemedbut indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make their way into his inner sphereof contemplation. his countenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. if his noticewas sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features, provingthat there was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intellectuallamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. the closer you penetrated to the substanceof his mind, the sounder it appeared. when no longer called upon to speak or listen—eitherof which operations cost him an evident effort—his face would briefly subside into its formernot uncheerful quietude. it was not painful to behold this look; for, though dim, it hadnot the imbecility of decaying age. the framework

of his nature, originally strong and massive,was not yet crumpled into ruin. to observe and define his character, however,under such disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace out and build up anew,in imagination, an old fortress, like ticonderoga, from a view of its grey and broken ruins.here and there, perchance, the walls may remain almost complete; but elsewhere may be onlya shapeless mound, cumbrous with its very strength, and overgrown, through long yearsof peace and neglect, with grass and alien weeds. nevertheless, looking at the old warrior withaffection—for, slight as was the communication between us, my feeling towards him, like thatof all bipeds and quadrupeds who knew him,

might not improperly be termed so,—i coulddiscern the main points of his portrait. it was marked with the noble and heroic qualitieswhich showed it to be not a mere accident, but of good right, that he had won a distinguishedname. his spirit could never, i conceive, have been characterized by an uneasy activity;it must, at any period of his life, have required an impulse to set him in motion; but oncestirred up, with obstacles to overcome, and an adequate object to be attained, it wasnot in the man to give out or fail. the heat that had formerly pervaded his nature, andwhich was not yet extinct, was never of the kind that flashes and flickers in a blaze;but rather a deep red glow, as of iron in a furnace. weight, solidity, firmness—thiswas the expression of his repose, even in

such decay as had crept untimely over himat the period of which i speak. but i could imagine, even then, that, under some excitementwhich should go deeply into his consciousness—roused by a trumpet's peal, loud enough to awakenall of his energies that were not dead, but only slumbering—he was yet capable of flingingoff his infirmities like a sick man's gown, dropping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword,and starting up once more a warrior. and, in so intense a moment his demeanour wouldhave still been calm. such an exhibition, however, was but to be pictured in fancy;not to be anticipated, nor desired. what i saw in him—as evidently as the indestructibleramparts of old ticonderoga, already cited as the most appropriate simile—was the featuresof stubborn and ponderous endurance, which

might well have amounted to obstinacy in hisearlier days; of integrity, that, like most of his other endowments, lay in a somewhatheavy mass, and was just as unmalleable or unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and ofbenevolence which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at chippewa or fort erie, i taketo be of quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates any or all the polemical philanthropistsof the age. he had slain men with his own hand, for aught i know—certainly, they hadfallen like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe before the charge to which hisspirit imparted its triumphant energy—but, be that as it might, there was never in hisheart so much cruelty as would have brushed the down off a butterfly's wing. i have notknown the man to whose innate kindliness i

would more confidently make an appeal. many characteristics—and those, too, whichcontribute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch—must have vanished,or been obscured, before i met the general. all merely graceful attributes are usuallythe most evanescent; nor does nature adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new beauty,that have their roots and proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay,as she sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress of ticonderoga. still, even in respect ofgrace and beauty, there were points well worth noting. a ray of humour, now and then, wouldmake its way through the veil of dim obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. a traitof native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine

character after childhood or early youth,was shown in the general's fondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers. an old soldiermight be supposed to prize only the bloody laurel on his brow; but here was one who seemedto have a young girl's appreciation of the floral tribe. there, beside the fireplace, the brave oldgeneral used to sit; while the surveyor—though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking uponhimself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation—was fond of standing ata distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance. he seemed away fromus, although we saw him but a few yards off; remote, though we passed close beside hischair; unattainable, though we might have

stretched forth our hands and touched hisown. it might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts than amid the unappropriateenvironment of the collector's office. the evolutions of the parade; the tumult of thebattle; the flourish of old heroic music, heard thirty years before—such scenes andsounds, perhaps, were all alive before his intellectual sense. meanwhile, the merchantsand ship-masters, the spruce clerks and uncouth sailors, entered and departed; the bustleof his commercial and custom-house life kept up its little murmur round about him; andneither with the men nor their affairs did the general appear to sustain the most distantrelation. he was as much out of place as an old sword—now rusty, but which had flashedonce in the battle's front, and showed still

a bright gleam along its blade—would havebeen among the inkstands, paper-folders, and mahogany rulers on the deputy collector'sdesk. there was one thing that much aided me inrenewing and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the niagara frontier—the man of trueand simple energy. it was the recollection of those memorable words of his—"i'll try,sir"—spoken on the very verge of a desperate and heroic enterprise, and breathing the souland spirit of new england hardihood, comprehending all perils, and encountering all. if, in ourcountry, valour were rewarded by heraldic honour, this phrase—which it seems so easyto speak, but which only he, with such a task of danger and glory before him, has ever spoken—wouldbe the best and fittest of all mottoes for

the general's shield of arms. it contributes greatly towards a man's moraland intellectual health to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlikehimself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must goout of himself to appreciate. the accidents of my life have often afforded me this advantage,but never with more fulness and variety than during my continuance in office. there wasone man, especially, the observation of whose character gave me a new idea of talent. hisgifts were emphatically those of a man of business; prompt, acute, clear-minded; withan eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made themvanish as by the waving of an enchanter's

wand. bred up from boyhood in the custom-house,it was his proper field of activity; and the many intricacies of business, so harassingto the interloper, presented themselves before him with the regularity of a perfectly comprehendedsystem. in my contemplation, he stood as the ideal of his class. he was, indeed, the custom-housein himself; or, at all events, the mainspring that kept its variously revolving wheels inmotion; for, in an institution like this, where its officers are appointed to subservetheir own profit and convenience, and seldom with a leading reference to their fitnessfor the duty to be performed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dexterity which is notin them. thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so didour man of business draw to himself the difficulties

which everybody met with. with an easy condescension,and kind forbearance towards our stupidity—which, to his order of mind, must have seemed littleshort of crime—would he forth-with, by the merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensibleas clear as daylight. the merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric friends.his integrity was perfect; it was a law of nature with him, rather than a choice or aprinciple; nor can it be otherwise than the main condition of an intellect so remarkablyclear and accurate as his to be honest and regular in the administration of affairs.a stain on his conscience, as to anything that came within the range of his vocation,would trouble such a man very much in the same way, though to a far greater degree,than an error in the balance of an account,

or an ink-blot on the fair page of a bookof record. here, in a word—and it is a rare instance in my life—i had met with a personthoroughly adapted to the situation which he held. such were some of the people with whom i nowfound myself connected. i took it in good part, at the hands of providence, that i wasthrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gatherfrom it whatever profit was to be had. after my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemeswith the dreamy brethren of brook farm; after living for three years within the subtle influenceof an intellect like emerson's; after those wild, free days on the assabeth, indulgingfantastic speculations, beside our fire of

fallen boughs, with ellery channing; aftertalking with thoreau about pine-trees and indian relics in his hermitage at walden;after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of hillard's culture;after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at longfellow's hearthstone—it was time,at length, that i should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with foodfor which i had hitherto had little appetite. even the old inspector was desirable, as achange of diet, to a man who had known alcott. i looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure,of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization,that, with such associates to remember, i could mingle at once with men of altogetherdifferent qualities, and never murmur at the

change. literature, its exertions and objects, werenow of little moment in my regard. i cared not at this period for books; they were apartfrom me. nature—except it were human nature—the nature that is developed in earth and sky,was, in one sense, hidden from me; and all the imaginative delight wherewith it had beenspiritualized passed away out of my mind. a gift, a faculty, if it had not been departed,was suspended and inanimate within me. there would have been something sad, unutterablydreary, in all this, had i not been conscious that it lay at my own option to recall whateverwas valuable in the past. it might be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not,with impunity, be lived too long; else, it

might make me permanently other than i hadbeen, without transforming me into any shape which it would be worth my while to take.but i never considered it as other than a transitory life. there was always a propheticinstinct, a low whisper in my ear, that within no long period, and whenever a new changeof custom should be essential to my good, change would come. meanwhile, there i was, a surveyor of therevenue and, so far as i have been able to understand, as good a surveyor as need be.a man of thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the surveyor's proportion ofthose qualities), may, at any time, be a man of affairs, if he will only choose to givehimself the trouble. my fellow-officers, and

the merchants and sea-captains with whom myofficial duties brought me into any manner of connection, viewed me in no other light,and probably knew me in no other character. none of them, i presume, had ever read a pageof my inditing, or would have cared a fig the more for me if they had read them all;nor would it have mended the matter, in the least, had those same unprofitable pages beenwritten with a pen like that of burns or of chaucer, each of whom was a custom-house officerin his day, as well as i. it is a good lesson—though it may often be a hard one—for a man whohas dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world's dignitariesby such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognizedand to find how utterly devoid of significance,

beyond that circle, is all that he achieves,and all he aims at. i know not that i especially needed the lesson, either in the way of warningor rebuke; but at any rate, i learned it thoroughly: nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, didthe truth, as it came home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to be thrownoff in a sigh. in the way of literary talk, it is true, the naval officer—an excellentfellow, who came into the office with me, and went out only a little later—would oftenengage me in a discussion about one or the other of his favourite topics, napoleon orshakespeare. the collector's junior clerk, too a young gentleman who, it was whisperedoccasionally covered a sheet of uncle sam's letter paper with what (at the distance ofa few yards) looked very much like poetry—used

now and then to speak to me of books, as matterswith which i might possibly be conversant. this was my all of lettered intercourse; andit was quite sufficient for my necessities. no longer seeking nor caring that my nameshould be blasoned abroad on title-pages, i smiled to think that it had now anotherkind of vogue. the custom-house marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags,and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise,in testimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone regularly through theoffice. borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a nameconveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, i hope, will never go again.

but the past was not dead. once in a greatwhile, the thoughts that had seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest soquietly, revived again. one of the most remarkable occasions, when the habit of bygone days awokein me, was that which brings it within the law of literary propriety to offer the publicthe sketch which i am now writing. in the second storey of the custom-house thereis a large room, in which the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered withpanelling and plaster. the edifice—originally projected on a scale adapted to the old commercialenterprise of the port, and with an idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to berealized—contains far more space than its occupants know what to do with. this airyhall, therefore, over the collector's apartments,

remains unfinished to this day, and, in spiteof the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky beams, appears still to await the labour ofthe carpenter and mason. at one end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrelspiled one upon another, containing bundles of official documents. large quantities ofsimilar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. it was sorrowful to think how many days, andweeks, and months, and years of toil had been wasted on these musty papers, which were nowonly an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never moreto be glanced at by human eyes. but then, what reams of other manuscripts—filled,not with the dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of inventive brains andthe rich effusion of deep hearts—had gone

equally to oblivion; and that, moreover, withoutserving a purpose in their day, as these heaped-up papers had, and—saddest of all—withoutpurchasing for their writers the comfortable livelihood which the clerks of the custom-househad gained by these worthless scratchings of the pen. yet not altogether worthless,perhaps, as materials of local history. here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerceof salem might be discovered, and memorials of her princely merchants—old king derby—oldbilly gray—old simon forrester—and many another magnate in his day, whose powderedhead, however, was scarcely in the tomb before his mountain pile of wealth began to dwindle.the founders of the greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of salemmight here be traced, from the petty and obscure

beginnings of their traffic, at periods generallymuch posterior to the revolution, upward to what their children look upon as long-establishedrank. prior to the revolution there is a dearthof records; the earlier documents and archives of the custom-house having, probably, beencarried off to halifax, when all the king's officials accompanied the british army inits flight from boston. it has often been a matter of regret with me; for, going back,perhaps, to the days of the protectorate, those papers must have contained many referencesto forgotten or remembered men, and to antique customs, which would have affected me withthe same pleasure as when i used to pick up indian arrow-heads in the field near the oldmanse.

but, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortuneto make a discovery of some little interest. poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbishin the corner, unfolding one and another document, and reading the names of vessels that hadlong ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants never heardof now on 'change, nor very readily decipherable on their mossy tombstones; glancing at suchmatters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which we bestow on the corpse ofdead activity—and exerting my fancy, sluggish with little use, to raise up from these drybones an image of the old town's brighter aspect, when india was a new region, and onlysalem knew the way thither—i chanced to lay my hand on a small package, carefullydone up in a piece of ancient yellow parchment.

this envelope had the air of an official recordof some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on moresubstantial materials than at present. there was something about it that quickened an instinctivecuriosity, and made me undo the faded red tape that tied up the package, with the sensethat a treasure would here be brought to light. unbending the rigid folds of the parchmentcover, i found it to be a commission, under the hand and seal of governor shirley, infavour of one jonathan pue, as surveyor of his majesty's customs for the port of salem,in the province of massachusetts bay. i remembered to have read (probably in felt's "annals")a notice of the decease of mr. surveyor pue, about fourscore years ago; and likewise, ina newspaper of recent times, an account of

the digging up of his remains in the littlegraveyard of st. peter's church, during the renewal of that edifice. nothing, if i rightlycall to mind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an imperfect skeleton, and some fragmentsof apparel, and a wig of majestic frizzle, which, unlike the head that it once adorned,was in very satisfactory preservation. but, on examining the papers which the parchmentcommission served to envelop, i found more traces of mr. pue's mental part, and the internaloperations of his head, than the frizzled wig had contained of the venerable skull itself. they were documents, in short, not official,but of a private nature, or, at least, written in his private capacity, and apparently withhis own hand. i could account for their being

included in the heap of custom-house lumberonly by the fact that mr. pue's death had happened suddenly, and that these papers,which he probably kept in his official desk, had never come to the knowledge of his heirs,or were supposed to relate to the business of the revenue. on the transfer of the archivesto halifax, this package, proving to be of no public concern, was left behind, and hadremained ever since unopened. the ancient surveyor—being little molested,i suppose, at that early day with business pertaining to his office—seems to have devotedsome of his many leisure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and other inquisitionsof a similar nature. these supplied material for petty activity to a mind that would otherwisehave been eaten up with rust.

a portion of his facts, by-the-by, did megood service in the preparation of the article entitled "main street," included in the presentvolume. the remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes equally valuable hereafter, ornot impossibly may be worked up, so far as they go, into a regular history of salem,should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task. meanwhile, theyshall be at the command of any gentleman, inclined and competent, to take the unprofitablelabour off my hands. as a final disposition i contemplate depositing them with the essexhistorical society. but the object that most drew my attention to the mysterious packagewas a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded, there were traces about itof gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly

frayed and defaced, so that none, or verylittle, of the glitter was left. it had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderfulskill of needlework; and the stitch (as i am assured by ladies conversant with suchmysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be discovered even by the processof picking out the threads. this rag of scarlet cloth—for time, and wear, and a sacrilegiousmoth had reduced it to little other than a rag—on careful examination, assumed theshape of a letter. it was the capital letter a. by an accuratemeasurement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length. it hadbeen intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamental article of dress; but how itwas to be worn, or what rank, honour, and

dignity, in by-past times, were signifiedby it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are the fashions of the world in these particulars)i saw little hope of solving. and yet it strangely interested me. my eyes fastened themselvesupon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. certainly there was somedeep meaning in it most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth fromthe mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysisof my mind. when thus perplexed—and cogitating, amongother hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations whichthe white men used to contrive in order to take the eyes of indians—i happened to placeit on my breast. it seemed to me—the reader

may smile, but must not doubt my word—itseemed to me, then, that i experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, asof burning heat, and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. i shuddered,and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor. in the absorbing contemplation of the scarletletter, i had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around whichit had been twisted. this i now opened, and had the satisfaction to find recorded by theold surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. there wereseveral foolscap sheets, containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of onehester prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of ourancestors. she had flourished during the period

between the early days of massachusetts andthe close of the seventeenth century. aged persons, alive in the time of mr. surveyorpue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, intheir youth, as a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. ithad been her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind ofvoluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking upon herself, likewise,to give advice in all matters, especially those of the heart, by which means—as aperson of such propensities inevitably must—she gained from many people the reverence dueto an angel, but, i should imagine, was looked upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance.prying further into the manuscript, i found

the record of other doings and sufferingsof this singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story entitled"the scarlet letter"; and it should be borne carefully in mind that the main facts of thatstory are authorized and authenticated by the document of mr. surveyor pue. the originalpapers, together with the scarlet letter itself—a most curious relic—are still in my possession,and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative,may desire a sight of them. i must not be understood affirming that, in the dressingup of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the characterswho figure in it, i have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old surveyor'shalf-a-dozen sheets of foolscap. on the contrary,

i have allowed myself, as to such points,nearly, or altogether, as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own invention.what i contend for is the authenticity of the outline. this incident recalled my mind, in some degree,to its old track. there seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. it impressed meas if the ancient surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortalwig—which was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave—had met me in the desertedchamber of the custom-house. in his port was the dignity of one who had borne his majesty'scommission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendour that shone so dazzlinglyabout the throne. how unlike alas the hangdog

look of a republican official, who, as theservant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest of hismasters. with his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted tome the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript. with his own ghostlyvoice he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him—whomight reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor—to bring his mouldy and moth-eatenlucubrations before the public. "do this," said the ghost of mr. surveyor pue, emphaticallynodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig; "do this, and the profitshall be all your own. you will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was inmine, when a man's office was a life-lease,

and oftentimes an heirloom. but i charge you,in this matter of old mistress prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit whichwill be rightfully due" and i said to the ghost of mr. surveyor pue—"i will". on hester prynne's story, therefore, i bestowedmuch thought. it was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and froacross my room, or traversing, with a hundredfold repetition, the long extent from the frontdoor of the custom-house to the side entrance, and back again. great were the weariness andannoyance of the old inspector and the weighers and gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbedby the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning footsteps. rememberingtheir own former habits, they used to say

that the surveyor was walking the quarter-deck.they probably fancied that my sole object—and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane mancould ever put himself into voluntary motion—was to get an appetite for dinner. and, to saythe truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage,was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. so little adapted is the atmosphereof a custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had i remainedthere through ten presidencies yet to come, i doubt whether the tale of "the scarlet letter"would ever have been brought before the public eye. my imagination was a tarnished mirror.it would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which i did my bestto people it. the characters of the narrative

would not be warmed and rendered malleableby any heat that i could kindle at my intellectual forge. they would take neither the glow ofpassion nor the tenderness of sentiment, but retained all the rigidity of dead corpses,and stared me in the face with a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. "whathave you to do with us?" that expression seemed to say. "the little power you might have oncepossessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone! you have bartered it for a pittanceof the public gold. go then, and earn your wages!" in short, the almost torpid creaturesof my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, and not without fair occasion. it was not merely during the three hours anda half which uncle sam claimed as his share

of my daily life that this wretched numbnessheld possession of me. it went with me on my sea-shore walks and rambles into the country,whenever—which was seldom and reluctantly—i bestirred myself to seek that invigoratingcharm of nature which used to give me such freshness and activity of thought, the momentthat i stepped across the threshold of the old manse. the same torpor, as regarded thecapacity for intellectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon me in the chamberwhich i most absurdly termed my study. nor did it quit me when, late at night, i satin the deserted parlour, lighted only by the glimmering coal-fire and the moon, strivingto picture forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the brighteningpage in many-hued description.

if the imaginative faculty refused to actat such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. moonlight, in a familiar room,falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly—making everyobject so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility—is a mediumthe most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. thereis the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separateindividuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguishedlamp; the sofa; the book-case; the picture on the wall—all these details, so completelyseen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actualsubstance, and become things of intellect.

nothing is too small or too trifling to undergothis change, and acquire dignity thereby. a child's shoe; the doll, seated in her littlewicker carriage; the hobby-horse—whatever, in a word, has been used or played with duringthe day is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almostas vividly present as by daylight. thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has becomea neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the actualand the imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. ghostsmight enter here without affrighting us. it would be too much in keeping with the sceneto excite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form, beloved, but gonehence, now sitting quietly in a streak of

this magic moonshine, with an aspect thatwould make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never once stirred fromour fireside. the somewhat dim coal fire has an essentialinfluence in producing the effect which i would describe. it throws its unobtrusivetinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflectedgleam upon the polish of the furniture. this warmer light mingles itself with the coldspirituality of the moon-beams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilities of humantenderness to the forms which fancy summons up. it converts them from snow-images intomen and women. glancing at the looking-glass, we behold—deep within its haunted verge—thesmouldering glow of the half-extinguished

anthracite, the white moon-beams on the floor,and a repetition of all the gleam and shadow of the picture, with one remove further fromthe actual, and nearer to the imaginative. then, at such an hour, and with this scenebefore him, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look liketruth, he need never try to write romances. but, for myself, during the whole of my custom-houseexperience, moonlight and sunshine, and the glow of firelight, were just alike in my regard;and neither of them was of one whit more avail than the twinkle of a tallow-candle. an entireclass of susceptibilities, and a gift connected with them—of no great richness or value,but the best i had—was gone from me. it is my belief, however, that had i attempteda different order of composition, my faculties

would not have been found so pointless andinefficacious. i might, for instance, have contented myself with writing out the narrativesof a veteran shipmaster, one of the inspectors, whom i should be most ungrateful not to mention,since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and admiration by hismarvelous gifts as a story-teller. could i have preserved the picturesque force of hisstyle, and the humourous colouring which nature taught him how to throw over his descriptions,the result, i honestly believe, would have been something new in literature. or i mightreadily have found a more serious task. it was a folly, with the materiality of thisdaily life pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to fling myself back into anotherage, or to insist on creating the semblance

of a world out of airy matter, when, at everymoment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actualcircumstance. the wiser effort would have been to diffuse thought and imagination throughthe opaque substance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiritualisethe burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and indestructiblevalue that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, and ordinary characters with whichi was now conversant. the fault was mine. the page of life that was spread out beforeme seemed dull and commonplace only because i had not fathomed its deeper import. a betterbook than i shall ever write was there; leaf after leaf presenting itself to me, just asit was written out by the reality of the flitting

hour, and vanishing as fast as written, onlybecause my brain wanted the insight, and my hand the cunning, to transcribe it. at somefuture day, it may be, i shall remember a few scattered fragments and broken paragraphs,and write them down, and find the letters turn to gold upon the page. these perceptions had come too late. at theinstant, i was only conscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopelesstoil. there was no occasion to make much moan about this state of affairs. i had ceasedto be a writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good surveyorof the customs. that was all. but, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to be hauntedby a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling

away, or exhaling, without your consciousness,like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatileresiduum. of the fact there could be no doubt and, examining myself and others, i was ledto conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not veryfavourable to the mode of life in question. in some other form, perhaps, i may hereafterdevelop these effects. suffice it here to say that a custom-house officer of long continuancecan hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one of them,the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business,which—though, i trust, an honest one—is of such a sort that he does not share in theunited effort of mankind.

an effect—which i believe to be observable,more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position—is, that while heleans on the mighty arm of the republic, his own proper strength departs from him. he loses,in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capabilityof self-support. if he possesses an unusual share of native energy, or the enervatingmagic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable.the ejected officer—fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggleamid a struggling world—may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. butthis seldom happens. he usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin,and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung,

to totter along the difficult footpath oflife as he best may. conscious of his own infirmity—that his tempered steel and elasticityare lost—he for ever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external tohimself. his pervading and continual hope—a hallucination, which, in the face of all discouragement,and making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, i fancy, like theconvulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death—is, thatfinally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall berestored to office. this faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availabilityout of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. why should he toil and moil,and be at so much trouble to pick himself

up out of the mud, when, in a little whilehence, the strong arm of his uncle will raise and support him? why should he work for hisliving here, or go to dig gold in california, when he is so soon to be made happy, at monthlyintervals, with a little pile of glittering coin out of his uncle's pocket? it is sadlycurious to observe how slight a taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow with thissingular disease. uncle sam's gold—meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman—has,in this respect, a quality of enchantment like that of the devil's wages. whoever touchesit should look well to himself, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involving,if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy,its truth, its self-reliance, and all that

gives the emphasis to manly character. here was a fine prospect in the distance.not that the surveyor brought the lesson home to himself, or admitted that he could be soutterly undone, either by continuance in office or ejectment. yet my reflections were notthe most comfortable. i began to grow melancholy and restless; continually prying into my mind,to discover which of its poor properties were gone, and what degree of detriment had alreadyaccrued to the remainder. i endeavoured to calculate how much longer i could stay inthe custom-house, and yet go forth a man. to confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension—asit would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet an individual as myself; andit being hardly in the nature of a public

officer to resign—it was my chief trouble,therefore, that i was likely to grow grey and decrepit in the surveyorship, and becomemuch such another animal as the old inspector. might it not, in the tedious lapse of officiallife that lay before me, finally be with me as it was with this venerable friend—tomake the dinner-hour the nucleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dogspends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade? a dreary look-forward, this, for aman who felt it to be the best definition of happiness to live throughout the wholerange of his faculties and sensibilities. but, all this while, i was giving myself veryunnecessary alarm. providence had meditated better things for me than i could possiblyimagine for myself.

a remarkable event of the third year of mysurveyorship—to adopt the tone of "p. p. "—was the election of general taylor tothe presidency. it is essential, in order to form a complete estimate of the advantagesof official life, to view the incumbent at the in-coming of a hostile administration.his position is then one of the most singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable,that a wretched mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative of good on eitherhand, although what presents itself to him as the worst event may very probably be thebest. but it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know thathis interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him, and bywhom, since one or the other must needs happen,

he would rather be injured than obliged. strange,too, for one who has kept his calmness throughout the contest, to observe the bloodthirstinessthat is developed in the hour of triumph, and to be conscious that he is himself amongits objects! there are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency—which inow witnessed in men no worse than their neighbours—to grow cruel, merely because they possessedthe power of inflicting harm. if the guillotine, as applied to office-holders, were a literalfact, instead of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief that the active membersof the victorious party were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our heads,and have thanked heaven for the opportunity! it appears to me—who have been a calm andcurious observer, as well in victory as defeat—that

this fierce and bitter spirit of malice andrevenge has never distinguished the many triumphs of my own party as it now did that of thewhigs. the democrats take the offices, as a general rule, because they need them, andbecause the practice of many years has made it the law of political warfare, which unlessa different system be proclaimed, it was weakness and cowardice to murmur at. but the long habitof victory has made them generous. they know how to spare when they see occasion; and whenthey strike, the axe may be sharp indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will;nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which they have just struck off. in short, unpleasant as was my predicament,at best, i saw much reason to congratulate

myself that i was on the losing side ratherthan the triumphant one. if, heretofore, i had been none of the warmest of partisansi began now, at this season of peril and adversity, to be pretty acutely sensible with which partymy predilections lay; nor was it without something like regret and shame that, according to areasonable calculation of chances, i saw my own prospect of retaining office to be betterthan those of my democratic brethren. but who can see an inch into futurity beyond hisnose? my own head was the first that fell. the moment when a man's head drops off isseldom or never, i am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. nevertheless,like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedyand consolation with it, if the sufferer will

but make the best rather than the worst, ofthe accident which has befallen him. in my particular case the consolatory topics wereclose at hand, and, indeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a considerabletime before it was requisite to use them. in view of my previous weariness of office,and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who shouldentertain an idea of committing suicide, and although beyond his hopes, meet with the goodhap to be murdered. in the custom-house, as before in the old manse, i had spent threeyears—a term long enough to rest a weary brain: long enough to break off old intellectualhabits, and make room for new ones: long enough, and too long, to have lived in an unnaturalstate, doing what was really of no advantage

nor delight to any human being, and withholdingmyself from toil that would, at least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me. then, moreover,as regarded his unceremonious ejectment, the late surveyor was not altogether ill-pleasedto be recognised by the whigs as an enemy; since his inactivity in political affairs—histendency to roam, at will, in that broad and quiet field where all mankind may meet, ratherthan confine himself to those narrow paths where brethren of the same household mustdiverge from one another—had sometimes made it questionable with his brother democratswhether he was a friend. now, after he had won the crown of martyrdom (though with nolonger a head to wear it on), the point might be looked upon as settled. finally, littleheroic as he was, it seemed more decorous

to be overthrown in the downfall of the partywith which he had been content to stand than to remain a forlorn survivor, when so manyworthier men were falling: and at last, after subsisting for four years on the mercy ofa hostile administration, to be compelled then to define his position anew, and claimthe yet more humiliating mercy of a friendly one. meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair,and kept me for a week or two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state,like irving's headless horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a politicaldead man ought. so much for my figurative self. the real human being all this time,with his head safely on his shoulders, had

brought himself to the comfortable conclusionthat everything was for the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens,had opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man. now it was that the lucubrations of my ancientpredecessor, mr. surveyor pue, came into play. rusty through long idleness, some little spacewas requisite before my intellectual machinery could be brought to work upon the tale withan effect in any degree satisfactory. even yet, though my thoughts were ultimately muchabsorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a stern and sombre aspect: too much ungladdenedby genial sunshine; too little relieved by the tender and familiar influences which softenalmost every scene of nature and real life,

and undoubtedly should soften every pictureof them. this uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly accomplished revolution,and still seething turmoil, in which the story shaped itself. it is no indication, however,of a lack of cheerfulness in the writer's mind: for he was happier while straying throughthe gloom of these sunless fantasies than at any time since he had quitted the old manse.some of the briefer articles, which contribute to make up the volume, have likewise beenwritten since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and honours of public life, andthe remainder are gleaned from annuals and magazines, of such antique date, that theyhave gone round the circle, and come back to novelty again. keeping up the metaphorof the political guillotine, the whole may

be considered as the posthumous papers ofa decapitated surveyor: and the sketch which i am now bringing to a close, if too autobiographicalfor a modest person to publish in his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gentleman whowrites from beyond the grave. peace be with all the world! my blessing on my friends!my forgiveness to my enemies! for i am in the realm of quiet! the life of the custom-house lies like a dreambehind me. the old inspector—who, by-the-bye, i regret to say, was overthrown and killedby a horse some time ago, else he would certainly have lived for ever—he, and all those othervenerable personages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my view:white-headed and wrinkled images, which my

fancy used to sport with, and has now flungaside for ever. the merchants—pingree, phillips, shepard, upton, kimball, bertram, hunt—theseand many other names, which had such classic familiarity for my ear six months ago,—thesemen of traffic, who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world—how little timehas it required to disconnect me from them all, not merely in act, but recollection!it is with an effort that i recall the figures and appellations of these few. soon, likewise,my old native town will loom upon me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over andaround it; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in cloud-land,with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden houses and walk its homely lanes,and the unpicturesque prolixity of its main

street. henceforth it ceases to be a realityof my life; i am a citizen of somewhere else. my good townspeople will not much regret me,for—though it has been as dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of someimportance in their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in this abode and burial-placeof so many of my forefathers—there has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere whicha literary man requires in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. i shall do betteramongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do just as wellwithout me. it may be, however—oh, transporting andtriumphant thought—that the great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindlyof the scribbler of bygone days, when the

antiquary of days to come, among the sitesmemorable in the town's history, shall point out the locality of the town pump. the scarlet letter i. the prison door a throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garmentsand grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and othersbareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timberedwith oak, and studded with iron spikes. the founders of a new colony, whatever utopiaof human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it amongtheir earliest practical necessities to allot

a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery,and another portion as the site of a prison. in accordance with this rule it may safelybe assumed that the forefathers of boston had built the first prison-house somewherein the vicinity of cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground,on isaac johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleusof all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of king's chapel. certain it isthat, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail wasalready marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darkeraspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. the rust on the ponderous iron-work of itsoaken door looked more antique than anything

else in the new world. like all that pertainsto crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. before this ugly edifice, andbetween it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock,pig-weed, apple-pern, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenialin the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. buton one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered,in this month of june, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragranceand fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he cameforth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of nature could pity and be kind tohim.

this rose-bush, by a strange chance, has beenkept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness,so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it,or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footstepsof the sainted ann hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon usto determine. finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now aboutto issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one ofits flowers, and present it to the reader. it may serve, let us hope, to symbolise somesweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening closeof a tale of human frailty and sorrow.

ii. the market-place the grass-plot before the jail, in prisonlane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by apretty large number of the inhabitants of boston, all with their eyes intently fastenedon the iron-clamped oaken door. amongst any other population, or at a later period inthe history of new england, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies ofthese good people would have augured some awful business in hand. it could have betokenednothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentenceof a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. but, in thatearly severity of the puritan character, an

inference of this kind could not so indubitablybe drawn. it might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents hadgiven over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. it mightbe that an antinomian, a quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourgedout of the town, or an idle or vagrant indian, whom the white man's firewater had made riotousabout the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. it might be,too, that a witch, like old mistress hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate,was to die upon the gallows. in either case, there was very much the same solemnity ofdemeanour on the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion andlaw were almost identical, and in whose character

both were so thoroughly interfused, that themildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. meagre,indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders,at the scaffold. on the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree ofmocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity asthe punishment of death itself. it was a circumstance to be noted on the summermorning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were severalin the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction mightbe expected to ensue. the age had not so much refinement, that any sense of improprietyrestrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale

from stepping forth into the public ways,and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearestto the scaffold at an execution. morally, as well as materially, there was a coarserfibre in those wives and maidens of old english birth and breeding than in their fair descendants,separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chainof ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicateand briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less force andsolidity than her own. the women who were now standing about the prison-door stood withinless than half a century of the period when the man-like elizabeth had been the not altogetherunsuitable representative of the sex. they

were her countrywomen: and the beef and aleof their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely intotheir composition. the bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developedbusts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and hadhardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of new england. there was, moreover, a boldnessand rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startleus at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone. "goodwives," said a hard-featured dame offifty, "i'll tell ye a piece of my mind. it would be greatly for the public behoof ifwe women, being of mature age and church-members

in good repute, should have the handling ofsuch malefactresses as this hester prynne. what think ye, gossips? if the hussy stoodup for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come offwith such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? marry, i trow not." "people say," said another, "that the reverendmaster dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandalshould have come upon his congregation." "the magistrates are god-fearing gentlemen,but merciful overmuch—that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "at the veryleast, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on hester prynne's forehead. madamehester would have winced at that, i warrant

me. but she—the naughty baggage—littlewill she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! why, look you, she may coverit with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as braveas ever!" "ah, but," interposed, more softly, a youngwife, holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of itwill be always in her heart." "what do we talk of marks and brands, whetheron the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliestas well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "this woman has brought shame uponus all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? truly there is, both in the scriptureand the statute-book. then let the magistrates,

who have made it of no effect, thank themselvesif their own wives and daughters go astray." "mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man inthe crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of thegallows? that is the hardest word yet! hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in theprison-door, and here comes mistress prynne herself." the door of the jail being flung open fromwithin there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine,the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff ofoffice in his hand. this personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismalseverity of the puritanic code of law, which

it was his business to administer in its finaland closest application to the offender. stretching forth the official staff in his left hand,he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, onthe threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignityand force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. she borein her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside itslittle face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had broughtit acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartmentof the prison. when the young woman—the mother of thischild—stood fully revealed before the crowd,

it seemed to be her first impulse to claspthe infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as thatshe might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress.in a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serveto hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughtysmile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours.on the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery andfantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter a. it was so artistically done,and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of alast and fitting decoration to the apparel

which she wore, and which was of a splendourin accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuaryregulations of the colony. the young woman was tall, with a figure ofperfect elegance on a large scale. she had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that itthrew off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularityof feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked browand deep black eyes. she was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentilityof those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate,evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. and neverhad hester prynne appeared more ladylike,

in the antique interpretation of the term,than as she issued from the prison. those who had before known her, and had expectedto behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled,to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominyin which she was enveloped. it may be true that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. her attire, which indeed, she had wrought for the occasionin prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitudeof her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity.but the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer—so thatboth men and women who had been familiarly

acquainted with hester prynne were now impressedas if they beheld her for the first time—was that scarlet letter, so fantastically embroideredand illuminated upon her bosom. it had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinaryrelations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. "she hath good skill at her needle, that'scertain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazenhussy, contrive such a way of showing it? why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in thefaces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen,meant for a punishment?" "it were well," muttered the most iron-visagedof the old dames, "if we stripped madame hester's

rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and asfor the red letter which she hath stitched so curiously, i'll bestow a rag of mine ownrheumatic flannel to make a fitter one!" "oh, peace, neighbours—peace!" whisperedtheir youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! not a stitch in that embroideredletter but she has felt it in her heart." the grim beadle now made a gesture with hisstaff. "make way, good people—make way, in the king's name!" cried he. "open a passage;and i promise ye, mistress prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have afair sight of her brave apparel from this time till an hour past meridian. a blessingon the righteous colony of the massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine!come along, madame hester, and show your scarlet

letter in the market-place!" a lane was forthwith opened through the crowdof spectators. preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browedmen and unkindly visaged women, hester prynne set forth towards the place appointed forher punishment. a crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matterin hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their headscontinually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominiousletter on her breast. it was no great distance, in those days, from the prison door to themarket-place. measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey ofsome length; for haughty as her demeanour

was, she perchance underwent an agony fromevery footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into thestreet for them all to spurn and trample upon. in our nature, however, there is a provision,alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what heendures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. with almosta serene deportment, therefore, hester prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal,and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. it stood nearlybeneath the eaves of boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there. in fact, this scaffold constituted a portionof a penal machine, which now, for two or

three generations past, has been merely historicaland traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent,in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists offrance. it was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the frameworkof that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tightgrasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. the very ideal of ignominy was embodied andmade manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. there can be no outrage, methinks,against our common nature—whatever be the delinquencies of the individual—no outragemore flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essenceof this punishment to do. in hester prynne's

instance, however, as not unfrequently inother cases, her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, butwithout undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the pronenessto which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. knowing well her part,she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude,at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street. had there been a papist among the crowd ofpuritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien,and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of divine maternity,which so many illustrious painters have vied

with one another to represent; something whichshould remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood,whose infant was to redeem the world. here, there was the taint of deepest sin in themost sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darkerfor this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. the scene was not without a mixture of awe,such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, beforesociety shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering at it. the witnessesof hester prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. they were stern enoughto look upon her death, had that been the

sentence, without a murmur at its severity,but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a themefor jest in an exhibition like the present. even had there been a disposition to turnthe matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presenceof men no less dignified than the governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, ageneral, and the ministers of the town, all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house,looking down upon the platform. when such personages could constitute a part of thespectacle, without risking the majesty, or reverence of rank and office, it was safelyto be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectualmeaning. accordingly, the crowd was sombre

and grave. the unhappy culprit sustained herselfas best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastenedupon her, and concentrated at her bosom. it was almost intolerable to be borne. of animpulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomousstabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there wasa quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longedrather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herselfthe object. had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude—each man, each woman, eachlittle shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts—hester prynne might haverepaid them all with a bitter and disdainful

smile. but, under the leaden infliction whichit was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the fullpower of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or elsego mad at once. yet there were intervals when the whole scene,in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least,glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images.her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenesthan this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the western wilderness:other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crownedhats. reminiscences, the most trifling and

immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days,sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, cameswarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in hersubsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similarimportance, or all alike a play. possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spiritto relieve itself by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weightand hardness of the reality. be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillorywas a point of view that revealed to hester prynne the entire track along which she hadbeen treading, since her happy infancy. standing on that miserable eminence, she saw againher native village, in old england, and her

paternal home: a decayed house of grey stone,with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half obliterated shield of arms over theportal, in token of antique gentility. she saw her father's face, with its bold brow,and reverend white beard that flowed over the old-fashioned elizabethan ruff; her mother's,too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance,and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrancein her daughter's pathway. she saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminatingall the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. there shebeheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-likevisage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light

that had served them to pore over many ponderousbooks. yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was theirowner's purpose to read the human soul. this figure of the study and the cloister, as hesterprynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shouldera trifle higher than the right. next rose before her in memory's picture-gallery, theintricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals, and thepublic edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a continental city; wherenew life had awaited her, still in connexion with the misshapen scholar: a new life, butfeeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall.lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes,

came back the rude market-place of the puritansettlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levelling their stern regards at hesterprynne—yes, at herself—who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on herarm, and the letter a, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom. could it be true? she clutched the child sofiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at thescarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infantand the shame were real. yes these were her realities—all else had vanished! iii. the recognition

from this intense consciousness of being theobject of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at lengthrelieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistiblytook possession of her thoughts. an indian in his native garb was standing there; butthe red men were not so infrequent visitors of the english settlements that one of themwould have attracted any notice from hester prynne at such a time; much less would hehave excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. by the indian's side, and evidentlysustaining a companionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray ofcivilized and savage costume. he was small in stature, with a furrowed visage,which as yet could hardly be termed aged.

there was a remarkable intelligence in hisfeatures, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail tomould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. although, by a seeminglycareless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to conceal or abatethe peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to hester prynne that one of this man's shouldersrose higher than the other. again, at the first instant of perceiving that thin visage,and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsivea force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. but the mother did not seem tohear it. at his arrival in the market-place, and sometime before she saw him, the stranger had

bent his eyes on hester prynne. it was carelesslyat first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external mattersare of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind.very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. a writhing horror twisted itselfacross his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause,with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. his face darkened with some powerfulemotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that,save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. after a brief space,the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of hisnature. when he found the eyes of hester prynne

fastened on his own, and saw that she appearedto recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in theair, and laid it on his lips. then touching the shoulder of a townsman whostood near to him, he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner: "i pray you, good sir," said he, "who is thiswoman?—and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?" "you must needs be a stranger in this region,friend," answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion,"else you would surely have heard of mistress hester prynne and her evil doings. she hathraised a great scandal, i promise you, in

godly master dimmesdale's church." "you say truly," replied the other; "i ama stranger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will. i have met with grievousmishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk to thesouthward; and am now brought hither by this indian to be redeemed out of my captivity.will it please you, therefore, to tell me of hester prynne's—have i her name rightly?—ofthis woman's offences, and what has brought her to yonder scaffold?" "truly, friend; and methinks it must gladdenyour heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman, "tofind yourself at length in a land where iniquity

is searched out and punished in the sightof rulers and people, as here in our godly new england. yonder woman, sir, you must know,was the wife of a certain learned man, english by birth, but who had long ago dwelt in amsterdam,whence some good time agone he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with usof the massachusetts. to this purpose he sent his wife before him, remaining himself tolook after some necessary affairs. marry, good sir, in some two years, or less, thatthe woman has been a dweller here in boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentleman,master prynne; and his young wife, look you, being left to her own misguidance—" "ah!—aha!—i conceive you," said the strangerwith a bitter smile. "so learned a man as

you speak of should have learned this tooin his books. and who, by your favour, sir, may be the father of yonder babe—it is somethree or four months old, i should judge—which mistress prynne is holding in her arms?" "of a truth, friend, that matter remainetha riddle; and the daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman."madame hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their headstogether in vain. peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle,unknown of man, and forgetting that god sees him." "the learned man," observed the stranger withanother smile, "should come himself to look

into the mystery." "it behoves him well if he be still in life,"responded the townsman. "now, good sir, our massachusetts magistracy, bethinking themselvesthat this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall,and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of the sea, theyhave not been bold to put in force the extremity of our righteous law against her. the penaltythereof is death. but in their great mercy and tenderness of heart they have doomed mistressprynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then andthereafter, for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom."

"a wise sentence," remarked the stranger,gravely, bowing his head. "thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominiousletter be engraved upon her tombstone. it irks me, nevertheless, that the partner ofher iniquity should not at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. but he will be known—hewill be known!—he will be known!" he bowed courteously to the communicativetownsman, and whispering a few words to his indian attendant, they both made their waythrough the crowd. while this passed, hester prynne had beenstanding on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger—so fixed a gazethat, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemedto vanish, leaving only him and her. such

an interview, perhaps, would have been moreterrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sun burning downupon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast;with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival,staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside,in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. dreadful as itwas, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. it wasbetter to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face—theytwo alone. she fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the momentwhen its protection should be withdrawn from

her. involved in these thoughts, she scarcelyheard a voice behind her until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemntone, audible to the whole multitude. "hearken unto me, hester prynne!" said thevoice. it has already been noticed that directlyover the platform on which hester prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appendedto the meeting-house. it was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidstan assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observancesin those days. here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat governor bellinghamhimself with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honour. hewore a dark feather in his hat, a border of

embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvettunic beneath—a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles.he was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community which owed its origin and progress,and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the sternand tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, preciselybecause it imagined and hoped so little. the other eminent characters by whom the chiefruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period whenthe forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions. theywere, doubtless, good men, just and sage. but, out of the whole human family, it wouldnot have been easy to select the same number

of wise and virtuous persons, who should beless capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling itsmesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom hester prynne now turnedher face. she seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay inthe larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony,the unhappy woman grew pale, and trembled. the voice which had called her attention wasthat of the reverend and famous john wilson, the eldest clergyman of boston, a great scholar,like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit.this last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectualgifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter

of shame than self-congratulation with him.there he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his greyeyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of hester'sinfant, in the unadulterated sunshine. he looked like the darkly engraved portraitswhich we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraitswould have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion,and anguish. "hester prynne," said the clergyman, "i havestriven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have beenprivileged to sit"—here mr. wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young manbeside him—"i have sought, i say, to persuade

this godly youth, that he should deal withyou, here in the face of heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearingof all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. knowing your naturaltemper better than i, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tendernessor terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that youshould no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. but heopposes to me—with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years—that it werewronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in suchbroad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. truly, as i sought to convincehim, the shame lay in the commission of the

sin, and not in the showing of it forth. whatsay you to it, once again, brother dimmesdale? must it be thou, or i, that shall deal withthis poor sinner's soul?" there was a murmur among the dignified andreverend occupants of the balcony; and governor bellingham gave expression to its purport,speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthfulclergyman whom he addressed: "good master dimmesdale," said he, "the responsibilityof this woman's soul lies greatly with you. it behoves you; therefore, to exhort her torepentance and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof." the directness of this appeal drew the eyesof the whole crowd upon the reverend mr. dimmesdale—young

clergyman, who had come from one of the greatenglish universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest land. hiseloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in hisprofession. he was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impendingbrow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressedit, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of selfrestraint. notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, therewas an air about this young minister—an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightenedlook—as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of humanexistence, and could only be at ease in some

seclusion of his own. therefore, so far ashis duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple andchildlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewypurity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel. such was the young man whom the reverend mr.wilson and the governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak,in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution.the trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous. "speak to the woman, my brother," said mr.wilson. "it is of moment to her soul, and,

therefore, as the worshipful governor says,momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. exhort her to confess the truth!" the reverend mr. dimmesdale bent his head,in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward. "hester prynne," said he, leaning over thebalcony and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good mansays, and seest the accountability under which i labour. if thou feelest it to be for thysoul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation,i charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! be notsilent from any mistaken pity and tenderness

for him; for, believe me, hester, though hewere to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame,yet better were it so than to hide a guilty heart through life. what can thy silence dofor him, except it tempt him—yea, compel him, as it were—to add hypocrisy to sin?heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an opentriumph over the evil within thee and the sorrow without. take heed how thou deniestto him—who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself—the bitter, butwholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!" the young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet,rich, deep, and broken. the feeling that it

so evidently manifested, rather than the directpurport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listenersinto one accord of sympathy. even the poor baby at hester's bosom was affected by thesame influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards mr. dimmesdale, and heldup its little arms with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur. so powerful seemed the minister'sappeal that the people could not believe but that hester prynne would speak out the guiltyname, or else that the guilty one himself in whatever high or lowly place he stood,would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. hester shook her head.

"woman, transgress not beyond the limits ofheaven's mercy!" cried the reverend mr. wilson, more harshly than before. "that little babehath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard.speak out the name! that, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thybreast." "never," replied hester prynne, looking, notat mr. wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "it is toodeeply branded. ye cannot take it off. and would that i might endure his agony as wellas mine!" "speak, woman!" said another voice, coldlyand sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold, "speak; and give your childa father!"

"i will not speak!" answered hester, turningpale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognised. "and my childmust seek a heavenly father; she shall never know an earthly one!" "she will not speak!" murmured mr. dimmesdale,who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result ofhis appeal. he now drew back with a long respiration. "wondrous strength and generosity of a woman'sheart! she will not speak!" discerning the impracticable state of thepoor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for theoccasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continualreference to the ignominious letter. so forcibly

did he dwell upon this symbol, for the houror more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed newterrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames ofthe infernal pit. hester prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame,with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. she had borne that morning all that naturecould endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intensesuffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility,while the faculties of animal life remained entire. in this state, the voice of the preacherthundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. the infant, during the latterportion of her ordeal, pierced the air with

its wailings and screams; she strove to hushit mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathise with its trouble. with the same hard demeanour,she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal.it was whispered by those who peered after her that the scarlet letter threw a luridgleam along the dark passage-way of the interior. iv. the interview after her return to the prison, hester prynnewas found to be in a state of nervous excitement, that demanded constant watchfulness, lestshe should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poorbabe. as night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke orthreats of punishment, master brackett, the

jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician.he described him as a man of skill in all christian modes of physical science, and likewisefamiliar with whatever the savage people could teach in respect to medicinal herbs and rootsthat grew in the forest. to say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance,not merely for hester herself, but still more urgently for the child—who, drawing itssustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil,the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. it now writhed in convulsionsof pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which hester prynnehad borne throughout the day. closely following the jailer into the dismalapartment, appeared that individual, of singular

aspect whose presence in the crowd had beenof such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. he was lodged in the prison,not as suspected of any offence, but as the most convenient and suitable mode of disposingof him, until the magistrates should have conferred with the indian sagamores respectinghis ransom. his name was announced as roger chillingworth. the jailer, after usheringhim into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed hisentrance; for hester prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the childcontinued to moan. "prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient,"said the practitioner. "trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house;and, i promise you, mistress prynne shall

hereafter be more amenable to just authoritythan you may have found her heretofore." "nay, if your worship can accomplish that,"answered master brackett, "i shall own you for a man of skill, indeed! verily, the womanhath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little that i should take in hand, todrive satan out of her with stripes." the stranger had entered the room with thecharacteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging.nor did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of the prison keeper left him face to facewith the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relationbetween himself and her. his first care was given to the child, whose cries, indeed, asshe lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made

it of peremptory necessity to postpone allother business to the task of soothing her. he examined the infant carefully, and thenproceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. it appearedto contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water. "my old studies in alchemy," observed he,"and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly propertiesof simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree.here, woman! the child is yours—she is none of mine—neither will she recognise my voiceor aspect as a father's. administer this draught, therefore, with thine own hand."

hester repelled the offered medicine, at thesame time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face. "wouldst thou avenge thyselfon the innocent babe?" whispered she. "foolish woman!" responded the physician,half coldly, half soothingly. "what should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserablebabe? the medicine is potent for good, and were it my child—yea, mine own, as wellas thine! i could do no better for it." as she still hesitated, being, in fact, inno reasonable state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered thedraught. it soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. the moans ofthe little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and in a few moments,as is the custom of young children after relief

from pain, it sank into a profound and dewyslumber. the physician, as he had a fair right to be termed, next bestowed his attentionon the mother. with calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes—agaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so strange andcold—and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught. "i know not lethe nor nepenthe," remarkedhe; "but i have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them—arecipe that an indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as oldas paracelsus. drink it! it may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. that i cannot givethee. but it will calm the swell and heaving

of thy passion, like oil thrown on the wavesof a tempestuous sea." he presented the cup to hester, who receivedit with a slow, earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full ofdoubt and questioning as to what his purposes might be. she looked also at her slumberingchild. "i have thought of death," said she—"havewished for it—would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as i should prayfor anything. yet, if death be in this cup, i bid thee think again, ere thou beholdestme quaff it. see! it is even now at my lips." "drink, then," replied he, still with thesame cold composure. "dost thou know me so little, hester prynne? are my purposes wontto be so shallow? even if i imagine a scheme

of vengeance, what could i do better for myobject than to let thee live—than to give thee medicines against all harm and perilof life—so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?" as he spoke, he laidhis long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into hester'sbreast, as if it had been red hot. he noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. "live,therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women—in the eyesof him whom thou didst call thy husband—in the eyes of yonder child! and, that thou mayestlive, take off this draught." without further expostulation or delay, hesterprynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on thebed, where the child was sleeping; while he

drew the only chair which the room afforded,and took his own seat beside her. she could not but tremble at these preparations; forshe felt that—having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refinedcruelty, impelled him to do for the relief of physical suffering—he was next to treatwith her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured. "hester," said he, "i ask not wherefore, norhow thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestalof infamy on which i found thee. the reason is not far to seek. it was my folly, and thyweakness. i—a man of thought—the book-worm of great libraries—a man already in decay,having given my best years to feed the hungry

dream of knowledge—what had i to do withyouth and beauty like thine own? misshapen from my birth-hour, how could i delude myselfwith the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl'sfantasy? men call me wise. if sages were ever wise in their own behoof, i might have foreseenall this. i might have known that, as i came out of the vast and dismal forest, and enteredthis settlement of christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself,hester prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. nay, from the moment whenwe came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, i might have beheld the bale-fireof that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!"

"thou knowest," said hester—for, depressedas she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame—"thouknowest that i was frank with thee. i felt no love, nor feigned any." "true," replied he. "it was my folly! i havesaid it. but, up to that epoch of my life, i had lived in vain. the world had been socheerless! my heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill,and without a household fire. i longed to kindle one! it seemed not so wild a dream—oldas i was, and sombre as i was, and misshapen as i was—that the simple bliss, which isscattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. and so, hester,i drew thee into my heart, into its innermost

chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmthwhich thy presence made there!" "i have greatly wronged thee," murmured hester. "we have wronged each other," answered he."mine was the first wrong, when i betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnaturalrelation with my decay. therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain,i seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. between thee and me, the scale hangsfairly balanced. but, hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! who is he?" "ask me not!" replied hester prynne, lookingfirmly into his face. "that thou shalt never know!"

"never, sayest thou?" rejoined he, with asmile of dark and self-relying intelligence. "never know him! believe me, hester, thereare few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphereof thought—few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedlyto the solution of a mystery. thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude.thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day,when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thypedestal. but, as for me, i come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. i shallseek this man, as i have sought truth in books: as i have sought gold in alchemy. there isa sympathy that will make me conscious of

him. i shall see him tremble. i shall feelmyself shudder, suddenly and unawares. sooner or later, he must needs be mine." the eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed sointensely upon her, that hester prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading lest heshould read the secret there at once. "thou wilt not reveal his name? not the lesshe is mine," resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. "he bearsno letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but i shall read it on his heart.yet fear not for him! think not that i shall interfere with heaven's own method of retribution,or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. neither do thou imagine thati shall contrive aught against his life; no,

nor against his fame, if as i judge, he bea man of fair repute. let him live! let him hide himself in outward honour, if he may!not the less he shall be mine!" "thy acts are like mercy," said hester, bewilderedand appalled; "but thy words interpret thee as a terror!" "one thing, thou that wast my wife, i wouldenjoin upon thee," continued the scholar. "thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour.keep, likewise, mine! there are none in this land that know me. breathe not to any humansoul that thou didst ever call me husband! here, on this wild outskirt of the earth,i shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, i findhere a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom

and myself there exist the closest ligaments.no matter whether of love or hate: no matter whether of right or wrong! thou and thine,hester prynne, belong to me. my home is where thou art and where he is. but betray me not!" "wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquiredhester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "why not announce thyselfopenly, and cast me off at once?" "it may be," he replied, "because i will notencounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. it may be forother reasons. enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. let, therefore, thyhusband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. recogniseme not, by word, by sign, by look! breathe

not the secret, above all, to the man thouwottest of. shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! his fame, his position, his life willbe in my hands. beware!" "i will keep thy secret, as i have his," saidhester. "swear it!" rejoined he. and she took the oath. "and now, mistress prynne," said old rogerchillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, "i leave thee alone: alone with thy infantand the scarlet letter! how is it, hester? doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the tokenin thy sleep? art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?"

"why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired hester,troubled at the expression of his eyes. "art thou like the black man that haunts the forestround about us? hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?" "not thy soul," he answered, with anothersmile. "no, not thine!" v. hester at her needle hester prynne's term of confinement was nowat an end. her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which,falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no otherpurpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. perhaps there was a more realtorture in her first unattended footsteps

from the threshold of the prison than evenin the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the commoninfamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. then, she was supportedby an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character,which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. it was, moreover,a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore,reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed formany quiet years. the very law that condemned her—a giant of stern features but with vigourto support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm—had held her up through the terribleordeal of her ignominy. but now, with this

unattended walk from her prison door, beganthe daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resourcesof her nature, or sink beneath it. she could no longer borrow from the future to help herthrough the present grief. tomorrow would bring its own trial with it; so would thenext day, and so would the next: each its own trial, and yet the very same that wasnow so unutterably grievous to be borne. the days of the far-off future would toil onward,still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never tofling down; for the accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery uponthe heap of shame. throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become thegeneral symbol at which the preacher and moralist

might point, and in which they might vivifyand embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. thus the young and purewould be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast—at her, thechild of honourable parents—at her, the mother of a babe that would hereafter be awoman—at her, who had once been innocent—as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.and over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument. it may seem marvellous that, with the worldbefore her—kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of thepuritan settlement, so remote and so obscure—free to return to her birth-place, or to any othereuropean land, and there hide her character

and identity under a new exterior, as completelyas if emerging into another state of being—and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutableforest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with apeople whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her—it may seemmarvellous that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only,she must needs be the type of shame. but there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible andinevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beingsto linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event hasgiven the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tingethat saddens it. her sin, her ignominy, were

the roots which she had struck into the soil.it was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land,still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into hester prynne's wild anddreary, but life-long home. all other scenes of earth—even that village of rural england,where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping,like garments put off long ago—were foreign to her, in comparison. the chain that boundher here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken. it might be, too—doubtless it was so, althoughshe hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart,like a serpent from its hole—it might be

that another feeling kept her within the sceneand pathway that had been so fatal. there dwelt, there trode, the feet of one with whomshe deemed herself connected in a union that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them togetherbefore the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurityof endless retribution. over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this ideaupon hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with whichshe seized, and then strove to cast it from her. she barely looked the idea in the face,and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. what she compelled herself to believe—what, finally,she reasoned upon as her motive for continuing a resident of new england—was half a truth,and half a self-delusion. here, she said to

herself had been the scene of her guilt, andhere should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her dailyshame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which shehad lost: more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom. hester prynne, therefore, did not flee. onthe outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinityto any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. it had been built by anearlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation,while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity whichalready marked the habits of the emigrants.

it stood on the shore, looking across a basinof the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west. a clump of scrubby trees, such asalone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem todenote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed.in this little lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by thelicence of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, hester establishedherself, with her infant child. a mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself tothe spot. children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out fromthe sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needleat the cottage-window, or standing in the

doorway, or labouring in her little garden,or coming forth along the pathway that led townward, and, discerning the scarlet letteron her breast, would scamper off with a strange contagious fear. lonely as was hester's situation, and withouta friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. shepossessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scopefor its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. it was the art, then,as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp—of needle-work. she bore on her breast,in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, ofwhich the dames of a court might gladly have

availed themselves, to add the richer andmore spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. here, indeed,in the sable simplicity that generally characterised the puritanic modes of dress, there mightbe an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. yet the taste of the age,demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influenceover our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seemharder to dispense with. public ceremonies, such as ordinations, theinstallation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which anew government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a statelyand well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre,

but yet a studied magnificence. deep ruffs,painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the officialstate of men assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to individuals dignifiedby rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances tothe plebeian order. in the array of funerals, too—whether for the apparel of the deadbody, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, thesorrow of the survivors—there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labouras hester prynne could supply. baby-linen—for babies then wore robes of state—affordedstill another possibility of toil and emolument. by degrees, not very slowly, her handiworkbecame what would now be termed the fashion.

whether from commiseration for a woman ofso miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value evento common or worthless things; or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, asnow, sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain; or becausehester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that shehad ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy withher needle. vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials ofpomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. her needle-workwas seen on the ruff of the governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the ministeron his band; it decked the baby's little cap;

it was shut up, to be mildewed and moulderaway, in the coffins of the dead. but it is not recorded that, in a single instance, herskill was called in to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes ofa bride. the exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which society frownedupon her sin. hester sought not to acquire anything beyonda subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundancefor her child. her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue, with onlythat one ornament—the scarlet letter—which it was her doom to wear. the child's attire,on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantasticingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten

the airy charm that early began to developitself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning. we may speakfurther of it hereafter. except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant,hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable thanherself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them. much of the time,which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed inmaking coarse garments for the poor. it is probable that there was an idea of penancein this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devotingso many hours to such rude handiwork. she had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, orientalcharacteristic—a taste for the gorgeously

beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productionsof her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exerciseitself upon. women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil ofthe needle. to hester prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing,the passion of her life. like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. this morbid meddlingof conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfastpenitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath. in this manner, hester prynne came to havea part to perform in the world. with her native energy of character and rare capacity, itcould not entirely cast her off, although

it had set a mark upon her, more intolerableto a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of cain. in all her intercourse withsociety, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. every gesture,every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, andoften expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited anothersphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest ofhuman kind. she stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisitsthe familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with thehousehold joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifestingits forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror

and horrible repugnance. these emotions, infact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained inthe universal heart. it was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understoodit well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception,like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. the poor, as we have alreadysaid, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand thatwas stretched forth to succour them. dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors sheentered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness intoher heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concocta subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and

sometimes, also, by a coarser expression,that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulceratedwound. hester had schooled herself long and well; and she never responded to these attacks,save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again subsided intothe depths of her bosom. she was patient—a martyr, indeed—but she forebore to prayfor enemies, lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing shouldstubbornly twist themselves into a curse. continually, and in a thousand other ways,did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for herby the undying, the ever-active sentence of the puritan tribunal. clergymen paused inthe streets, to address words of exhortation,

that brought a crowd, with its mingled grinand frown, around the poor, sinful woman. if she entered a church, trusting to sharethe sabbath smile of the universal father, it was often her mishap to find herself thetext of the discourse. she grew to have a dread of children; for they had imbibed fromtheir parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman gliding silently throughthe town, with never any companion but one only child. therefore, first allowing herto pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterances of a wordthat had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her,as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. it seemed to argue so wide a diffusion ofher shame, that all nature knew of it; it

could have caused her no deeper pang had theleaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves—had the summer breeze murmuredabout it—had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud! another peculiar torture was felt inthe gaze of a new eye. when strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter—and noneever failed to do so—they branded it afresh in hester's soul; so that, oftentimes, shecould scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. butthen, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. its cool stareof familiarity was intolerable. from first to last, in short, hester prynne had alwaysthis dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous;it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive

with daily torture. but sometimes, once in many days, or perchancein many months, she felt an eye—a human eye—upon the ignominious brand, that seemedto give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. the next instant, backit all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, shehad sinned anew. (had hester sinned alone?) her imagination was somewhat affected, and,had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre would have been still more so, by thestrange and solitary anguish of her life. walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps,in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to hester—ifaltogether fancy, it was nevertheless too

potent to be resisted—she felt or fancied,then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. she shuddered to believe,yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hiddensin in other hearts. she was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. whatwere they? could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fainhave persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guiseof purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letterwould blaze forth on many a bosom besides hester prynne's? or, must she receive thoseintimations—so obscure, yet so distinct—as truth? in all her miserable experience, therewas nothing else so awful and so loathsome

as this sense. it perplexed, as well as shockedher, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action.sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed neara venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age ofantique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. "what evilthing is at hand?" would hester say to herself. lifting her reluctant eyes, there would benothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! again a mysticsisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron,who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughoutlife. that unsunned snow in the matron's bosom,

and the burning shame on hester prynne's—whathad the two in common? or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning—"beholdhester, here is a companion!" and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maidenglancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint,chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance.o fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youthor age, for this poor sinner to revere?—such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest resultsof sin. be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of herown frailty, and man's hard law, that hester prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortalwas guilty like herself.

the vulgar, who, in those dreary old times,were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, hada story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend.they averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot,but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever hesterprynne walked abroad in the night-time. and we must needs say it seared hester's bosomso deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulitymay be inclined to admit. vi. pearl we have as yet hardly spoken of the infant;that little creature, whose innocent life

had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of providence,a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. how strangeit seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became everyday more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tinyfeatures of this child! her pearl—for so had hester called her; not as a name expressiveof her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would beindicated by the comparison. but she named the infant "pearl," as being of great price—purchasedwith all she had—her mother's only treasure! how strange, indeed! man had marked this woman'ssin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathycould reach her, save it were sinful like

herself. god, as a direct consequence of thesin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that samedishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals,and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven! yet these thoughts affected hester prynneless with hope than apprehension. she knew that her deed had been evil; she could haveno faith, therefore, that its result would be good. day after day she looked fearfullyinto the child's expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity thatshould correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being. certainly there was no physical defect. byits perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural

dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs,the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in eden: worthy to have been left thereto be the plaything of the angels after the world's first parents were driven out. thechild had a native grace which does not invariably co-exist with faultless beauty; its attire,however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that preciselybecame it best. but little pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. her mother, with a morbidpurpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that couldbe procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decorationof the dresses which the child wore before the public eye. so magnificent was the smallfigure when thus arrayed, and such was the

splendour of pearl's own proper beauty, shiningthrough the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that therewas an absolute circle of radiance around her on the darksome cottage floor. and yeta russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect.pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety; in this one child therewere many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness ofa peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess. throughout all, however,there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost; and if in anyof her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be herself—it wouldhave been no longer pearl!

this outward mutability indicated, and didnot more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. her nature appearedto possess depth, too, as well as variety; but—or else hester's fears deceived her—itlacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. the child could notbe made amenable to rules. in giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the resultwas a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or withan order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficultor impossible to be discovered. hester could only account for the child's character—andeven then most vaguely and imperfectly—by recalling what she herself had been duringthat momentous period while pearl was imbibing

her soul from the spiritual world, and herbodily frame from its material of earth. the mother's impassioned state had been the mediumthrough which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, howeverwhite and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fierylustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. aboveall, the warfare of hester's spirit at that epoch was perpetuated in pearl. she couldrecognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even someof the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. they were nowilluminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the dayof earthly existence, might be prolific of

the storm and whirlwind. the discipline of the family in those dayswas of a far more rigid kind than now. the frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent applicationof the rod, enjoined by scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishmentfor actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childishvirtues. hester prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother of this one child, ran littlerisk of erring on the side of undue severity. mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes,she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that wascommitted to her charge. but the task was beyond her skill. after testing both smilesand frowns, and proving that neither mode

of treatment possessed any calculable influence,hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by her ownimpulses. physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted.as to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little pearlmight or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled themoment. her mother, while pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiarlook, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade or plead. it was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable,perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, thathester could not help questioning at such

moments whether pearl was a human child. sheseemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a littlewhile upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. whenever that look appearedin her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness andintangibility: it was as if she were hovering in the air, and might vanish, like a glimmeringlight that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. beholding it, hesterwas constrained to rush towards the child—to pursue the little elf in the flight whichshe invariably began—to snatch her to her bosom with a close pressure and earnest kisses—notso much from overflowing love as to assure herself that pearl was flesh and blood, andnot utterly delusive. but pearl's laugh, when

she was caught, though full of merriment andmusic, made her mother more doubtful than before. heart-smitten at this bewildering and bafflingspell, that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had boughtso dear, and who was all her world, hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. then,perhaps—for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her—pearl would frown, andclench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising lookof discontent. not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thingincapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. or—but this more rarely happened—she wouldbe convulsed with rage of grief and sob out

her love for her mother in broken words, andseem intent on proving that she had a heart by breaking it. yet hester was hardly safein confiding herself to that gusty tenderness: it passed as suddenly as it came. broodingover all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by someirregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that shouldcontrol this new and incomprehensible intelligence. her only real comfort was when the child layin the placidity of sleep. then she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicioushappiness; until—perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneath her openinglids—little pearl awoke! how soon—with what strange rapidity, indeed—didpearl arrive at an age that was capable of

social intercourse beyond the mother's ever-readysmile and nonsense-words! and then what a happiness would it have been could hesterprynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childishvoices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangledoutcry of a group of sportive children. but this could never be. pearl was a born outcastof the infantile world. an imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right amongchristened infants. nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with whichthe child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circleround about her: the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in respect to otherchildren. never since her release from prison

had hester met the public gaze without her.in all her walks about the town, pearl, too, was there: first as the babe in arms, andafterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a forefinger with herwhole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of hester's.she saw the children of the settlement on the grassy margin of the street, or at thedomestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashions as the puritanic nurturewould permit; playing at going to church, perchance, or at scourging quakers; or takingscalps in a sham fight with the indians, or scaring one another with freaks of imitativewitchcraft. pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. ifspoken to, she would not speak again. if the

children gathered about her, as they sometimesdid, pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones tofling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because theyhad so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue. the truth was, that the little puritans, beingof the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish,unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child, and therefore scornedthem in their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues. pearl feltthe sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in achildish bosom. these outbreaks of a fierce

temper had a kind of value, and even comfortfor the mother; because there was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, insteadof the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child's manifestations. it appalledher, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that hadexisted in herself. all this enmity and passion had pearl inherited, by inalienable right,out of hester's heart. mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusionfrom human society; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquietelements that had distracted hester prynne before pearl's birth, but had since begunto be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity.

at home, within and around her mother's cottage,pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. the spell of life went forthfrom her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindlesa flame wherever it may be applied. the unlikeliest materials—a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower—werethe puppets of pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spirituallyadapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. her one baby-voice serveda multitude of imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. the pine-trees, aged,black, and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze,needed little transformation to figure as puritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the gardenwere their children, whom pearl smote down

and uprooted most unmercifully. it was wonderful,the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed,but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preternatural activity—soon sinking down,as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life—and succeeded by other shapesof a similar wild energy. it was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of thenorthern lights. in the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of agrowing mind, there might be a little more than was observable in other children of brightfaculties; except as pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon thevisionary throng which she created. the singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which thechild regarded all these offsprings of her

own heart and mind. she never created a friend,but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth, whence sprung a harvest ofarmed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. it was inexpressibly sad—then whatdepth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause—to observe, in one soyoung, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energiesthat were to make good her cause in the contest that must ensue. gazing at pearl, hester prynne often droppedher work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden,but which made utterance for itself betwixt speech and a groan—"o father in heaven—ifthou art still my father—what is this being

which i have brought into the world?" andpearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware through some more subtile channel, of thosethrobs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smilewith sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play. one peculiarity of the child's deportmentremains yet to be told. the very first thing which she had noticed in her life, was—what?—notthe mother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo smile ofthe little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond discussionwhether it were indeed a smile. by no means! but that first object of which pearl seemedto become aware was—shall we say it?—the

scarlet letter on hester's bosom! one day,as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmeringof the gold embroidery about the letter; and putting up her little hand she grasped atit, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a mucholder child. then, gasping for breath, did hester prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctivelyendeavouring to tear it away, so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligenttouch of pearl's baby-hand. again, as if her mother's agonised gesture were meant onlyto make sport for her, did little pearl look into her eyes, and smile. from that epoch,except when the child was asleep, hester had never felt a moment's safety: not a moment'scalm enjoyment of her. weeks, it is true,

would sometimes elapse, during which pearl'sgaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come atunawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile and oddexpression of the eyes. once this freakish, elvish cast came intothe child's eyes while hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fondof doing; and suddenly—for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered withunaccountable delusions—she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait,but another face in the small black mirror of pearl's eye. it was a face, fiend-like,full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well,though seldom with a smile, and never with

malice in them. it was as if an evil spiritpossessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. many a time afterwards hadhester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion. in the afternoon of a certain summer's day,after pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfulsof wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom; dancing up anddown like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter. hester's first motion hadbeen to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. but whether from pride or resignation, ora feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resistedthe impulse, and sat erect, pale as death,

looking sadly into little pearl's wild eyes.still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and coveringthe mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knewhow to seek it in another. at last, her shot being all expended, the child stood stilland gazed at hester, with that little laughing image of a fiend peeping out—or, whetherit peeped or no, her mother so imagined it—from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes. "child, what art thou?" cried the mother. "oh, i am your little pearl!" answered thechild. but while she said it, pearl laughed, andbegan to dance up and down with the humoursome

gesticulation of a little imp, whose nextfreak might be to fly up the chimney. "art thou my child, in very truth?" askedhester. nor did she put the question altogether idly,but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was pearl's wonderfulintelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the secretspell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself. "yes; i am little pearl!" repeated the child,continuing her antics. "thou art not my child! thou art no pearlof mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportiveimpulse came over her in the midst of her

deepest suffering. "tell me, then, what thouart, and who sent thee hither?" "tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously,coming up to hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "do thou tell me!" "thy heavenly father sent thee!" answeredhester prynne. but she said it with a hesitation that didnot escape the acuteness of the child. whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, orbecause an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger and touched the scarletletter. "he did not send me!" cried she, positively."i have no heavenly father!" "hush, pearl, hush! thou must not talk so!"answered the mother, suppressing a groan.

"he sent us all into the world. he sent evenme, thy mother. then, much more thee! or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whencedidst thou come?" "tell me! tell me!" repeated pearl, no longerseriously, but laughing and capering about the floor. "it is thou that must tell me!" but hester could not resolve the query, beingherself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. she remembered—betwixt a smile and a shudder—thetalk of the neighbouring townspeople, who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity,and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little pearl was ademon offspring: such as, ever since old catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth,through the agency of their mother's sin,

and to promote some foul and wicked purpose.luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed;nor was pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned among thenew england puritans. vii. the governor's hall hester prynne went one day to the mansionof governor bellingham, with a pair of gloves which she had fringed and embroidered to hisorder, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state; for, though the chancesof a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highestrank, he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.

another and far more important reason thanthe delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves, impelled hester, at this time, to seek aninterview with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of the settlement.it had reached her ears that there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants,cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and government, to deprive herof her child. on the supposition that pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, thesegood people not unreasonably argued that a christian interest in the mother's soul requiredthem to remove such a stumbling-block from her path. if the child, on the other hand,were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimatesalvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all

the fairer prospect of these advantages bybeing transferred to wiser and better guardianship than hester prynne's. among those who promotedthe design, governor bellingham was said to be one of the most busy. it may appear singular,and, indeed, not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which in later dayswould have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the select men of the town, shouldthen have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides.at that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest,and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare of hester and her child, were strangelymixed up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. the period was hardly,if at all, earlier than that of our story,

when a dispute concerning the right of propertyin a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony,but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the legislature. full of concern, therefore—but so consciousof her own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public on the oneside, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other—hester prynne setforth from her solitary cottage. little pearl, of course, was her companion. she was nowof an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly in motion from morntill sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. often,nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity,

she demanded to be taken up in arms; but wassoon as imperious to be let down again, and frisked onward before hester on the grassypathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble. we have spoken of pearl's rich and luxuriantbeauty—a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints, a bright complexion, eyes possessingintensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and which,in after years, would be nearly akin to black. there was fire in her and throughout her:she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. her mother, in contrivingthe child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play,arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered infantasies and flourishes of gold thread. so

much strength of colouring, which must havegiven a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted topearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced uponthe earth. but it was a remarkable attribute of thisgarb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably remindedthe beholder of the token which hester prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. it wasthe scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! the mother herself—asif the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumedits form—had carefully wrought out the similitude, lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity tocreate an analogy between the object of her

affection and the emblem of her guilt andtorture. but, in truth, pearl was the one as well as the other; and only in consequenceof that identity had hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance. as the two wayfarers came within the precinctsof the town, the children of the puritans looked up from their play,—or what passedfor play with those sombre little urchins—and spoke gravely one to another. "behold, verily, there is the woman of thescarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letterrunning along by her side! come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!"

but pearl, who was a dauntless child, afterfrowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threateninggestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight.she resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence—the scarlet fever,or some such half-fledged angel of judgment—whose mission was to punish the sins of the risinggeneration. she screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless,caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. the victory accomplished, pearlreturned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face. without further adventure, they reached thedwelling of governor bellingham. this was

a large wooden house, built in a fashion ofwhich there are specimens still extant in the streets of our older towns now moss-grown,crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences,remembered or forgotten, that have happened and passed away within their dusky chambers.then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and thecheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into whichdeath had never entered. it had, indeed, a very cheery aspect, the walls being overspreadwith a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed;so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice, it glitteredand sparkled as if diamonds had been flung

against it by the double handful. the brilliancymight have be fitted aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old puritan ruler.it was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams,suitable to the quaint taste of the age which had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laidon, and had now grown hard and durable, for the admiration of after times. pearl, looking at this bright wonder of ahouse began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshineshould be stripped off its front, and given her to play with. "no, my little pearl!" said her mother; "thoumust gather thine own sunshine. i have none

to give thee!" they approached the door, which was of anarched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice,in both of which were lattice-windows, the wooden shutters to close over them at need.lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, hester prynne gave a summons, which was answeredby one of the governor's bond servant—a free-born englishman, but now a seven years'slave. during that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity ofbargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. the serf wore the customary garb of serving-menat that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls of england.

"is the worshipful governor bellingham within?"inquired hester. "yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant,staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the country,he had never before seen. "yea, his honourable worship is within. but he hath a godly ministeror two with him, and likewise a leech. ye may not see his worship now." "nevertheless, i will enter," answered hesterprynne; and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glitteringsymbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition. so the mother and little pearl were admittedinto the hall of entrance. with many variations,

suggested by the nature of his building materials,diversity of climate, and a different mode of social life, governor bellingham had plannedhis new habitation after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land.here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth ofthe house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, withall the other apartments. at one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windowsof the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. at the otherend, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one ofthose embowed hall windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided witha deep and cushioned seat. here, on the cushion,

lay a folio tome, probably of the chroniclesof england, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our own days, we scatter gildedvolumes on the centre table, to be turned over by the casual guest. the furniture ofthe hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately carvedwith wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise a table in the same taste, the whole beingof the elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred hither from thegovernor's paternal home. on the table—in token that the sentiment of old english hospitalityhad not been left behind—stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had hesteror pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught ofale.

on the wall hung a row of portraits, representingthe forefathers of the bellingham lineage, some with armour on their breasts, and otherswith stately ruffs and robes of peace. all were characterised by the sternness and severitywhich old portraits so invariably put on, as if they were the ghosts, rather than thepictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at thepursuits and enjoyments of living men. at about the centre of the oaken panels thatlined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic,but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in london,the same year in which governor bellingham came over to new england. there was a steelhead-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves,

with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hangingbeneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glowwith white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor. this brightpanoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the governor on manya solemn muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regimentin the pequod war. for, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of bacon, coke, noye,and finch, as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformedgovernor bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler. little pearl, who was as greatly pleased withthe gleaming armour as she had been with the

glittering frontispiece of the house, spentsome time looking into the polished mirror of the breastplate. "mother," cried she, "i see you here. look!look!" hester looked by way of humouring the child;and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letterwas represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the mostprominent feature of her appearance. in truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. pearlpointed upwards also, at a similar picture in the head-piece; smiling at her mother,with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. thatlook of naughty merriment was likewise reflected

in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensityof effect, that it made hester prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her ownchild, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into pearl's shape. "come along, pearl," said she, drawing heraway, "come and look into this fair garden. it may be we shall see flowers there; morebeautiful ones than we find in the woods." pearl accordingly ran to the bow-window, atthe further end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden walk, carpeted withclosely-shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. butthe proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on thisside of the atlantic, in a hard soil, and

amid the close struggle for subsistence, thenative english taste for ornamental gardening. cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin-vine,rooted at some distance, had run across the intervening space, and deposited one of itsgigantic products directly beneath the hall window, as if to warn the governor that thisgreat lump of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as new england earth would offerhim. there were a few rose-bushes, however, and a number of apple-trees, probably thedescendants of those planted by the reverend mr. blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula;that half mythological personage who rides through our early annals, seated on the backof a bull. pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cryfor a red rose, and would not be pacified.

"hush, child—hush!" said her mother, earnestly."do not cry, dear little pearl! i hear voices in the garden. the governor is coming, andgentlemen along with him." in fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue,a number of persons were seen approaching towards the house. pearl, in utter scorn ofher mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent, notfrom any notion of obedience, but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her dispositionwas excited by the appearance of those new personages. viii. the elf-child and the minister governor bellingham, in a loose gown and easycap—such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue

themselves with, in their domestic privacy—walkedforemost, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements.the wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his grey beard, in the antiquatedfashion of king james's reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of johnthe baptist in a charger. the impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bittenwith more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoymentwherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. but it is an error tosuppose that our great forefathers—though accustomed to speak and think of human existenceas a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goodsand life at the behest of duty—made it a

matter of conscience to reject such meansof comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. this creed was never taught,for instance, by the venerable pastor, john wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift,was seen over governor bellingham's shoulders, while its wearer suggested that pears andpeaches might yet be naturalised in the new england climate, and that purple grapes mightpossibly be compelled to flourish against the sunny garden-wall. the old clergyman,nurtured at the rich bosom of the english church, had a long established and legitimatetaste for all good and comfortable things, and however stern he might show himself inthe pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of hester prynne, still,the genial benevolence of his private life

had won him warmer affection than was accordedto any of his professional contemporaries. behind the governor and mr. wilson came twoother guests—one, the reverend arthur dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember as having takena brief and reluctant part in the scene of hester prynne's disgrace; and, in close companionshipwith him, old roger chillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who for two or threeyears past had been settled in the town. it was understood that this learned man was thephysician as well as friend of the young minister, whose health had severely suffered of lateby his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labours and duties of the pastoral relation. the governor, in advance of his visitors,ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open

the leaves of the great hall window, foundhimself close to little pearl. the shadow of the curtain fell on hester prynne, andpartially concealed her. "what have we here?" said governor bellingham,looking with surprise at the scarlet little figure before him. "i profess, i have neverseen the like since my days of vanity, in old king james's time, when i was wont toesteem it a high favour to be admitted to a court mask! there used to be a swarm ofthese small apparitions in holiday time, and we called them children of the lord of misrule.but how gat such a guest into my hall?" "ay, indeed!" cried good old mr. wilson. "whatlittle bird of scarlet plumage may this be? methinks i have seen just such figures whenthe sun has been shining through a richly

painted window, and tracing out the goldenand crimson images across the floor. but that was in the old land. prithee, young one, whoart thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? artthou a christian child—ha? dost know thy catechism? or art thou one of those naughtyelfs or fairies whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of papistry,in merry old england?" "i am mother's child," answered the scarletvision, "and my name is pearl!" "pearl?—ruby, rather—or coral!—or redrose, at the very least, judging from thy hue!" responded the old minister, puttingforth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little pearl on the cheek. "but where is this motherof thine? ah! i see," he added; and, turning

to governor bellingham, whispered, "this isthe selfsame child of whom we have held speech together; and behold here the unhappy woman,hester prynne, her mother!" "sayest thou so?" cried the governor. "nay,we might have judged that such a child's mother must needs be a scarlet woman, and a worthytype of her of babylon! but she comes at a good time, and we will look into this matterforthwith." governor bellingham stepped through the windowinto the hall, followed by his three guests. "hester prynne," said he, fixing his naturallystern regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, "there hath been much question concerningthee of late. the point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authorityand influence, do well discharge our consciences

by trusting an immortal soul, such as thereis in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen amid the pitfallsof this world. speak thou, the child's own mother! were it not, thinkest thou, for thylittle one's temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge, and cladsoberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? what canstthou do for the child in this kind?" "i can teach my little pearl what i have learnedfrom this!" answered hester prynne, laying her finger on the red token. "woman, it is thy badge of shame!" repliedthe stern magistrate. "it is because of the stain which that letter indicates that wewould transfer thy child to other hands."

"nevertheless," said the mother, calmly, thoughgrowing more pale, "this badge hath taught me—it daily teaches me—it is teachingme at this moment—lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they canprofit nothing to myself." "we will judge warily," said bellingham, "andlook well what we are about to do. good master wilson, i prayyou, examine this pearl—since that is her name—and see whethershe hath had such christian nurture as befits a child of herage." the old minister seated himself in an arm-chairand made an effort to draw pearl betwixt his knees. but the child, unaccustomed to thetouch or familiarity of any but her mother,

escaped through the open window, and stoodon the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage, ready to take flightinto the upper air. mr. wilson, not a little astonished at this outbreak—for he was agrandfatherly sort of personage, and usually a vast favourite with children—essayed,however, to proceed with the examination. "pearl," said he, with great solemnity, "thoumust take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosomthe pearl of great price. canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?" now pearl knew well enough who made her, forhester prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child abouther heavenly father, had begun to inform her

of those truths which the human spirit, atwhatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. pearl, therefore—solarge were the attainments of her three years' lifetime—could have borne a fair examinationin the new england primer, or the first column of the westminster catechisms, although unacquaintedwith the outward form of either of those celebrated works. but that perversity, which all childrenhave more or less of, and of which little pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the mostinopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled herto speak words amiss. after putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusalsto answer good mr. wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not beenmade at all, but had been plucked by her mother

off the bush of wild roses that grew by theprison-door. this phantasy was probably suggested by thenear proximity of the governor's red roses, as pearl stood outside of the window, togetherwith her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming hither. old roger chillingworth, with a smile on hisface, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. hester prynne looked at the man of skill,and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a changehad come over his features—how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemedto have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen—since the days when she had familiarlyknown him. she met his eyes for an instant,

but was immediately constrained to give allher attention to the scene now going forward. "this is awful!" cried the governor, slowlyrecovering from the astonishment into which pearl's response had thrown him. "here isa child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! without question, she isequally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! methinks, gentlemen,we need inquire no further." hester caught hold of pearl, and drew herforcibly into her arms, confronting the old puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression.alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive,she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defendthem to the death.

"god gave me the child!" cried she. "he gaveher in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me. she is my happiness—sheis my torture, none the less! pearl keeps me here in life! pearl punishes me, too! seeye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfoldthe power of retribution for my sin? ye shall not take her! i will die first!" "my poor woman," said the not unkind old minister,"the child shall be well cared for—far better than thou canst do for it." "god gave her into my keeping!" repeated hesterprynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. "i will not give her up!" and here by a suddenimpulse, she turned to the young clergyman,

mr. dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment,she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes. "speak thou for me!" cried she."thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than thesemen can. i will not lose the child! speak for me! thou knowest—for thou hast sympathieswhich these men lack—thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights,and how much the stronger they are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter!look thou to it! i will not lose the child! look to it!" at this wild and singular appeal, which indicatedthat hester prynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the youngminister at once came forward, pale, and holding

his hand over his heart, as was his customwhenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation. he looked now morecareworn and emaciated than as we described him at the scene of hester's public ignominy;and whether it were his failing health, or whatever the cause might be, his large darkeyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth. "there is truth in what she says," began theminister, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoedand the hollow armour rang with it—"truth in what hester says, and in the feeling whichinspires her! god gave her the child, and gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge ofits nature and requirements—both seemingly

so peculiar—which no other mortal beingcan possess. and, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relationbetween this mother and this child?" "ay—how is that, good master dimmesdale?"interrupted the governor. "make that plain, i pray you!""it must be even so," resumed the minister. "for, if we deem it otherwise, do we not therebysay that the heavenly father, the creator of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deedof sin, and made of no account the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? thischild of its father's guilt and its mother's shame has come from the hand of god, to workin many ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly and with such bitterness of spiritthe right to keep her. it was meant for a

blessing—for the one blessing of her life!it was meant, doubtless, the mother herself hath told us, for a retribution, too; a tortureto be felt at many an unthought-of moment; a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony,in the midst of a troubled joy! hath she not expressed this thought in the garb of thepoor child, so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears her bosom?" "well said again!" cried good mr. wilson."i feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child!" "oh, not so!—not so!" continued mr. dimmesdale."she recognises, believe me, the solemn miracle which god hath wrought in the existence ofthat child. and may she feel, too—what,

methinks, is the very truth—that this boonwas meant, above all things else, to keep the mother's soul alive, and to preserve herfrom blacker depths of sin into which satan might else have sought to plunge her! thereforeit is good for this poor, sinful woman, that she hath an infant immortality, a being capableof eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care—to be trained up by her to righteousness,to remind her, at every moment, of her fall, but yet to teach her, as if it were by thecreator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bringits parents thither! herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father. forhester prynne's sake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, let us leave them asprovidence hath seen fit to place them!"

"you speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness,"said old roger chillingworth, smiling at him."and there is a weighty import in what my young brother hath spoken," added the rev.mr. wilson. "what say you, worshipful master bellingham?hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?" "indeed hath he," answered the magistrate;"and hath adduced such arguments, that we will even leave the matter as it now stands;so long, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman. care must be had nevertheless,to put the child to due and stated examination in the catechism, at thy hands or master dimmesdale's.moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-men must take heed that she go both to schooland to meeting."

the young minister, on ceasing to speak hadwithdrawn a few steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed inthe heavy folds of the window-curtain; while the shadow of his figure, which the sunlightcast upon the floor, was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal. pearl, that wildand flighty little elf stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of bothher own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, thather mother, who was looking on, asked herself—"is that my pearl?" yet she knew that there waslove in the child's heart, although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twicein her lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. the minister—for, savethe long-sought regards of woman, nothing

is sweeter than these marks of childish preference,accorded spontaneously by a spiritual instinct, and therefore seeming to imply in us somethingtruly worthy to be loved—the minister looked round, laid his hand on the child's head,hesitated an instant, and then kissed her brow. little pearl's unwonted mood of sentimentlasted no longer; she laughed, and went capering down the hall so airily, that old mr. wilsonraised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the floor. "the little baggage hath witchcraft in her,i profess," said he to mr. dimmesdale. "she needs no old woman's broomstick to fly withal!" "a strange child!" remarked old roger chillingworth."it is easy to see the mother's part in her.

would it be beyond a philosopher's research,think ye, gentlemen, to analyse that child's nature, and, from it make a mould, to givea shrewd guess at the father?" "nay; it would be sinful, in such a question,to follow the clue of profane philosophy," said mr. wilson. "better to fast and prayupon it; and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless providencereveal it of its own accord. thereby, every good christian man hath a title to show afather's kindness towards the poor, deserted babe." the affair being so satisfactorily concluded,hester prynne, with pearl, departed from the house. as they descended the steps, it isaverred that the lattice of a chamber-window

was thrown open, and forth into the sunnyday was thrust the face of mistress hibbins, governor bellingham's bitter-tempered sister,and the same who, a few years later, was executed as a witch. "hist, hist!" said she, while her ill-omenedphysiognomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. "wilt thougo with us to-night? there will be a merry company in the forest; and i well-nigh promisedthe black man that comely hester prynne should make one." "make my excuse to him, so please you!" answeredhester, with a triumphant smile. "i must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little pearl.had they taken her from me, i would willingly

have gone with thee into the forest, and signedmy name in the black man's book too, and that with mine own blood!" "we shall have thee there anon!" said thewitch-lady, frowning, as she drew back her head. but here—if we suppose this interview betwixtmistress hibbins and hester prynne to be authentic, and not a parable—was already an illustrationof the young minister's argument against sundering the relation of a fallen mother to the offspringof her frailty. even thus early had the child saved her from satan's snare. ix. the leech

under the appellation of roger chillingworth,the reader will remember, was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolvedshould never more be spoken. it has been related, how, in the crowd that witnessed hester prynne'signominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilouswilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulnessof home, set up as a type of sin before the people. her matronly fame was trodden underall men's feet. infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place. for her kindred,should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, thereremained nothing but the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributedin strict accordance and proportion with the

intimacy and sacredness of their previousrelationship. then why—since the choice was with himself—should the individual,whose connexion with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of themall, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? he resolvednot to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. unknown to all but hester prynne,and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the rollof mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interest, to vanish out of life as completelyas if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumour had long ago consigned him.this purpose once effected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewisea new purpose; dark, it is true, if not guilty,

but of force enough to engage the full strengthof his faculties. in pursuance of this resolve, he took up hisresidence in the puritan town as roger chillingworth, without other introduction than the learningand intelligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. as his studies, ata previous period of his life, had made him extensively acquainted with the medical scienceof the day, it was as a physician that he presented himself and as such was cordiallyreceived. skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrencein the colony. they seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that broughtother emigrants across the atlantic. in their researches into the human frame, it may bethat the higher and more subtle faculties

of such men were materialised, and that theylost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism,which seemed to involve art enough to comprise all of life within itself. at all events,the health of the good town of boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, hadhitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godlydeportment were stronger testimonials in his favour than any that he could have producedin the shape of a diploma. the only surgeon was one who combined the occasional exerciseof that noble art with the daily and habitual flourish of a razor. to such a professionalbody roger chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. he soon manifested his familiarity with theponderous and imposing machinery of antique

physic; in which every remedy contained amultitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded asif the proposed result had been the elixir of life. in his indian captivity, moreover,he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he concealfrom his patients that these simple medicines, nature's boon to the untutored savage, hadquite as large a share of his own confidence as the european pharmacopoeia, which so manylearned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating. this learned stranger was exemplary as regardedat least the outward forms of a religious life; and early after his arrival, had chosenfor his spiritual guide the reverend mr. dimmesdale. the young divine, whose scholar-like renownstill lived in oxford, was considered by his

more fervent admirers as little less thana heavenly ordained apostle, destined, should he live and labour for the ordinary term oflife, to do as great deeds, for the now feeble new england church, as the early fathers hadachieved for the infancy of the christian faith. about this period, however, the healthof mr. dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. by those best acquainted with his habits,the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotionto study, his scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty, and more than all, to the fasts andvigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthlystate from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. some declared, that if mr. dimmesdalewere really going to die, it was cause enough

that the world was not worthy to be any longertrodden by his feet. he himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowedhis belief that if providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of hisown unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. with all this difference ofopinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. his formgrew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecyof decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident,to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative ofpain. such was the young clergyman's condition,and so imminent the prospect that his dawning

light would be extinguished, all untimely,when roger chillingworth made his advent to the town. his first entry on the scene, fewpeople could tell whence, dropping down as it were out of the sky or starting from thenether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. hewas now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossomsof wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquaintedwith hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. he was heard to speak of sirkenelm digby and other famous men—whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardlyless than supernatural—as having been his correspondents or associates. why, with suchrank in the learned world, had he come hither?

what, could he, whose sphere was in greatcities, be seeking in the wilderness? in answer to this query, a rumour gained ground—andhowever absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people—that heaven had wroughtan absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent doctor of physic from a german universitybodily through the air and setting him down at the door of mr. dimmesdale's study! individualsof wiser faith, indeed, who knew that heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at thestage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to see a providentialhand in roger chillingworth's so opportune arrival. this idea was countenanced by the strong interestwhich the physician ever manifested in the

young clergyman; he attached himself to himas a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from his naturally reservedsensibility. he expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health, but was anxiousto attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken, seemed not despondent of a favourable result.the elders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens of mr. dimmesdale'sflock, were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offeredskill. mr. dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties. "i need no medicine," said he. but how could the young minister say so, when,with every successive sabbath, his cheek was

paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulousthan before—when it had now become a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture, to presshis hand over his heart? was he weary of his labours? did he wish to die? these questionswere solemnly propounded to mr. dimmesdale by the elder ministers of boston, and thedeacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him," on the sin of rejectingthe aid which providence so manifestly held out. he listened in silence, and finally promisedto confer with the physician. "were it god's will," said the reverend mr.dimmesdale, when, in fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old roger chillingworth's professionaladvice, "i could be well content that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains,should shortly end with me, and what is earthly

of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritualgo with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proofin my behalf." "ah," replied roger chillingworth, with thatquietness, which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is thus thata young clergyman is apt to speak. youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give uptheir hold of life so easily! and saintly men, who walk with god on earth, would fainbe away, to walk with him on the golden pavements of the new jerusalem." "nay," rejoined the young minister, puttinghis hand to his heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, "were i worthier towalk there, i could be better content to toil

here." "good men ever interpret themselves too meanly,"said the physician. in this manner, the mysterious old roger chillingworthbecame the medical adviser of the reverend mr. dimmesdale. as not only the disease interestedthe physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of thepatient, these two men, so different in age, came gradually to spend much time together.for the sake of the minister's health, and to enable the leech to gather plants withhealing balm in them, they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest; minglingvarious walks with the splash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem amongthe tree-tops. often, likewise, one was the

guest of the other in his place of study andretirement. there was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science,in whom he recognised an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope; together witha range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members ofhis own profession. in truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute inthe physician. mr. dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentimentlargely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the trackof a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. in no stateof society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always beessential to his peace to feel the pressure

of a faith about him, supporting, while itconfined him within its iron framework. not the less, however, though with a tremulousenjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the mediumof another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. it wasas if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifledstudy, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams,and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books. but the airwas too fresh and chill to be long breathed with comfort. so the minister, and the physicianwith him, withdrew again within the limits of what their church defined as orthodox.

thus roger chillingworth scrutinised his patientcarefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in therange of thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown amidst other moralscenery, the novelty of which might call out something new to the surface of his character.he deemed it essential, it would seem, to know the man, before attempting to do himgood. wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tingedwith the peculiarities of these. in arthur dimmesdale, thought and imagination were soactive, and sensibility so intense, that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have itsgroundwork there. so roger chillingworth—the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician—stroveto go deep into his patient's bosom, delving

among his principles, prying into his recollections,and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. fewsecrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and licence to undertake sucha quest, and skill to follow it up. a man burdened with a secret should especially avoidthe intimacy of his physician. if the latter possess native sagacity, and a nameless somethingmore,—let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeable prominentcharacteristics of his own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bringhis mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spokenwhat he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations be received without tumult,and acknowledged not so often by an uttered

sympathy as by silence, an inarticulate breath,and here and there a word to indicate that all is understood; if to these qualificationsof a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his recognised character as a physician;—then,at some inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow forthin a dark but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries into the daylight. roger chillingworth possessed all, or most,of the attributes above enumerated. nevertheless, time went on; a kind of intimacy, as we havesaid, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a field as the wholesphere of human thought and study to meet upon; they discussed every topic of ethicsand religion, of public affairs, and private

character; they talked much, on both sides,of matters that seemed personal to themselves; and yet no secret, such as the physician fanciedmust exist there, ever stole out of the minister's consciousness into his companion's ear. thelatter had his suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of mr. dimmesdale's bodily diseasehad never fairly been revealed to him. it was a strange reserve! after a time, at a hint from roger chillingworth,the friends of mr. dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged inthe same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass underthe eye of his anxious and attached physician. there was much joy throughout the town whenthis greatly desirable object was attained.

it was held to be the best possible measurefor the young clergyman's welfare; unless, indeed, as often urged by such as felt authorisedto do so, he had selected some one of the many blooming damsels, spiritually devotedto him, to become his devoted wife. this latter step, however, there was no present prospectthat arthur dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all suggestionsof the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his articles of church discipline.doomed by his own choice, therefore, as mr. dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavourymorsel always at another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lotwho seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed that this sagacious,experienced, benevolent old physician, with

his concord of paternal and reverential lovefor the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, to be constantly within reachof his voice. the new abode of the two friends was witha pious widow, of good social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the siteon which the venerable structure of king's chapel has since been built. it had the graveyard,originally isaac johnson's home-field, on one side, and so was well adapted to callup serious reflections, suited to their respective employments, in both minister and man of physic.the motherly care of the good widow assigned to mr. dimmesdale a front apartment, witha sunny exposure, and heavy window-curtains, to create a noontide shadow when desirable.the walls were hung round with tapestry, said

to be from the gobelin looms, and, at allevents, representing the scriptural story of david and bathsheba, and nathan the prophet,in colours still unfaded, but which made the fair woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesqueas the woe-denouncing seer. here the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich withparchment-bound folios of the fathers, and the lore of rabbis, and monkish erudition,of which the protestant divines, even while they vilified and decried that class of writers,were yet constrained often to avail themselves. on the other side of the house, old rogerchillingworth arranged his study and laboratory: not such as a modern man of science wouldreckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling apparatus and the meansof compounding drugs and chemicals, which

the practised alchemist knew well how to turnto purpose. with such commodiousness of situation, these two learned persons sat themselves down,each in his own domain, yet familiarly passing from one apartment to the other, and bestowinga mutual and not incurious inspection into one another's business. and the reverend arthur dimmesdale's bestdiscerning friends, as we have intimated, very reasonably imagined that the hand ofprovidence had done all this for the purpose—besought in so many public and domestic and secretprayers—of restoring the young minister to health. but, it must now be said, anotherportion of the community had latterly begun to take its own view of the relation betwixtmr. dimmesdale and the mysterious old physician.

when an uninstructed multitude attempts tosee with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. when, however, it forms its judgment,as it usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm heart, the conclusions thusattained are often so profound and so unerring as to possess the character of truth supernaturallyrevealed. the people, in the case of which we speak, could justify its prejudice againstroger chillingworth by no fact or argument worthy of serious refutation. there was anaged handicraftsman, it is true, who had been a citizen of london at the period of sir thomasoverbury's murder, now some thirty years agone; he testified to having seen the physician,under some other name, which the narrator of the story had now forgotten, in companywith dr. forman, the famous old conjurer,

who was implicated in the affair of overbury.two or three individuals hinted that the man of skill, during his indian captivity, hadenlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the savage priests,who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculouscures by their skill in the black art. a large number—and many of these were persons ofsuch sober sense and practical observation that their opinions would have been valuablein other matters—affirmed that roger chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change whilehe had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with mr. dimmesdale. at first, hisexpression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. now there was something ugly and evil in hisface, which they had not previously noticed,

and which grew still the more obvious to sightthe oftener they looked upon him. according to the vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratoryhad been brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as mightbe expected, his visage was getting sooty with the smoke. to sum up the matter, it grew to be a widelydiffused opinion that the rev. arthur dimmesdale, like many other personages of special sanctity,in all ages of the christian world, was haunted either by satan himself or satan's emissary,in the guise of old roger chillingworth. this diabolical agent had the divine permission,for a season, to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul. no sensibleman, it was confessed, could doubt on which

side the victory would turn. the people looked,with an unshaken hope, to see the minister come forth out of the conflict transfiguredwith the glory which he would unquestionably win. meanwhile, nevertheless, it was sad tothink of the perchance mortal agony through which he must struggle towards his triumph. alas! to judge from the gloom and terror inthe depth of the poor minister's eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory anythingbut secure. x. the leech and his patient old roger chillingworth, throughout life,had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in allhis relations with the world, a pure and upright

man. he had begun an investigation, as heimagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even asif the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a geometricalproblem, instead of human passions, and wrongs inflicted on himself. but, as he proceeded,a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity, seized the oldman within its gripe, and never set him free again until he had done all its bidding. henow dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, likea sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on thedead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption. alas, for hisown soul, if these were what he sought!

sometimes a light glimmered out of the physician'seyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one ofthose gleams of ghastly fire that darted from bunyan's awful doorway in the hillside, andquivered on the pilgrim's face. the soil where this dark miner was working had perchanceshown indications that encouraged him. "this man," said he, at one such moment, tohimself, "pure as they deem him—all spiritual as he seems—hath inherited a strong animalnature from his father or his mother. let us dig a little further in the direction ofthis vein!" then after long search into the minister'sdim interior, and turning over many precious materials, in the shape of high aspirationsfor the welfare of his race, warm love of

souls, pure sentiments, natural piety, strengthenedby thought and study, and illuminated by revelation—all of which invaluable gold was perhaps no betterthan rubbish to the seeker—he would turn back, discouraged, and begin his quest towardsanother point. he groped along as stealthily, with as cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook,as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep—or, it may be, broadawake—with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of hiseye. in spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garmentswould rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrownacross his victim. in other words, mr. dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often producedthe effect of spiritual intuition, would become

vaguely aware that something inimical to hispeace had thrust itself into relation with him. but old roger chillingworth, too, hadperceptions that were almost intuitive; and when the minister threw his startled eyestowards him, there the physician sat; his kind, watchful, sympathising, but never intrusivefriend. yet mr. dimmesdale would perhaps have seenthis individual's character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick heartsare liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. trusting no man as his friend,he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared. he therefore stillkept up a familiar intercourse with him, daily receiving the old physician in his study,or visiting the laboratory, and, for recreation's

sake, watching the processes by which weedswere converted into drugs of potency. one day, leaning his forehead on his hand,and his elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked towards the grave-yard, he talkedwith roger chillingworth, while the old man was examining a bundle of unsightly plants. "where," asked he, with a look askance atthem—for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, now-a-days, looked straightforth at any object, whether human or inanimate, "where, my kind doctor, did you gather thoseherbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?" "even in the graveyard here at hand," answeredthe physician, continuing his employment. "they are new to me. i found them growingon a grave, which bore no tombstone, no other

memorial of the dead man, save these uglyweeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. they grew out ofhis heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and whichhe had done better to confess during his lifetime." "perchance," said mr. dimmesdale, "he earnestlydesired it, but could not." "and wherefore?" rejoined the physician. "wherefore not; since all the powers of naturecall so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up outof a buried heart, to make manifest, an outspoken crime?" "that, good sir, is but a phantasy of yours,"replied the minister. "there can be, if i

forbode aright, no power, short of the divinemercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that maybe buried in the human heart. the heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforcehold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. nor have i so read or interpretedholy writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made,is intended as a part of the retribution. that, surely, were a shallow view of it. no;these revelations, unless i greatly err, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfactionof all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problemof this life made plain. a knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solutionof that problem. and, i conceive moreover,

that the hearts holding such miserable secretsas you speak of, will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with ajoy unutterable." "then why not reveal it here?" asked rogerchillingworth, glancing quietly aside at the minister. "why should not the guilty onessooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace?" "they mostly do," said the clergyman, gripinghard at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. "many, many a poorsoul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong inlife, and fair in reputation. and ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a relief havei witnessed in those sinful brethren! even

as in one who at last draws free air, aftera long stifling with his own polluted breath. how can it be otherwise? why should a wretchedman—guilty, we will say, of murder—prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his ownheart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!" "yet some men bury their secrets thus," observedthe calm physician. "true; there are such men," answered mr. dimmesdale."but not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by thevery constitution of their nature. or—can we not suppose it?—guilty as they may be,retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for god's glory and man's welfare, they shrink fromdisplaying themselves black and filthy in

the view of men; because, thenceforward, nogood can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. so, totheir own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pureas new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity ofwhich they cannot rid themselves." "these men deceive themselves," said rogerchillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture withhis forefinger. "they fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. theirlove for man, their zeal for god's service—these holy impulses may or may not coexist in theirhearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which mustneeds propagate a hellish breed within them.

but, if they seek to glorify god, let themnot lift heavenward their unclean hands! if they would serve their fellowmen, let themdo it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitentialself-abasement! would thou have me to believe, o wise and pious friend, that a false showcan be better—can be more for god's glory, or man' welfare—than god's own truth? trustme, such men deceive themselves!" "it may be so," said the young clergyman,indifferently, as waiving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or unseasonable.he had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitiveand nervous temperament.—"but, now, i would ask of my well-skilled physician, whether,in good sooth, he deems me to have profited

by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?" before roger chillingworth could answer, theyheard the clear, wild laughter of a young child's voice, proceeding from the adjacentburial-ground. looking instinctively from the open window—for it was summer-time—theminister beheld hester prynne and little pearl passing along the footpath that traversedthe enclosure. pearl looked as beautiful as the day, but was in one of those moods ofperverse merriment which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphereof sympathy or human contact. she now skipped irreverently from one grave to another; untilcoming to the broad, flat, armorial tombstone of a departed worthy—perhaps of isaac johnsonhimself—she began to dance upon it. in reply

to her mother's command and entreaty thatshe would behave more decorously, little pearl paused to gather the prickly burrs from atall burdock which grew beside the tomb. taking a handful of these, she arranged them alongthe lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal bosom, to which the burrs, astheir nature was, tenaciously adhered. hester did not pluck them off. roger chillingworth had by this time approachedthe window and smiled grimly down. "there is no law, nor reverence for authority,no regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child'scomposition," remarked he, as much to himself as to his companion. "i saw her, the otherday, bespatter the governor himself with water

at the cattle-trough in spring lane. what,in heaven's name, is she? is the imp altogether evil? hath she affections? hath she any discoverableprinciple of being?" "none, save the freedom of a broken law,"answered mr. dimmesdale, in a quiet way, as if he had been discussing the point withinhimself, "whether capable of good, i know not." the child probably overheard their voices,for, looking up to the window with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence,she threw one of the prickly burrs at the rev. mr. dimmesdale. the sensitive clergymanshrank, with nervous dread, from the light missile. detecting his emotion, pearl clappedher little hands in the most extravagant ecstacy.

hester prynne, likewise, had involuntarilylooked up, and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence,till the child laughed aloud, and shouted—"come away, mother! come away, or yonder old blackman will catch you! he hath got hold of the minister already. come away, mother or hewill catch you! but he cannot catch little pearl!" so she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing,and frisking fantastically among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that hadnothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned herself akin to it.it was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permittedto live her own life, and be a law unto herself

without her eccentricities being reckonedto her for a crime. "there goes a woman," resumed roger chillingworth,after a pause, "who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery of hiddensinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. is hester prynne the less miserable,think you, for that scarlet letter on her breast?" "i do verily believe it," answered the clergyman."nevertheless, i cannot answer for her. there was a look of pain in her face which i wouldgladly have been spared the sight of. but still, methinks, it must needs be better forthe sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman hester is, than to coverit up in his heart."

there was another pause, and the physicianbegan anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered. "you inquired of me, a little time agone,"said he, at length, "my judgment as touching your health." "i did," answered the clergyman, "and wouldgladly learn it. speak frankly, i pray you, be it for lifeor death." "freely then, and plainly," said the physician,still busy with his plants, but keeping a wary eye on mr. dimmesdale, "the disorderis a strange one; not so much in itself nor as outwardly manifested,—in so far, at leastas the symptoms have been laid open to my

observation. looking daily at you, my goodsir, and watching the tokens of your aspect now for months gone by, i should deem youa man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physicianmight well hope to cure you. but i know not what to say, the disease is what i seem toknow, yet know it not." "you speak in riddles, learned sir," saidthe pale minister, glancing aside out of the window. "then, to speak more plainly," continued thephysician, "and i crave pardon, sir, should it seem to require pardon, for this needfulplainness of my speech. let me ask as your friend, as one having charge, under providence,of your life and physical well being, hath

all the operations of this disorder been fairlylaid open and recounted to me?" "how can you question it?" asked the minister."surely it were child's play to call in a physician and then hide the sore!" "you would tell me, then, that i know all?"said roger chillingworth, deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and concentratedintelligence, on the minister's face. "be it so! but again! he to whom only the outwardand physical evil is laid open, knoweth, oftentimes, but half the evil which he is called uponto cure. a bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, afterall, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. your pardon once again, goodsir, if my speech give the shadow of offence.

you, sir, of all men whom i have known, arehe whose body is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, withthe spirit whereof it is the instrument." "then i need ask no further," said the clergyman,somewhat hastily rising from his chair. "you deal not, i take it, in medicine for the soul!" "thus, a sickness," continued roger chillingworth,going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confrontingthe emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,—"asickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriatemanifestation in your bodily frame. would you, therefore, that your physician heal thebodily evil? how may this be unless you first

lay open to him the wound or trouble in yoursoul?" "no, not to thee! not to an earthly physician!"cried mr. dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kindof fierceness, on old roger chillingworth. "not to thee! but, if it be the soul's disease,then do i commit myself to the one physician of the soul! he, if it stand with his goodpleasure, can cure, or he can kill. let him do with me as, in his justice and wisdom,he shall see good. but who art thou, that meddlest in this matter? that dares thrusthimself between the sufferer and his god?" with a frantic gesture he rushed out of theroom. "it is as well to have made this step," saidroger chillingworth to himself, looking after

the minister, with a grave smile. "there isnothing lost. we shall be friends again anon. but see, now, how passion takes hold uponthis man, and hurrieth him out of himself! as with one passion so with another. he hathdone a wild thing ere now, this pious master dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart." it proved not difficult to re-establish theintimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore.the young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder ofhis nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothingin the physician's words to excuse or palliate. he marvelled, indeed, at the violence withwhich he had thrust back the kind old man,

when merely proffering the advice which itwas his duty to bestow, and which the minister himself had expressly sought. with these remorsefulfeelings, he lost no time in making the amplest apologies, and besought his friend still tocontinue the care which, if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability,been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour. roger chillingworth readilyassented, and went on with his medical supervision of the minister; doing his best for him, inall good faith, but always quitting the patient's apartment, at the close of the professionalinterview, with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips. this expression was invisiblein mr. dimmesdale's presence, but grew strongly evident as the physician crossed the threshold.

"a rare case," he muttered. "i must needslook deeper into it. a strange sympathy betwixt soul and body! were it only for the art'ssake, i must search this matter to the bottom." it came to pass, not long after the sceneabove recorded, that the reverend mr. dimmesdale, noon-day, and entirely unawares, fell intoa deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume open beforehim on the table. it must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous schoolof literature. the profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch ashe was one of those persons whose sleep ordinarily is as light as fitful, and as easily scaredaway, as a small bird hopping on a twig. to such an unwonted remoteness, however, hadhis spirit now withdrawn into itself that

he stirred not in his chair when old rogerchillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. the physician advanceddirectly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside thevestment, that hitherto had always covered it even from the professional eye. then, indeed, mr. dimmesdale shuddered, andslightly stirred. after a brief pause, the physician turnedaway. but with what a wild look of wonder, joy,and horror! with what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only bythe eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure,and making itself even riotously manifest

by the extravagant gestures with which hethrew up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the floor! had a manseen old roger chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no needto ask how satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won intohis kingdom. but what distinguished the physician's ecstasyfrom satan's was the trait of wonder in it! xi. the interior of a heart after the incident last described, the intercoursebetween the clergyman and the physician, though externally the same, was really of anothercharacter than it had previously been. the

intellect of roger chillingworth had now asufficiently plain path before it. it was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laidout for himself to tread. calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, aquiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, whichled him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy.to make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be confided all the fear, theremorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelledin vain! all that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitiedand forgiven, to be revealed to him, the pitiless—to him, the unforgiving! all that dark treasureto be lavished on the very man, to whom nothing

else could so adequately pay the debt of vengeance! the clergyman's shy and sensitive reservehad balked this scheme. roger chillingworth, however, was inclined to be hardly, if atall, less satisfied with the aspect of affairs, which providence—using the avenger and hisvictim for its own purposes, and, perchance, pardoning, where it seemed most to punish—hadsubstituted for his black devices. a revelation, he could almost say, had been granted to him.it mattered little for his object, whether celestial or from what other region. by itsaid, in all the subsequent relations betwixt him and mr. dimmesdale, not merely the externalpresence, but the very inmost soul of the latter, seemed to be brought out before hiseyes, so that he could see and comprehend

its every movement. he became, thenceforth,not a spectator only, but a chief actor in the poor minister's interior world. he couldplay upon him as he chose. would he arouse him with a throb of agony? the victim wasfor ever on the rack; it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine: andthe physician knew it well. would he startle him with sudden fear? as at the waving ofa magician's wand, up rose a grisly phantom—up rose a thousand phantoms—in many shapes,of death, or more awful shame, all flocking round about the clergyman, and pointing withtheir fingers at his breast! all this was accomplished with a subtletyso perfect, that the minister, though he had constantly a dim perception of some evil influencewatching over him, could never gain a knowledge

of its actual nature. true, he looked doubtfully,fearfully—even, at times, with horror and the bitterness of hatred—at the deformedfigure of the old physician. his gestures, his gait, his grizzled beard, his slightestand most indifferent acts, the very fashion of his garments, were odious in the clergyman'ssight; a token implicitly to be relied on of a deeper antipathy in the breast of thelatter than he was willing to acknowledge to himself. for, as it was impossible to assigna reason for such distrust and abhorrence, so mr. dimmesdale, conscious that the poisonof one morbid spot was infecting his heart's entire substance, attributed all his presentimentsto no other cause. he took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to rogerchillingworth, disregarded the lesson that

he should have drawn from them, and did hisbest to root them out. unable to accomplish this, he nevertheless, as a matter of principle,continued his habits of social familiarity with the old man, and thus gave him constantopportunities for perfecting the purpose to which—poor forlorn creature that he was,and more wretched than his victim—the avenger had devoted himself. while thus suffering under bodily disease,and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinationsof his deadliest enemy, the reverend mr. dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in hissacred office. he won it indeed, in great part, by his sorrows. his intellectual gifts,his moral perceptions, his power of experiencing

and communicating emotion, were kept in astate of preternatural activity by the prick and anguish of his daily life. his fame, thoughstill on its upward slope, already overshadowed the soberer reputations of his fellow-clergymen,eminent as several of them were. there are scholars among them, who had spent more yearsin acquiring abstruse lore, connected with the divine profession, than mr. dimmesdalehad lived; and who might well, therefore, be more profoundly versed in such solid andvaluable attainments than their youthful brother. there were men, too, of a sturdier textureof mind than his, and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd, hard iron, or granite understanding;which, duly mingled with a fair proportion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highlyrespectable, efficacious, and unamiable variety

of the clerical species. there were othersagain, true saintly fathers, whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among theirbooks, and by patient thought, and etherealised, moreover, by spiritual communications withthe better world, into which their purity of life had almost introduced these holy personages,with their garments of mortality still clinging to them. all that they lacked was, the giftthat descended upon the chosen disciples at pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolising,it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that ofaddressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language. these fathers,otherwise so apostolic, lacked heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office, thetongue of flame. they would have vainly sought—had

they ever dreamed of seeking—to expressthe highest truths through the humblest medium of familiar words and images. their voicescame down, afar and indistinctly, from the upper heights where they habitually dwelt. not improbably, it was to this latter classof men that mr. dimmesdale, by many of his traits of character, naturally belonged. tothe high mountain peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendencybeen thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which itwas his doom to totter. it kept him down on a level with the lowest; him, the man of etherealattributes, whose voice the angels might else have listened to and answered! but this veryburden it was that gave him sympathies so

intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind;so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs, and received their pain into itselfand sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts, in gushes of sad, persuasiveeloquence. oftenest persuasive, but sometimes terrible! the people knew not the power thatmoved them thus. they deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. they fancied him themouth-piece of heaven's messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love. in their eyes, the veryground on which he trod was sanctified. the virgins of his church grew pale around him,victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment, that they imagined it to be allreligion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as their most acceptable sacrificebefore the altar. the aged members of his

flock, beholding mr. dimmesdale's frame sofeeble, while they were themselves so rugged in their infirmity, believed that he wouldgo heavenward before them, and enjoined it upon their children that their old bones shouldbe buried close to their young pastor's holy grave. and all this time, perchance, whenpoor mr. dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grasswould ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried! it is inconceivable, the agony with whichthis public veneration tortured him. it was his genuine impulse to adore the truth, andto reckon all things shadow-like, and utterly devoid of weight or value, that had not itsdivine essence as the life within their life.

then what was he?—a substance?—or thedimmest of all shadows? he longed to speak out from his own pulpit at the full heightof his voice, and tell the people what he was. "i, whom you behold in these black garmentsof the priesthood—i, who ascend the sacred desk, and turn my pale face heavenward, takingupon myself to hold communion in your behalf with the most high omniscience—i, in whosedaily life you discern the sanctity of enoch—i, whose footsteps, as you suppose, leave a gleamalong my earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided tothe regions of the blest—i, who have laid the hand of baptism upon your children—i,who have breathed the parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the amen soundedfaintly from a world which they had quitted—i,

your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust,am utterly a pollution and a lie!" more than once, mr. dimmesdale had gone intothe pulpit, with a purpose never to come down its steps until he should have spoken wordslike the above. more than once he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, andtremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secretof his soul. more than once—nay, more than a hundred times—he had actually spoken!spoken! but how? he had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companionof the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity, and thatthe only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shrivelled up before theireyes by the burning wrath of the almighty!

could there be plainer speech than this? wouldnot the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him downout of the pulpit which he defiled? not so, indeed! they heard it all, and did but reverencehim the more. they little guessed what deadly purport lurked in those self-condemning words."the godly youth!" said they among themselves. "the saint on earth! alas! if he discern suchsinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine!"the minister well knew—subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was!—the light in whichhis vague confession would be viewed. he had striven to put a cheat upon himself by makingthe avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledgedshame, without the momentary relief of being

self-deceived. he had spoken the very truth,and transformed it into the veriest falsehood. and yet, by the constitution of his nature,he loved the truth, and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. therefore, above all thingselse, he loathed his miserable self! his inward trouble drove him to practicesmore in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of rome than with the better light ofthe church in which he had been born and bred. in mr. dimmesdale's secret closet, under lockand key, there was a bloody scourge. oftentimes, this protestant and puritan divine had pliedit on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so muchthe more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh. it was his custom, too, as it has beenthat of many other pious puritans, to fast—not

however, like them, in order to purify thebody, and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination—but rigorously, and until hisknees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. he kept vigils, likewise, night after night,sometimes in utter darkness, sometimes with a glimmering lamp, and sometimes, viewinghis own face in a looking-glass, by the most powerful light which he could throw upon it.he thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purifyhimself. in these lengthened vigils, his brain often reeled, and visions seemed to flit beforehim; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a faint light of their own, in the remote dimnessof the chamber, or more vividly and close beside him, within the looking-glass. nowit was a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned

and mocked at the pale minister, and beckonedhim away with them; now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow-laden,but grew more ethereal as they rose. now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white-beardedfather, with a saint-like frown, and his mother turning her face away as she passed by. ghostof a mother—thinnest fantasy of a mother—methinks she might yet have thrown a pitying glancetowards her son! and now, through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made soghastly, glided hester prynne leading along little pearl, in her scarlet garb, and pointingher forefinger, first at the scarlet letter on her bosom, and then at the clergyman'sown breast. none of these visions ever quite deluded him.at any moment, by an effort of his will, he

could discern substances through their mistylack of substance, and convince himself that they were not solid in their nature, likeyonder table of carved oak, or that big, square, leather-bound and brazen-clasped volume ofdivinity. but, for all that, they were, in one sense, the truest and most substantialthings which the poor minister now dealt with. it is the unspeakable misery of a life sofalse as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities thereare around us, and which were meant by heaven to be the spirit's joy and nutriment. to theuntrue man, the whole universe is false—it is impalpable—it shrinks to nothing withinhis grasp. and he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes ashadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist. the only

truth that continued to give mr. dimmesdalea real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul, and the undissembled expressionof it in his aspect. had he once found power to smile, and wear a face of gaiety, therewould have been no such man! on one of those ugly nights, which we havefaintly hinted at, but forborne to picture forth, the minister started from his chair.a new thought had struck him. there might be a moment's peace in it. attiring himselfwith as much care as if it had been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner,he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued forth. xii. the minister's vigil

walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were,and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, mr. dimmesdalereached the spot where, now so long since, hester prynne had lived through her firsthours of public ignominy. the same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained withthe storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of manyculprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house.the minister went up the steps. it was an obscure night in early may. an unvariedpall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. if the same multitudewhich had stood as eye-witnesses while hester prynne sustained her punishment could nowhave been summoned forth, they would have

discerned no face above the platform nor hardlythe outline of a human shape, in the dark grey of the midnight. but the town was allasleep. there was no peril of discovery. the minister might stand there, if it so pleasedhim, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank andchill night air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, andclog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow'sprayer and sermon. no eye could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him inhis closet, wielding the bloody scourge. why, then, had he come hither? was it but the mockeryof penitence? a mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! a mockery atwhich angels blushed and wept, while fiends

rejoiced with jeering laughter! he had beendriven hither by the impulse of that remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose ownsister and closely linked companion was that cowardice which invariably drew him back,with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of adisclosure. poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself withcrime? crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if itpress too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and flingit off at once! this feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continuallydid one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony ofheaven-defying guilt and vain repentance.

and thus, while standing on the scaffold,in this vain show of expiation, mr. dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind,as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over hisheart. on that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawingand poisonous tooth of bodily pain. without any effort of his will, or power to restrainhimself, he shrieked aloud: an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beatenback from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if acompany of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything ofthe sound, and were bandying it to and fro. "it is done!" muttered the minister, coveringhis face with his hands. "the whole town will

awake and hurry forth, and find me here!" but it was not so. the shriek had perhapssounded with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed.the town did not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either forsomething frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches, whose voices, at that period,were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with satanthrough the air. the clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncoveredhis eyes and looked about him. at one of the chamber-windows of governor bellingham's mansion,which stood at some distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the appearanceof the old magistrate himself with a lamp

in his hand a white night-cap on his head,and a long white gown enveloping his figure. he looked like a ghost evoked unseasonablyfrom the grave. the cry had evidently startled him. at another window of the same house,moreover appeared old mistress hibbins, the governor's sister, also with a lamp, whicheven thus far off revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. she thrustforth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward. beyond the shadow of a doubt,this venerable witch-lady had heard mr. dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinousechoes and reverberations, as the clamour of the fiends and night-hags, with whom shewas well known to make excursions in the forest. detecting the gleam of governor bellingham'slamp, the old lady quickly extinguished her

own, and vanished. possibly, she went up amongthe clouds. the minister saw nothing further of her motions. the magistrate, after a waryobservation of the darkness—into which, nevertheless, he could see but little furtherthan he might into a mill-stone—retired from the window. the minister grew comparatively calm. hiseyes, however, were soon greeted by a little glimmering light, which, at first a long wayoff was approaching up the street. it threw a gleam of recognition, on here a post, andthere a garden fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its fulltrough of water, and here again an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a roughlog for the door-step. the reverend mr. dimmesdale

noted all these minute particulars, even whilefirmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps whichhe now heard; and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him in a few moments more,and reveal his long-hidden secret. as the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illuminatedcircle, his brother clergyman—or, to speak more accurately, his professional father,as well as highly valued friend—the reverend mr. wilson, who, as mr. dimmesdale now conjectured,had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. and so he had. the good old ministercame freshly from the death-chamber of governor winthrop, who had passed from earth to heavenwithin that very hour. and now surrounded, like the saint-like personage of olden times,with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid

this gloomy night of sin—as if the departedgovernor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himselfthe distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphantpilgrim pass within its gates—now, in short, good father wilson was moving homeward, aidinghis footsteps with a lighted lantern! the glimmer of this luminary suggested the aboveconceits to mr. dimmesdale, who smiled—nay, almost laughed at them—and then wonderedif he was going mad. as the reverend mr. wilson passed beside thescaffold, closely muffling his geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the lanternbefore his breast with the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from speaking—

"a good evening to you, venerable father wilson.come up hither, i pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!" good heavens! had mr. dimmesdale actuallyspoken? for one instant he believed that these words had passed his lips. but they were utteredonly within his imagination. the venerable father wilson continued to step slowly onward,looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his headtowards the guilty platform. when the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quiteaway, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few momentshad been a crisis of terrible anxiety, although his mind had made an involuntary effort torelieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness.

shortly afterwards, the like grisly senseof the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. he felt his limbsgrowing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he shouldbe able to descend the steps of the scaffold. morning would break and find him there. theneighbourhood would begin to rouse itself. the earliest riser, coming forth in the dimtwilight, would perceive a vaguely-defined figure aloft on the place of shame; and half-crazedbetwixt alarm and curiosity, would go knocking from door to door, summoning all the peopleto behold the ghost—as he needs must think it—of some defunct transgressor. a duskytumult would flap its wings from one house to another. then—the morning light stillwaxing stronger—old patriarchs would rise

up in great haste, each in his flannel gown,and matronly dames, without pausing to put off their night-gear. the whole tribe of decorouspersonages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry,would start into public view with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. old governorbellingham would come grimly forth, with his king james' ruff fastened askew, and mistresshibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever,as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good father wilson too,after spending half the night at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early,out of his dreams about the glorified saints. hither, likewise, would come the elders anddeacons of mr. dimmesdale's church, and the

young virgins who so idolized their minister,and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms, which now, by-the-bye, in their hurryand confusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs.all people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up theiramazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold. whom would they discern there,with the red eastern light upon his brow? whom, but the reverend arthur dimmesdale,half-frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where hester prynne had stood! carried away by the grotesque horror of thispicture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great pealof laughter. it was immediately responded

to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which,with a thrill of the heart—but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure asacute—he recognised the tones of little pearl. "pearl! little pearl!" cried he, after a moment'spause; then, suppressing his voice—"hester! hester prynne! are you there?" "yes; it is hester prynne!" she replied, ina tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the side-walk,along which she had been passing. "it is i, and my little pearl." "whence come you, hester?" asked the minister."what sent you hither?"

"i have been watching at a death-bed," answeredhester prynne "at governor winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, andam now going homeward to my dwelling." "come up hither, hester, thou and little pearl,"said the reverend mr. dimmesdale. "ye have both been here before, but i was not withyou. come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together." she silently ascended the steps, and stoodon the platform, holding little pearl by the hand. the minister felt for the child's otherhand, and took it. the moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rushof new life, other life than his own pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurryingthrough all his veins, as if the mother and

the child were communicating their vital warmthto his half-torpid system. the three formed an electric chain. "minister!" whispered little pearl. "what wouldst thou say, child?" asked mr.dimmesdale. "wilt thou stand here with mother and me,to-morrow noontide?" inquired pearl. "nay; not so, my little pearl," answered theminister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure,that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was alreadytrembling at the conjunction in which—with a strange joy, nevertheless—he now foundhimself—"not so, my child. i shall, indeed,

stand with thy mother and thee one other day,but not to-morrow." pearl laughed, and attempted to pull awayher hand. but the minister held it fast. "a moment longer, my child!" said he. "but wilt thou promise," asked pearl, "totake my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide?" "not then, pearl," said the minister; "butanother time." "and what other time?" persisted the child. "at the great judgment day," whispered theminister; and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of thetruth impelled him to answer the child so.

"then, and there, before the judgment-seat,thy mother, and thou, and i must stand together. but the daylight of this world shall not seeour meeting!" pearl laughed again. but before mr. dimmesdale had done speaking,a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. it was doubtless caused by oneof those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste,in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. so powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughlyilluminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. the great vault brightened,like the dome of an immense lamp. it showed the familiar scene of the street with thedistinctness of mid-day, but also with the

awfulness that is always imparted to familiarobjects by an unaccustomed light. the wooden houses, with their jutting storeys and quaintgable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them;the garden-plots, black with freshly-turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and evenin the market-place margined with green on either side—all were visible, but with asingularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the thingsof this world than they had ever borne before. and there stood the minister, with his handover his heart; and hester prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom;and little pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. they stoodin the noon of that strange and solemn splendour,

as if it were the light that is to revealall secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. there was witchcraft in little pearl's eyes;and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which madeits expression frequently so elvish. she withdrew her hand from mr. dimmesdale's, and pointedacross the street. but he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towardsthe zenith. nothing was more common, in those days, thanto interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena that occurred withless regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernaturalsource. thus, a blazing spear, a sword of

flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows seen inthe midnight sky, prefigured indian warfare. pestilence was known to have been forebodedby a shower of crimson light. we doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befellnew england, from its settlement down to revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not beenpreviously warned by some spectacle of its nature. not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes.oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, whobeheld the wonder through the coloured, magnifying, and distorted medium of his imagination, andshaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. it was, indeed, a majestic idea that the destinyof nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. a scrollso wide might not be deemed too expensive

for providence to write a people's doom upon.the belief was a favourite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealthwas under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. but what shall wesay, when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vastsheet of record. in such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disorderedmental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secretpain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itselfshould appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate. we impute it, therefore, solely to the diseasein his own eye and heart that the minister,

looking upward to the zenith, beheld therethe appearance of an immense letter—the letter a—marked out in lines of dull redlight. not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veilof cloud, but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it, or, at least, with solittle definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. there was a singular circumstance that characterisedmr. dimmesdale's psychological state at this moment. all the time that he gazed upwardto the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little pearl was pointing her fingertowards old roger chillingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. theminister appeared to see him, with the same

glance that discerned the miraculous letter.to his feature as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression;or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, tohide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. certainly, if the meteorkindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished hester prynneand the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might roger chillingworth have passedwith them for the arch-fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own.so vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemedstill to remain painted on the darkness after the meteor had vanished, with an effect asif the street and all things else were at

once annihilated. "who is that man, hester?" gasped mr. dimmesdale,overcome with terror. "i shiver at him! dost thou know the man? i hate him, hester!" she remembered her oath, and was silent. "i tell thee, my soul shivers at him!" mutteredthe minister again. "who is he? who is he? canst thou do nothing for me? i have a namelesshorror of the man!" "minister," said little pearl, "i can tellthee who he is!" "quickly, then, child!" said the minister,bending his ear close to her lips. "quickly, and as low as thou canst whisper."

pearl mumbled something into his ear thatsounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may beheard amusing themselves with by the hour together. at all events, if it involved anysecret information in regard to old roger chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknownto the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. the elvish childthen laughed aloud. "dost thou mock me now?" said the minister. "thou wast not bold!—thou wast not true!"answered the child. "thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrownoon-tide!" "worthy sir," answered the physician, whohad now advanced to the foot of the platform—"pious

master dimmesdale! can this be you? well,well, indeed! we men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straitlylooked after! we dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. come, good sir, andmy dear friend, i pray you let me lead you home!" "how knewest thou that i was here?" askedthe minister, fearfully. "verily, and in good faith," answered rogerchillingworth, "i knew nothing of the matter. i had spent the better part of the night atthe bedside of the worshipful governor winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give himease. he, going home to a better world, i, likewise, was on my way homeward, when thislight shone out. come with me, i beseech you,

reverend sir, else you will be poorly ableto do sabbath duty to-morrow. aha! see now how they trouble the brain—these books!—thesebooks! you should study less, good sir, and take a little pastime, or these night whimsieswill grow upon you." "i will go home with you," said mr. dimmesdale. with a chill despondency, like one awakening,all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away. the next day, however, being the sabbath,he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and themost replete with heavenly influences, that had ever proceeded from his lips. souls, itis said, more souls than one, were brought

to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon,and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude towards mr. dimmesdale throughoutthe long hereafter. but as he came down the pulpit steps, the grey-bearded sexton methim, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognised as his own. "it was found," said the sexton, "this morningon the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. satan dropped it there, itake it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. but, indeed, he was blindand foolish, as he ever and always is. a pure hand needs no glove to cover it!" "thank you, my good friend," said the minister,gravely, but startled at heart; for so confused

was his remembrance, that he had almost broughthimself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. "yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed!" "and, since satan saw fit to steal it, yourreverence must needs handle him without gloves henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimlysmiling. "but did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night? a greatred letter in the sky—the letter a, which we interpret to stand for angel. for, as ourgood governor winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit thatthere should be some notice thereof!" "no," answered the minister; "i had not heardof it."

xiii. another view of hester in her late singular interview with mr. dimmesdale,hester prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced.his nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. his moral force was abased into more than childishweakness. it grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retainedtheir pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only couldhave given them. with her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, shecould readily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machineryhad been brought to bear, and was still operating, on mr. dimmesdale's well-being and repose.knowing what this poor fallen man had once

been, her whole soul was moved by the shudderingterror with which he had appealed to her—the outcast woman—for support against his instinctivelydiscovered enemy. she decided, moreover, that he had a right to her utmost aid. little accustomed,in her long seclusion from society, to measure her ideas of right and wrong by any standardexternal to herself, hester saw—or seemed to see—that there lay a responsibility uponher in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to no other, nor to the whole worldbesides. the links that united her to the rest of humankind—links of flowers, or silk,or gold, or whatever the material—had all been broken. here was the iron link of mutualcrime, which neither he nor she could break. like all other ties, it brought along withit its obligations.

hester prynne did not now occupy preciselythe same position in which we beheld her during the earlier periods of her ignominy. yearshad come and gone. pearl was now seven years old. her mother, with the scarlet letter onher breast, glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople.as is apt to be the case when a person stands out in any prominence before the community,and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor individual interests and convenience,a species of general regard had ultimately grown up in reference to hester prynne. itis to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play,it loves more readily than it hates. hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will evenbe transformed to love, unless the change

be impeded by a continually new irritationof the original feeling of hostility. in this matter of hester prynne there was neitherirritation nor irksomeness. she never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplaininglyto its worst usage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what she suffered; shedid not weigh upon its sympathies. then, also, the blameless purity of her life during allthese years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favour.with nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly nowish, of gaining anything, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had broughtback the poor wanderer to its paths. it was perceived, too, that while hester neverput forward even the humblest title to share

in the world's privileges—further than tobreathe the common air and earn daily bread for little pearl and herself by the faithfullabour of her hands—she was quick to acknowledge her sisterhood with the race of man wheneverbenefits were to be conferred. none so ready as she to give of her little substance toevery demand of poverty, even though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of thefood brought regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers thatcould have embroidered a monarch's robe. none so self-devoted as hester when pestilencestalked through the town. in all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals,the outcast of society at once found her place. she came, not as a guest, but as a rightfulinmate, into the household that was darkened

by trouble, as if its gloomy twilight werea medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creature. thereglimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. elsewhere the tokenof sin, it was the taper of the sick chamber. it had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer'shard extremity, across the verge of time. it had shown him where to set his foot, whilethe light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reachhim. in such emergencies hester's nature showed itself warm and rich—a well-spring of humantenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. her breast,with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. she wasself-ordained a sister of mercy, or, we may

rather say, the world's heavy hand had soordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. the letterwas the symbol of her calling. such helpfulness was found in her—so much power to do, andpower to sympathise—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet a by its originalsignification. they said that it meant able, so strong was hester prynne, with a woman'sstrength. it was only the darkened house that couldcontain her. when sunshine came again, she was not there. her shadow had faded acrossthe threshold. the helpful inmate had departed, without one backward glance to gather up themeed of gratitude, if any were in the hearts of those whom she had served so zealously.meeting them in the street, she never raised

her head to receive their greeting. if theywere resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter, and passed on.this might be pride, but was so like humility, that it produced all the softening influenceof the latter quality on the public mind. the public is despotic in its temper; it iscapable of denying common justice when too strenuously demanded as a right; but quiteas frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love tohave it made, entirely to its generosity. interpreting hester prynne's deportment asan appeal of this nature, society was inclined to show its former victim a more benign countenancethan she cared to be favoured with, or, perchance, than she deserved.

the rulers, and the wise and learned men ofthe community, were longer in acknowledging the influence of hester's good qualities thanthe people. the prejudices which they shared in common with the latter were fortified inthemselves by an iron frame-work of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expelthem. day by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles were relaxing into somethingwhich, in the due course of years, might grow to be an expression of almost benevolence.thus it was with the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the guardianshipof the public morals. individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven hesterprynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as thetoken, not of that one sin for which she had

borne so long and dreary a penance, but ofher many good deeds since. "do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?" they wouldsay to strangers. "it is our hester—the town's own hester—who is so kind to thepoor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!" then, it is true, the propensityof human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another,would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. it was none the lessa fact, however, that in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter hadthe effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. it imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness,which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. had she fallen among thieves, it wouldhave kept her safe. it was reported, and believed

by many, that an indian had drawn his arrowagainst the badge, and that the missile struck it, and fell harmless to the ground. the effect of the symbol—or rather, of theposition in respect to society that was indicated by it—on the mind of hester prynne herselfwas powerful and peculiar. all the light and graceful foliage of her character had beenwithered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harshoutline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed friends or companions to berepelled by it. even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change.it might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstrationin her manners. it was a sad transformation,

too, that her rich and luxuriant hair hadeither been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock ofit ever once gushed into the sunshine. it was due in part to all these causes, but stillmore to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in hester's facefor love to dwell upon; nothing in hester's form, though majestic and statue like, thatpassion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in hester's bosom to makeit ever again the pillow of affection. some attribute had departed from her, the permanenceof which had been essential to keep her a woman. such is frequently the fate, and suchthe stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered,and lived through, an experience of peculiar

severity. if she be all tenderness, she willdie. if she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outwardsemblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itselfmore. the latter is perhaps the truest theory. she who has once been a woman, and ceasedto be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touchto effect the transformation. we shall see whether hester prynne were ever afterwardsso touched and so transfigured. much of the marble coldness of hester's impressionwas to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, frompassion and feeling to thought. standing alone in the world—alone, as to any dependenceon society, and with little pearl to be guided

and protected—alone, and hopeless of retrievingher position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable—she cast away thefragment of a broken chain. the world's law was no law for her mind. it was an age inwhich the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider rangethan for many centuries before. men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. menbolder than these had overthrown and rearranged—not actually, but within the sphere of theory,which was their most real abode—the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith waslinked much of ancient principle. hester prynne imbibed this spirit. she assumed a freedomof speculation, then common enough on the other side of the atlantic, but which ourforefathers, had they known it, would have

held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatisedby the scarlet letter. in her lonesome cottage, by the seashore, thoughts visited her suchas dared to enter no other dwelling in new england; shadowy guests, that would have beenas perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knockingat her door. it is remarkable that persons who speculatethe most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulationsof society. the thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood ofaction. so it seemed to be with hester. yet, had little pearl never come to her from thespiritual world, it might have been far otherwise. then she might have come down to us in history,hand in hand with ann hutchinson, as the foundress

of a religious sect. she might, in one ofher phases, have been a prophetess. she might, and not improbably would, have suffered deathfrom the stern tribunals of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations ofthe puritan establishment. but, in the education of her child, the mother's enthusiasm of thoughthad something to wreak itself upon. providence, in the person of this little girl, had assignedto hester's charge, the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and developed amida host of difficulties. everything was against her. the world was hostile. the child's ownnature had something wrong in it which continually betokened that she had been born amiss—theeffluence of her mother's lawless passion—and often impelled hester to ask, in bitternessof heart, whether it were for ill or good

that the poor little creature had been bornat all. indeed, the same dark question often roseinto her mind with reference to the whole race of womanhood. was existence worth acceptingeven to the happiest among them? as concerned her own individual existence, she had longago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. a tendency to speculation,though it may keep women quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. she discerns, it maybe, such a hopeless task before her. as a first step, the whole system of society isto be torn down and built up anew. then the very nature of the opposite sex, or its longhereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified before womancan be allowed to assume what seems a fair

and suitable position. finally, all otherdifficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reformsuntil she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change, in which, perhaps, the etherealessence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have evaporated. a womannever overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. they are not to be solved, oronly in one way. if her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish. thus hester prynne,whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clue in the darklabyrinth of mind; now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting backfrom a deep chasm. there was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfortnowhere. at times a fearful doubt strove to

possess her soul, whether it were not betterto send pearl at once to heaven, and go herself to such futurity as eternal justice shouldprovide. the scarlet letter had not done its office.now, however, her interview with the reverend mr. dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil,had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared worthyof any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. she had witnessed the intense misery beneathwhich the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle. shesaw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. itwas impossible to doubt that, whatever painful efficacy there might be in the secret stingof remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused

into it by the hand that proffered relief.a secret enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of a friend andhelper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for tampering with the delicatesprings of mr. dimmesdale's nature. hester could not but ask herself whether there hadnot originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in allowing theminister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was to be foreboded and nothingauspicious to be hoped. her only justification lay in the fact that she had been able todiscern no method of rescuing him from a blacker ruin than had overwhelmed herself except byacquiescing in roger chillingworth's scheme of disguise. under that impulse she had madeher choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared,

the more wretched alternative of the two.she determined to redeem her error so far as it might yet be possible. strengthenedby years of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so inadequate to cope withroger chillingworth as on that night, abased by sin and half-maddened by the ignominy thatwas still new, when they had talked together in the prison-chamber. she had climbed herway since then to a higher point. the old man, on the other hand, had brought himselfnearer to her level, or, perhaps, below it, by the revenge which he had stooped for. in fine, hester prynne resolved to meet herformer husband, and do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on whomhe had so evidently set his gripe. the occasion

was not long to seek. one afternoon, walkingwith pearl in a retired part of the peninsula, she beheld the old physician with a basketon one arm and a staff in the other hand, stooping along the ground in quest of rootsand herbs to concoct his medicine withal. xiv. hester and the physician hester bade little pearl run down to the marginof the water, and play with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talkedawhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. so the child flew away like a bird, and, making bareher small white feet went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. here and thereshe came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide asa mirror for pearl to see her face in. forth

peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark,glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid whompearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with her. butthe visionary little maid on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say—"this is a betterplace; come thou into the pool." and pearl, stepping in mid-leg deep, beheld her own whitefeet at the bottom; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentarysmile, floating to and fro in the agitated water. meanwhile her mother had accosted the physician."i would speak a word with you," said she—"a word that concerns us much."

"aha! and is it mistress hester that has aword for old roger chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping posture."with all my heart! why, mistress, i hear good tidings of you on all hands! no longerago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs,mistress hester, and whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the council.it was debated whether or no, with safety to the commonweal, yonder scarlet letter mightbe taken off your bosom. on my life, hester, i made my intreaty to the worshipful magistratethat it might be done forthwith." "it lies not in the pleasure of the magistratesto take off the badge," calmly replied hester. "were i worthy to be quit of it, it wouldfall away of its own nature, or be transformed

into something that should speak a differentpurport." "nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better,"rejoined he, "a woman must needs follow her own fancy touching the adornment of her person.the letter is gaily embroidered, and shows right bravely on your bosom!" all this while hester had been looking steadilyat the old man, and was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change hadbeen wrought upon him within the past seven years. it was not so much that he had grownolder; for though the traces of advancing life were visible he bore his age well, andseemed to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. but the former aspect of an intellectual andstudious man, calm and quiet, which was what

she best remembered in him, had altogethervanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guardedlook. it seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this expression with a smile, butthe latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectatorcould see his blackness all the better for it. ever and anon, too, there came a glareof red light out of his eyes, as if the old man's soul were on fire and kept on smoulderingduskily within his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown into a momentaryflame. this he repressed as speedily as possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kindhad happened. in a word, old roger chillingworth was a strikingevidence of man's faculty of transforming

himself into a devil, if he will only, fora reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. this unhappy person had effected sucha transformation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heartfull of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortureswhich he analysed and gloated over. the scarlet letter burned on hester prynne'sbosom. here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her. "what see you in my face," asked the physician,"that you look at it so earnestly?" "something that would make me weep, if therewere any tears bitter enough for it," answered she. "but let it pass! it is of yonder miserableman that i would speak."

"and what of him?" cried roger chillingworth,eagerly, as if he loved the topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it withthe only person of whom he could make a confidant. "not to hide the truth, mistress hester, mythoughts happen just now to be busy with the gentleman. so speak freely and i will makeanswer." "when we last spake together," said hester,"now seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy as touchingthe former relation betwixt yourself and me. as the life and good fame of yonder man werein your hands there seemed no choice to me, save to be silent in accordance with yourbehest. yet it was not without heavy misgivings that i thus bound myself, for, having castoff all duty towards other human beings, there

remained a duty towards him, and somethingwhispered me that i was betraying it in pledging myself to keep your counsel. since that dayno man is so near to him as you. you tread behind his every footstep. you are besidehim, sleeping and waking. you search his thoughts. you burrow and rankle in his heart! your clutchis on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death, and still he knows you not.in permitting this i have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power wasleft me to be true!" "what choice had you?" asked roger chillingworth."my finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon,thence, peradventure, to the gallows!" "it had been better so!" said hester prynne.

"what evil have i done the man?" asked rogerchillingworth again. "i tell thee, hester prynne, the richest fee that ever physicianearned from monarch could not have bought such care as i have wasted on this miserablepriest! but for my aid his life would have burned away in torments within the first twoyears after the perpetration of his crime and thine. for, hester, his spirit lackedthe strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarletletter. oh, i could reveal a goodly secret! but enough. what art can do, i have exhaustedon him. that he now breathes and creeps about on earth is owing all to me!" "better he had died at once!" said hesterprynne.

"yea, woman, thou sayest truly!" cried oldroger chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. "betterhad he died at once! never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. and all, all,in the sight of his worst enemy! he has been conscious of me. he has felt an influencedwelling always upon him like a curse. he knew, by some spiritual sense—for the creatornever made another being so sensitive as this—he knew that no friendly hand was pulling athis heartstrings, and that an eye was looking curiously into him, which sought only evil,and found it. but he knew not that the eye and hand were mine! with the superstitioncommon to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured withfrightful dreams and desperate thoughts, the

sting of remorse and despair of pardon, asa foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. but it was the constant shadow of mypresence, the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged, and who hadgrown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! yea, indeed, he didnot err, there was a fiend at his elbow! a mortal man, with once a human heart, has becomea fiend for his especial torment." the unfortunate physician, while utteringthese words, lifted his hands with a look of horror, as if he had beheld some frightfulshape, which he could not recognise, usurping the place of his own image in a glass. itwas one of those moments—which sometimes occur only at the interval of years—whena man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed

to his mind's eye. not improbably he had neverbefore viewed himself as he did now. "hast thou not tortured him enough?" saidhester, noticing the old man's look. "has he not paid thee all?" "no, no! he has but increased the debt!" answeredthe physician, and as he proceeded, his manner lost its fiercer characteristics, and subsidedinto gloom. "dost thou remember me, hester, as i was nine years agone? even then i wasin the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. but all my life had been made up ofearnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the increase of mineown knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was but casual to the other—faithfullyfor the advancement of human welfare. no life

had been more peaceful and innocent than mine;few lives so rich with benefits conferred. dost thou remember me? was i not, though youmight deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others, craving little for himself—kind,true, just and of constant, if not warm affections? was i not all this?" "all this, and more," said hester. "and what am i now?" demanded he, lookinginto her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features."i have already told thee what i am—a fiend! who made me so?" "it was myself," cried hester, shuddering."it was i, not less than he. why hast thou

not avenged thyself on me?" "i have left thee to the scarlet letter,"replied roger chillingworth. "if that has not avenged me,i can do no more!" he laid his finger on it with a smile. "it has avenged thee," answered hester prynne. "i judged no less," said the physician. "andnow what wouldst thou with me touching this man?" "i must reveal the secret," answered hester,firmly. "he must discern thee in thy true character. what may be the result i know not.but this long debt of confidence, due from

me to him, whose bane and ruin i have been,shall at length be paid. so far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fairfame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in my hands. nor do i—whomthe scarlet letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron enteringinto the soul—nor do i perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life of ghastlyemptiness, that i shall stoop to implore thy mercy. do with him as thou wilt! there isno good for him, no good for me, no good for thee. there is no good for little pearl. thereis no path to guide us out of this dismal maze." "woman, i could well-nigh pity thee," saidroger chillingworth, unable to restrain a

thrill of admiration too, for there was aquality almost majestic in the despair which she expressed. "thou hadst great elements.peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had notbeen. i pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy nature." "and i thee," answered hester prynne, "forthe hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! wilt thou yet purge itout of thee, and be once more human? if not for his sake, then doubly for thine own! forgive,and leave his further retribution to the power that claims it! i said, but now, that therecould be no good event for him, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in thisgloomy maze of evil, and stumbling at every

step over the guilt wherewith we have strewnour path. it is not so! there might be good for thee, and thee alone, since thou hastbeen deeply wronged and hast it at thy will to pardon. wilt thou give up that only privilege?wilt thou reject that priceless benefit?" "peace, hester—peace!" replied the old man,with gloomy sternness—"it is not granted me to pardon. i have no such power as thoutellest me of. my old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all that wedo, and all we suffer. by thy first step awry, thou didst plant the germ of evil; but sincethat moment it has all been a dark necessity. ye that have wronged me are not sinful, savein a kind of typical illusion; neither am i fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend'soffice from his hands. it is our fate. let

the black flower blossom as it may! now, gothy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man." he waved his hand, and betook himself againto his employment of gathering herbs. xv. hester and pearl so roger chillingworth—a deformed old figurewith a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked—took leave of hester prynne,and went stooping away along the earth. he gathered here and there a herb, or grubbedup a root and put it into the basket on his arm. his gray beard almost touched the groundas he crept onward. hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantasticcuriosity to see whether the tender grass

of early spring would not be blighted beneathhim and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure.she wondered what sort of herbs they were which the old man was so sedulous to gather.would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greethim with poisonous shrubs of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers?or might it suffice him that every wholesome growth should be converted into somethingdeleterious and malignant at his touch? did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhereelse, really fall upon him? or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadowmoving along with his deformity whichever way he turned himself? and whither was henow going? would he not suddenly sink into

the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot,where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whateverelse of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance?or would he spread bat's wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier the higher he rosetowards heaven? "be it sin or no," said hester prynne, bitterly,as still she gazed after him, "i hate the man!" she upbraided herself for the sentiment, butcould not overcome or lessen it. attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past daysin a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his studyand sit down in the firelight of their home,

and in the light of her nuptial smile. heneeded to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonelyhours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. such scenes had once appearednot otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequentlife, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances. she marvelled how such scenescould have been! she marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him!she deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured and reciprocatedthe lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle andmelt into his own. and it seemed a fouler offence committed by roger chillingworth thanany which had since been done him, that, in

the time when her heart knew no better, hehad persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side. "yes, i hate him!" repeated hester more bitterlythan before. "he betrayed me! he has done me worse wrongthan i did him!" let men tremble to win the hand of woman,unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! else it may be their miserablefortune, as it was roger chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own mayhave awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, themarble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.but hester ought long ago to have done with

this injustice. what did it betoken? had sevenlong years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, inflicted so much of misery and wroughtout no repentance? the emotion of that brief space, while shestood gazing after the crooked figure of old roger chillingworth, threw a dark light onhester's state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise have acknowledgedto herself. he being gone, she summoned back her child. "pearl! little pearl! where are you?" pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged,had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs.at first, as already told, she had flirted

fancifully with her own image in a pool ofwater, beckoning the phantom forth, and—as it declined to venture—seeking a passagefor herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. soon finding,however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime.she made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snailshells, and sentout more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in new england; but the largerpart of them foundered near the shore. she seized a live horse-shoe by the tail, andmade prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun.then she took up the white foam that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threwit upon the breeze, scampering after it with

winged footsteps to catch the great snowflakesere they fell. perceiving a flock of beach-birds that fed and fluttered along the shore, thenaughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock afterthese small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. one little graybird, with a white breast, pearl was almost sure had been hit by a pebble, and flutteredaway with a broken wing. but then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport, because itgrieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze,or as wild as pearl herself. her final employment was to gather seaweedof various kinds, and make herself a scarf or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assumethe aspect of a little mermaid. she inherited

her mother's gift for devising drapery andcostume. as the last touch to her mermaid's garb, pearl took some eel-grass and imitated,as best she could, on her own bosom the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's.a letter—the letter a—but freshly green instead of scarlet. the child bent her chinupon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest, even as if the oneonly thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import. "i wonder if mother will ask me what it means?"thought pearl. just then she heard her mother's voice, and,flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before hester prynne dancing,laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament

upon her bosom. "my little pearl," said hester, after a moment'ssilence, "the green letter, and on thy childish bosom, has no purport. but dost thou know,my child, what this letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear?" "yes, mother," said the child. "it is thegreat letter a. thou hast taught me in the horn-book." hester looked steadily into her little face;but though there was that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her blackeyes, she could not satisfy herself whether pearl really attached any meaning to the symbol.she felt a morbid desire to ascertain the

point. "dost thou know, child, wherefore thy motherwears this letter?" "truly do i!" answered pearl, looking brightlyinto her mother's face. "it is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand overhis heart!" "and what reason is that?" asked hester, halfsmiling at the absurd incongruity of the child's observation; but on second thoughts turningpale. "what has the letter to do with any heartsave mine?" "nay, mother, i have told all i know," saidpearl, more seriously than she was wont to speak. "ask yonder old man whom thou hastbeen talking with,—it may be he can tell.

but in good earnest now, mother dear, whatdoes this scarlet letter mean?—and why dost thou wear it on thy bosom?—and why doesthe minister keep his hand over his heart?" she took her mother's hand in both her own,and gazed into her eyes with an earnestness that was seldom seen in her wild and capriciouscharacter. the thought occurred to hester, that the child might really be seeking toapproach her with childlike confidence, and doing what she could, and as intelligentlyas she knew how, to establish a meeting-point of sympathy. it showed pearl in an unwontedaspect. heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection,had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an april breeze,which spends its time in airy sport, and has

its gusts of inexplicable passion, and ispetulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take itto your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanours it will sometimes, of its own vague purpose,kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then begone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your heart. and this,moreover, was a mother's estimate of the child's disposition. any other observer might haveseen few but unamiable traits, and have given them a far darker colouring. but now the ideacame strongly into hester's mind, that pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness,might already have approached the age when she could have been made a friend, and intrustedwith as much of her mother's sorrows as could

be imparted, without irreverence either tothe parent or the child. in the little chaos of pearl's character there might be seen emergingand could have been from the very first—the steadfast principles of an unflinching courage—anuncontrollable will—sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect—anda bitter scorn of many things which, when examined, might be found to have the taintof falsehood in them. she possessed affections, too, though hitherto acrid and disagreeable,as are the richest flavours of unripe fruit. with all these sterling attributes, thoughthester, the evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a noblewoman do not grow out of this elfish child. pearl's inevitable tendency to hover aboutthe enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an

innate quality of her being. from the earliestepoch of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission. hesterhad often fancied that providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing thechild with this marked propensity; but never, until now, had she bethought herself to ask,whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence.if little pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less thanan earthly child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold inher mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb?—and to help her to overcome thepassion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only imprisoned withinthe same tomb-like heart?

such were some of the thoughts that now stirredin hester's mind, with as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whisperedinto her ear. and there was little pearl, all this while, holding her mother's handin both her own, and turning her face upward, while she put these searching questions, onceand again, and still a third time. "what does the letter mean, mother? and whydost thou wear it? and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" "what shall i say?" thought hester to herself."no! if this be the price of the child's sympathy, i cannot pay it." then she spoke aloud—

"silly pearl," said she, "what questions arethese? there are many things in this world that a child must not ask about. what knowi of the minister's heart? and as for the scarlet letter, i wear it for the sake ofits gold thread." in all the seven bygone years, hester prynnehad never before been false to the symbol on her bosom. it may be that it was the talismanof a stern and severe, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her; as recognisingthat, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some new evil had crept into it, orsome old one had never been expelled. as for little pearl, the earnestness soon passedout of her face. but the child did not see fit to let the matterdrop. two or three times, as her mother and

she went homeward, and as often at supper-time,and while hester was putting her to bed, and once after she seemed to be fairly asleep,pearl looked up, with mischief gleaming in her black eyes. "mother," said she, "what does the scarletletter mean?" and the next morning, the first indicationthe child gave of being awake was by popping up her head from the pillow, and making thatother enquiry, which she had so unaccountably connected with her investigations about thescarlet letter— "mother!—mother!—why does the ministerkeep his hand over his heart?" "hold thy tongue, naughty child!" answeredher mother, with an asperity that she had

never permitted to herself before. "do nottease me; else i shall put thee into the dark closet!" xvi. a forest walk hester prynne remained constant in her resolveto make known to mr. dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior consequences,the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy. for several days, however,she vainly sought an opportunity of addressing him in some of the meditative walks whichshe knew him to be in the habit of taking along the shores of the peninsula, or on thewooded hills of the neighbouring country. there would have been no scandal, indeed,nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman's

good fame, had she visited him in his ownstudy, where many a penitent, ere now, had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye asthe one betokened by the scarlet letter. but, partly that she dreaded the secret or undisguisedinterference of old roger chillingworth, and partly that her conscious heart imparted suspicionwhere none could have been felt, and partly that both the minister and she would needthe whole wide world to breathe in, while they talked together—for all these reasonshester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacy than beneath the open sky. at last, while attending a sick chamber, whitherthe rev. mr. dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he had gone,the day before, to visit the apostle eliot,

among his indian converts. he would probablyreturn by a certain hour in the afternoon of the morrow. betimes, therefore, the nextday, hester took little pearl—who was necessarily the companion of all her mother's expeditions,however inconvenient her presence—and set forth. the road, after the two wayfarers had crossedfrom the peninsula to the mainland, was no other than a foot-path. it straggled onwardinto the mystery of the primeval forest. this hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so blackand dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that,to hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which she had so longbeen wandering. the day was chill and sombre.

overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightlystirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and thenbe seen at its solitary play along the path. this flitting cheerfulness was always at thefurther extremity of some long vista through the forest. the sportive sunlight—feeblysportive, at best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene—withdrew itself asthey came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier, because they hadhoped to find them bright. "mother," said little pearl, "the sunshinedoes not love you. it runs away and hides itself, because itis afraid of something on your bosom. now, see! there it is, playinga good way off.

stand you here, and let me run and catch it.i am but a child. it will not flee from me—for i wear nothingon my bosom yet!" "nor ever will, my child, i hope," said hester. "and why not, mother?" asked pearl, stoppingshort, just at the beginning of her race. "will not it come of its own accord when iam a woman grown?" "run away, child," answered her mother, "andcatch the sunshine. it will soon be gone."pearl set forth at a great pace, and as hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch thesunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendour, andscintillating with the vivacity excited by

rapid motion. the light lingered about thelonely child, as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn almost nigh enoughto step into the magic circle too. "it will go now," said pearl, shaking herhead. "see!" answered hester, smiling; "now i canstretch out my hand and grasp some of it." as she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished;or, to judge from the bright expression that was dancing on pearl's features, her mothercould have fancied that the child had absorbed it into herself, and would give it forth again,with a gleam about her path, as they should plunge into some gloomier shade. there wasno other attribute that so much impressed her with a sense of new and untransmittedvigour in pearl's nature, as this never failing

vivacity of spirits: she had not the diseaseof sadness, which almost all children, in these latter days, inherit, with the scrofula,from the troubles of their ancestors. perhaps this, too, was a disease, and but the reflexof the wild energy with which hester had fought against her sorrows before pearl's birth.it was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre to the child's character.she wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her,and thus humanise and make her capable of sympathy. but there was time enough yet forlittle pearl. "come, my child!" said hester, looking abouther from the spot where pearl had stood still in the sunshine—"we will sit down a littleway within the wood, and rest ourselves."

"i am not aweary, mother," replied the littlegirl. "but you may sit down, if you will tell me a story meanwhile." "a story, child!" said hester. "and aboutwhat?" "oh, a story about the black man," answeredpearl, taking hold of her mother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously,into her face. "how he haunts this forest, and carries abook with him a big, heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly black man offershis book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among the trees; and they areto write their names with their own blood; and then he sets his mark on their bosoms.didst thou ever meet the black man, mother?"

"and who told you this story, pearl," askedher mother, recognising a common superstition of the period. "it was the old dame in the chimney corner,at the house where you watched last night," said the child. "but she fancied me asleepwhile she was talking of it. she said that a thousand and a thousand people had met himhere, and had written in his book, and have his mark on them. and that ugly tempered lady,old mistress hibbins, was one. and, mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letterwas the black man's mark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetesthim at midnight, here in the dark wood. is it true, mother? and dost thou go to meethim in the nighttime?"

"didst thou ever awake and find thy mothergone?" asked hester. "not that i remember," said the child. "if thou fearest to leaveme in our cottage, thou mightest take me along with thee. i would very gladly go! but, mother,tell me now! is there such a black man? and didst thou ever meet him? and is this hismark?" "wilt thou let me be at peace, if i once tellthee?" asked her mother. "yes, if thou tellest me all," answered pearl. "once in my life i met the black man!" saidher mother. "this scarlet letter is his mark!" thus conversing, they entered sufficientlydeep into the wood to secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger alongthe forest track. here they sat down on a

luxuriant heap of moss; which at some epochof the preceding century, had been a gigantic pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksomeshade, and its head aloft in the upper atmosphere. it was a little dell where they had seatedthemselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowingthrough the midst, over a bed of fallen and drowned leaves. the trees impending over ithad flung down great branches from time to time, which choked up the current, and compelledit to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in its swifter and livelierpassages there appeared a channel-way of pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. letting the eyesfollow along the course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water,at some short distance within the forest,

but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewildermentof tree-trunks and underbrush, and here and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens.all these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the courseof this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it shouldwhisper tales out of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelationson the smooth surface of a pool. continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamletkept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young childthat was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintanceand events of sombre hue. "oh, brook! oh, foolish and tiresome littlebrook!" cried

pearl, after listening awhile to its talk,"why art thou so sad? pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the timesighing and murmuring!"but the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the forest trees, had gonethrough so solemn an experience that it could not help talking about it, and seemed to havenothing else to say. pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushedfrom a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenes shadowed as heavilywith gloom. but, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled airilyalong her course. "what does this sad little brook say, mother?"inquired she.

"if thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, thebrook might tell thee of it," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine.but now, pearl, i hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting aside thebranches. i would have thee betake thyself to play, and leave me to speak with him thatcomes yonder." "is it the black man?" asked pearl. "wilt thou go and play, child?" repeated hermother, "but do not stray far into the wood. and take heed that thou come at my first call." "yes, mother," answered pearl, "but if itbe the black man, wilt thou not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big bookunder his arm?"

"go, silly child!" said her mother impatiently."it is no black man! thou canst see him now, through the trees. it is the minister!" "and so it is!" said the child. "and, mother,he has his hand over his heart! is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book,the black man set his mark in that place? but why does he not wear it outside his bosom,as thou dost, mother?" "go now, child, and thou shalt tease me asthou wilt another time," cried hester prynne. "but do not stray far. keep where thou cansthear the babble of the brook." the child went singing away, following upthe current of the brook, and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholyvoice. but the little stream would not be

comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligiblesecret of some very mournful mystery that had happened—or making a prophetic lamentationabout something that was yet to happen—within the verge of the dismal forest. so pearl,who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off all acquaintancewith this repining brook. she set herself, therefore, to gathering violets and wood-anemones,and some scarlet columbines that she found growing in the crevice of a high rock. when her elf-child had departed, hester prynnemade a step or two towards the track that led through the forest, but still remainedunder the deep shadow of the trees. she beheld the minister advancing along the path entirelyalone, and leaning on a staff which he had

cut by the wayside. he looked haggard andfeeble, and betrayed a nerveless despondency in his air, which had never so remarkablycharacterised him in his walks about the settlement, nor in any other situation where he deemedhimself liable to notice. here it was wofully visible, in this intense seclusion of theforest, which of itself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. there was a listlessnessin his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire to doso, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down atthe root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore. the leaves might bestrewhim, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matterwhether there were life in it or no. death

was too definite an object to be wished foror avoided. to hester's eye, the reverend mr. dimmesdaleexhibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little pearl hadremarked, he kept his hand over his heart. xvii. the pastor and his parishioner slowly as the minister walked, he had almostgone by before hester prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. atlength she succeeded. "arthur dimmesdale!" she said, faintly atfirst, then louder, but hoarsely—"arthur dimmesdale!" "who speaks?" answered the minister. gatheringhimself quickly up, he stood more erect, like

a man taken by surprise in a mood to whichhe was reluctant to have witnesses. throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of thevoice, he indistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments so sombre, andso little relieved from the gray twilight into which the clouded sky and the heavy foliagehad darkened the noontide, that he knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow. it maybe that his pathway through life was haunted thus by a spectre that had stolen out fromamong his thoughts. he made a step nigher, and discovered thescarlet letter. "hester! hester prynne!", said he; "is itthou? art thou in life?" "even so." she answered. "in such life ashas been mine these seven years past! and

thou, arthur dimmesdale, dost thou yet live?" it was no wonder that they thus questionedone another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. so strangelydid they meet in the dim wood that it was like the first encounter in the world beyondthe grave of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stoodcoldly shuddering in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, nor wontedto the companionship of disembodied beings. each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the otherghost. they were awe-stricken likewise at themselves, because the crisis flung backto them their consciousness, and revealed to each heart its history and experience,as life never does, except at such breathless

epochs. the soul beheld its features in themirror of the passing moment. it was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, bya slow, reluctant necessity, that arthur dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touchedthe chill hand of hester prynne. the grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariestin the interview. they now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the same sphere. without a word more spoken—neither he norshe assuming the guidance, but with an unexpressed consent—they glided back into the shadowof the woods whence hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of moss where she andpearl had before been sitting. when they found voice to speak, it was at first only to utterremarks and inquiries such as any two acquaintances

might have made, about the gloomy sky, thethreatening storm, and, next, the health of each. thus they went onward, not boldly, butstep by step, into the themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. so long estrangedby fate and circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before and throwopen the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts might be led across the threshold. after awhile, the minister fixed his eyeson hester prynne's. "hester," said he, "hast thou found peace?" she smiled drearily, looking down upon herbosom. "hast thou?" she asked.

"none—nothing but despair!" he answered."what else could i look for, being what i am, and leading such a life as mine? werei an atheist—a man devoid of conscience—a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts—imight have found peace long ere now. nay, i never should have lost it. but, as mattersstand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of god's giftsthat were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. hester, i am most miserable!" "the people reverence thee," said hester."and surely thou workest good among them! doth this bring thee no comfort?" "more misery, hester!—only the more misery!"answered the clergyman with a bitter smile.

"as concerns the good which i may appear todo, i have no faith in it. it must needs be a delusion. what can a ruined soul like mineeffect towards the redemption of other souls?—or a polluted soul towards their purification?and as for the people's reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred! canstthou deem it, hester, a consolation that i must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so manyeyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it!—must seemy flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of pentecost werespeaking!—and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolise? ihave laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what i seem and whati am! and satan laughs at it!"

"you wrong yourself in this," said hestergently. "you have deeply and sorely repented. your sin is left behind you in the days longpast. your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people's eyes.is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works? and whereforeshould it not bring you peace?" "no, hester—no!" replied the clergyman."there is no substance in it! it is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! of penance,i have had enough! of penitence, there has been none! else, i should long ago have thrownoff these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see meat the judgment-seat. happy are you, hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon yourbosom! mine burns in secret! thou little knowest

what a relief it is, after the torment ofa seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognises me for what i am! had i onefriend—or were it my worst enemy!—to whom, when sickened with the praises of all othermen, i could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks mysoul might keep itself alive thereby. even thus much of truth would save me! but now,it is all falsehood!—all emptiness!—all death!" hester prynne looked into his face, but hesitatedto speak. yet, uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, his wordshere offered her the very point of circumstances in which to interpose what she came to say.she conquered her fears, and spoke:

"such a friend as thou hast even now wishedfor," said she, "with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it!"again she hesitated, but brought out the words with an effort.—"thou hast long had suchan enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof!" the minister started to his feet, gaspingfor breath, and clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom. "ha! what sayest thou?" cried he. "an enemy!and under mine own roof! what mean you?" hester prynne was now fully sensible of thedeep injury for which she was responsible to this unhappy man, in permitting him tolie for so many years, or, indeed, for a single

moment, at the mercy of one whose purposescould not be other than malevolent. the very contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatevermask the latter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of abeing so sensitive as arthur dimmesdale. there had been a period when hester was less aliveto this consideration; or, perhaps, in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she left theminister to bear what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable doom. but of late,since the night of his vigil, all her sympathies towards him had been both softened and invigorated.she now read his heart more accurately. she doubted not that the continual presence ofroger chillingworth—the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air abouthim—and his authorised interference, as

a physician, with the minister's physicaland spiritual infirmities—that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose.by means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept in an irritated state, the tendencyof which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritualbeing. its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity, and hereafter, that eternalalienation from the good and true, of which madness is perhaps the earthly type. such was the ruin to which she had broughtthe man, once—nay, why should we not speak it?—still so passionately loved! hesterfelt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, as she had alreadytold roger chillingworth, would have been

infinitely preferable to the alternative whichshe had taken upon herself to choose. and now, rather than have had this grievous wrongto confess, she would gladly have laid down on the forest leaves, and died there, at arthurdimmesdale's feet. "oh, arthur!" cried she, "forgive me! in allthings else, i have striven to be true! truth was the one virtue which i might have heldfast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good—thy life—thy fame—wereput in question! then i consented to a deception. but a lie is never good, even though deaththreaten on the other side! dost thou not see what i would say? that old man!—thephysician!—he whom they call roger chillingworth!—he was my husband!"

the minister looked at her for an instant,with all that violence of passion, which—intermixed in more shapes than one with his higher, purer,softer qualities—was, in fact, the portion of him which the devil claimed, and throughwhich he sought to win the rest. never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than hesternow encountered. for the brief space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration.but his character had been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower energieswere incapable of more than a temporary struggle. he sank down on the ground, and buried hisface in his hands. "i might have known it," murmured he—"idid know it! was not the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart at the firstsight of him, and as often as i have seen

him since? why did i not understand? oh, hesterprynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! and the shame!—theindelicacy!—the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to thevery eye that would gloat over it! woman, woman, thou art accountable for this!—icannot forgive thee!" "thou shalt forgive me!" cried hester, flingingherself on the fallen leaves beside him. "let god punish! thou shalt forgive!" with sudden and desperate tenderness she threwher arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom, little caring though hischeek rested on the scarlet letter. he would have released himself, but strove in vainto do so. hester would not set him free, lest

he should look her sternly in the face. allthe world had frowned on her—for seven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman—andstill she bore it all, nor ever once turned away her firm, sad eyes. heaven, likewise,had frowned upon her, and she had not died. but the frown of this pale, weak, sinful,and sorrow-stricken man was what hester could not bear, and live! "wilt thou yet forgive me?" she repeated,over and over again. "wilt thou not frown? wilt thou forgive?""i do forgive you, hester," replied the minister at length, with a deep utterance, out of anabyss of sadness, but no anger. "i freely forgive you now. may god forgive us both.we are not, hester, the worst sinners in the

world. there is one worse than even the pollutedpriest! that old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. he has violated, in cold blood,the sanctity of a human heart. thou and i, hester, never did so!" "never, never!" whispered she. "what we didhad a consecration of its own. we felt it so! we said so to each other. hast thou forgottenit?" "hush, hester!" said arthur dimmesdale, risingfrom the ground. "no; i have not forgotten!"they sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of thefallen tree. life had never brought them a gloomier hour; it was the point whither theirpathway had so long been tending, and darkening

ever, as it stole along—and yet it uncloseda charm that made them linger upon it, and claim another, and another, and, after all,another moment. the forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passingthrough it. the boughs were tossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old treegroaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath,or constrained to forbode evil to come. and yet they lingered. how dreary looked theforest-track that led backward to the settlement, where hester prynne must take up again theburden of her ignominy and the minister the hollow mockery of his good name! so they lingeredan instant longer. no golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this darkforest. here seen only by his eyes, the scarlet

letter need not burn into the bosom of thefallen woman! here seen only by her eyes, arthur dimmesdale, false to god and man, mightbe, for one moment true! he started at a thought that suddenly occurredto him. "hester!" cried he, "here is a new horror!roger chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true character. will he continue,then, to keep our secret? what will now be the course of his revenge?" "there is a strange secrecy in his nature,"replied hester, thoughtfully; "and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices ofhis revenge. i deem it not likely that he will betray the secret. he will doubtlessseek other means of satiating his dark passion."

"and i!—how am i to live longer, breathingthe same air with this deadly enemy?" exclaimed arthur dimmesdale, shrinking within himself,and pressing his hand nervously against his heart—a gesture that had grown involuntarywith him. "think for me, hester! thou art strong. resolve for me!" "thou must dwell no longer with this man,"said hester, slowly and firmly. "thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye!" "it were far worse than death!" replied theminister. "but how to avoid it? what choice remains to me? shall i lie down again on thesewithered leaves, where i cast myself when thou didst tell me what he was? must i sinkdown there, and die at once?"

"alas! what a ruin has befallen thee!" saidhester, with the tears gushing into her eyes. "wilt thou die for very weakness? there isno other cause!" "the judgment of god is on me," answered theconscience-stricken priest. "it is too mighty for me to struggle with!" "heaven would show mercy," rejoined hester,"hadst thou but the strength to take advantage of it." "be thou strong for me!" answered he. "adviseme what to do." "is the world, then, so narrow?" exclaimedhester prynne, fixing her deep eyes on the minister's, and instinctively exercising amagnetic power over a spirit so shattered

and subdued that it could hardly hold itselferect. "doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time agowas but a leaf-strewn desert, as lonely as this around us? whither leads yonder forest-track?backward to the settlement, thou sayest! yes; but, onward, too! deeper it goes, and deeperinto the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step; until some few miles hencethe yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man's tread. there thou art free!so brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched,to one where thou mayest still be happy! is there not shade enough in all this boundlessforest to hide thy heart from the gaze of roger chillingworth?"

"yes, hester; but only under the fallen leaves!"replied the minister, with a sad smile. "then there is the broad pathway of the sea!"continued hester. "it brought thee hither. if thou so choose, it will bear thee backagain. in our native land, whether in some remote rural village, or in vast london—or,surely, in germany, in france, in pleasant italy—thou wouldst be beyond his power andknowledge! and what hast thou to do with all these iron men, and their opinions? they havekept thy better part in bondage too long already!" "it cannot be!" answered the minister, listeningas if he were called upon to realise a dream. "i am powerless to go. wretched and sinfulas i am, i have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly existence in the spherewhere providence hath placed me. lost as my

own soul is, i would still do what i may forother human souls! i dare not quit my post, though an unfaithful sentinel, whose surereward is death and dishonour, when his dreary watch shall come to an end!" "thou art crushed under this seven years'weight of misery," replied hester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy."but thou shalt leave it all behind thee! it shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadestalong the forest-path: neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer tocross the sea. leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened. meddle no more withit! begin all anew! hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? not so!the future is yet full of trial and success.

there is happiness to be enjoyed! there isgood to be done! exchange this false life of thine for a true one. be, if thy spiritsummon thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. or, as is morethy nature, be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most renowned of the cultivatedworld. preach! write! act! do anything, save to lie down and die! give up this name ofarthur dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear withoutfear or shame. why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments thathave so gnawed into thy life? that have made thee feeble to will and to do? that will leavethee powerless even to repent? up, and away!" "oh, hester!" cried arthur dimmesdale, inwhose eyes a fitful light, kindled by her

enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, "thoutellest of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! i must die here!there is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficultworld alone!" it was the last expression of the despondencyof a broken spirit. he lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within hisreach. he repeated the word—"alone, hester!" "thou shall not go alone!" answered she, ina deep whisper. then, all was spoken!xviii. a flood of sunshine

arthur dimmesdale gazed into hester's facewith a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with fear betwixt them, and akind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak. but hester prynne, with a mind of native courageand activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed from society,had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to theclergyman. she had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness, as vast,as intricate, and shadowy as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holdinga colloquy that was to decide their fate. her intellect and heart had their home, asit were, in desert places, where she roamed

as freely as the wild indian in his woods.for years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whateverpriests or legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more reverence than the indianwould feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside,or the church. the tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. the scarletletter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. shame, despair,solitude! these had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong,but taught her much amiss. the minister, on the other hand, had nevergone through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the scope of generally receivedlaws; although, in a single instance, he had

so fearfully transgressed one of the mostsacred of them. but this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.since that wretched epoch, he had watched with morbid zeal and minuteness, not his acts—forthose it was easy to arrange—but each breath of emotion, and his every thought. at thehead of the social system, as the clergymen of that day stood, he was only the more trammelledby its regulations, its principles, and even its prejudices. as a priest, the frameworkof his order inevitably hemmed him in. as a man who had once sinned, but who kept hisconscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting of an unhealed wound, he mighthave been supposed safer within the line of virtue than if he had never sinned at all.

thus we seem to see that, as regarded hesterprynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparationfor this very hour. but arthur dimmesdale! were such a man once more to fall, what pleacould be urged in extenuation of his crime? none; unless it avail him somewhat that hewas broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused bythe very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, andremaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that itwas human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations ofan enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick,miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human

affection and sympathy, a new life, and atrue one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. and be the stern andsad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never,in this mortal state, repaired. it may be watched and guarded, so that the enemy shallnot force his way again into the citadel, and might even in his subsequent assaults,select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. butthere is still the ruined wall, and near it the stealthy tread of the foe that would winover again his unforgotten triumph. the struggle, if there were one, need notbe described. let it suffice that the clergyman resolved to flee, and not alone.

"if in all these past seven years," thoughthe, "i could recall one instant of peace or hope, i would yet endure, for the sake ofthat earnest of heaven's mercy. but now—since i am irrevocably doomed—wherefore shouldi not snatch the solace allowed to the condemned culprit before his execution? or, if thisbe the path to a better life, as hester would persuade me, i surely give up no fairer prospectby pursuing it! neither can i any longer live without her companionship; so powerful isshe to sustain—so tender to soothe! o thou to whom i dare not lift mine eyes, wilt thouyet pardon me?" "thou wilt go!" said hester calmly, as hemet her glance. the decision once made, a glow of strangeenjoyment threw its flickering brightness

over the trouble of his breast. it was theexhilarating effect—upon a prisoner just escaped from the dungeon of his own heart—ofbreathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, unchristianised, lawless region.his spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky,than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth. of a deeply religioustemperament, there was inevitably a tinge of the devotional in his mood. "do i feel joy again?" cried he, wonderingat himself. "methought the germ of it was dead in me! oh, hester, thou art my betterangel! i seem to have flung myself—sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened—down uponthese forest leaves, and to have risen up

all made anew, and with new powers to glorifyhim that hath been merciful! this is already the better life! why did we not find it sooner?" "let us not look back," answered hester prynne."the past is gone! wherefore should we linger upon it now? see! with this symbol i undoit all, and make it as if it had never been!" so speaking, she undid the clasp that fastenedthe scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the witheredleaves. the mystic token alighted on the hither verge of the stream. with a hand's-breadthfurther flight, it would have fallen into the water, and have given the little brookanother woe to carry onward, besides the unintelligible tale which it still kept murmuring about.but there lay the embroidered letter, glittering

like a lost jewel, which some ill-fated wanderermight pick up, and thenceforth be haunted by strange phantoms of guilt, sinkings ofthe heart, and unaccountable misfortune. the stigma gone, hester heaved a long, deepsigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. o exquisite relief!she had not known the weight until she felt the freedom! by another impulse, she tookoff the formal cap that confined her hair, and down it fell upon her shoulders, darkand rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and imparting the charmof softness to her features. there played around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes,a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of womanhood. a crimsonflush was glowing on her cheek, that had been

long so pale. her sex, her youth, and thewhole richness of her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clusteredthemselves with her maiden hope, and a happiness before unknown, within the magic circle ofthis hour. and, as if the gloom of the earth and sky had been but the effluence of thesetwo mortal hearts, it vanished with their sorrow. all at once, as with a sudden smileof heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdeningeach green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the graytrunks of the solemn trees. the objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightnessnow. the course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into thewood's heart of mystery, which had become

a mystery of joy. such was the sympathy of nature—that wild,heathen nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth—withthe bliss of these two spirits! love, whether newly-born, or aroused from a death-like slumber,must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflowsupon the outward world. had the forest still kept its gloom, it would have been brightin hester's eyes, and bright in arthur dimmesdale's! hester looked at him with a thrill of anotherjoy. "thou must know pearl!" said she. "our littlepearl! thou hast seen her—yes, i know it!—but thou wilt see her now with other eyes. sheis a strange child! i hardly comprehend her!

but thou wilt love her dearly, as i do, andwilt advise me how to deal with her!" "dost thou think the child will be glad toknow me?" asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. "i have long shrunk from children, becausethey often show a distrust—a backwardness to be familiar with me. i have even been afraidof little pearl!" "ah, that was sad!" answered the mother. "butshe will love thee dearly, and thou her. she is not far off. i will call her. pearl! pearl!" "i see the child," observed the minister."yonder she is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the other side of the brook.so thou thinkest the child will love me?" hester smiled, and again called to pearl,who was visible at some distance, as the minister

had described her, like a bright-apparelledvision in a sunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. the ray quiveredto and fro, making her figure dim or distinct—now like a real child, now like a child's spirit—asthe splendour went and came again. she heard her mother's voice, and approached slowlythrough the forest. pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomelywhile her mother sat talking with the clergyman. the great black forest—stern as it showeditself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its bosom—becamethe playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how. sombre as it was, it put onthe kindest of its moods to welcome her. it offered her the partridge-berries, the growthof the preceding autumn, but ripening only

in the spring, and now red as drops of bloodupon the withered leaves. these pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavour. thesmall denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her path. a partridge,indeed, with a brood of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, but soon repented ofher fierceness, and clucked to her young ones not to be afraid. a pigeon, alone on a lowbranch, allowed pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound as much of greeting as alarm.a squirrel, from the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment—forthe squirrel is such a choleric and humorous little personage, that it is hard to distinguishbetween his moods—so he chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her head.it was a last year's nut, and already gnawed

by his sharp tooth. a fox, startled from hissleep by her light footstep on the leaves, looked inquisitively at pearl, as doubtingwhether it were better to steal off, or renew his nap on the same spot. a wolf, it is said—buthere the tale has surely lapsed into the improbable—came up and smelt of pearl's robe, and offeredhis savage head to be patted by her hand. the truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest,and these wild things which it nourished, all recognised a kindred wilderness in thehuman child. and she was gentler here than in the grassy-marginedstreets of the settlement, or in her mother's cottage. the bowers appeared to know it, andone and another whispered as she passed, "adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adornthyself with me!"—and, to please them, pearl

gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines,and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. withthese she decorated her hair and her young waist, and became a nymph child, or an infantdryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood. in such guise had pearladorned herself, when she heard her mother's voice, and came slowly back. slowly—for she saw the clergyman! xix. the child at the brookside "thou wilt love her dearly," repeated hesterprynne, as she and the minister sat watching little pearl. "dost thou not think her beautiful?and see with what natural skill she has made

those simple flowers adorn her! had she gatheredpearls, and diamonds, and rubies in the wood, they could not have become her better! sheis a splendid child! but i know whose brow she has!" "dost thou know, hester," said arthur dimmesdale,with an unquiet smile, "that this dear child, tripping about always at thy side, hath causedme many an alarm? methought—oh, hester, what a thought is that, and how terrible todread it!—that my own features were partly repeated in her face, and so strikingly thatthe world might see them! but she is mostly thine!" "no, no! not mostly!" answered the mother,with a tender smile. "a little longer, and

thou needest not to be afraid to trace whosechild she is. but how strangely beautiful she looks with those wild flowers in her hair!it is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in dear old england, had decked her out tomeet us." it was with a feeling which neither of themhad ever before experienced, that they sat and watched pearl's slow advance. in her wasvisible the tie that united them. she had been offered to the world, these seven pastyears, as the living hieroglyphic, in which was revealed the secret they so darkly soughtto hide—all written in this symbol—all plainly manifest—had there been a prophetor magician skilled to read the character of flame! and pearl was the oneness of theirbeing. be the foregone evil what it might,

how could they doubt that their earthly livesand future destinies were conjoined when they beheld at once the material union, and thespiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally together; thoughts likethese—and perhaps other thoughts, which they did not acknowledge or define—threwan awe about the child as she came onward. "let her see nothing strange—no passionor eagerness—in thy way of accosting her," whispered hester. "our pearl is a fitful andfantastic little elf sometimes. especially she is generally intolerant of emotion, whenshe does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. but the child hath strong affections!she loves me, and will love thee!" "thou canst not think," said the minister,glancing aside at hester prynne, "how my heart

dreads this interview, and yearns for it!but, in truth, as i already told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar with me.they will not climb my knee, nor prattle in my ear, nor answer to my smile, but standapart, and eye me strangely. even little babes, when i take them in my arms, weep bitterly.yet pearl, twice in her little lifetime, hath been kind to me! the first time—thou knowestit well! the last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house of yonder stern oldgovernor." "and thou didst plead so bravely in her behalfand mine!" answered the mother. "i remember it; and so shall little pearl. fear nothing.she may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee!"

by this time pearl had reached the marginof the brook, and stood on the further side, gazing silently at hester and the clergyman,who still sat together on the mossy tree-trunk waiting to receive her. just where she hadpaused, the brook chanced to form a pool so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfectimage of her little figure, with all the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornmentof flowers and wreathed foliage, but more refined and spiritualized than the reality.this image, so nearly identical with the living pearl, seemed to communicate somewhat of itsown shadowy and intangible quality to the child herself. it was strange, the way inwhich pearl stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forestgloom, herself, meanwhile, all glorified with

a ray of sunshine, that was attracted thitherwardas by a certain sympathy. in the brook beneath stood another child—another and the same—withlikewise its ray of golden light. hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizingmanner, estranged from pearl, as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, hadstrayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainlyseeking to return to it. there were both truth and error in the impression;the child and mother were estranged, but through hester's fault, not pearl's. since the latterrambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother'sfeelings, and so modified the aspect of them all, that pearl, the returning wanderer, couldnot find her wonted place, and hardly knew

where she was. "i have a strange fancy," observed the sensitiveminister, "that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst nevermeet thy pearl again. or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhoodtaught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream? pray hasten her, for this delay hasalready imparted a tremor to my nerves." "come, dearest child!" said hester encouragingly,and stretching out both her arms. "how slow thou art! when hast thou been so sluggishbefore now? here is a friend of mine, who must be thy friend also. thou wilt have twiceas much love henceforward as thy mother alone could give thee! leap across the brook andcome to us. thou canst leap like a young deer!"

pearl, without responding in any manner tothese honey-sweet expressions, remained on the other side of the brook. now she fixedher bright wild eyes on her mother, now on the minister, and now included them both inthe same glance, as if to detect and explain to herself the relation which they bore toone another. for some unaccountable reason, as arthur dimmesdale felt the child's eyesupon himself, his hand—with that gesture so habitual as to have become involuntary—stoleover his heart. at length, assuming a singular air of authority, pearl stretched out herhand, with the small forefinger extended, and pointing evidently towards her mother'sbreast. and beneath, in the mirror of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and sunnyimage of little pearl, pointing her small

forefinger too. "thou strange child! why dost thou not cometo me?" exclaimed hester.pearl still pointed with her forefinger, and a frown gathered on her brow—the more impressivefrom the childish, the almost baby-like aspect of the features that conveyed it. as her motherstill kept beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of unaccustomedsmiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more imperious look and gesture. in thebrook, again, was the fantastic beauty of the image, with its reflected frown, its pointedfinger, and imperious gesture, giving emphasis to the aspect of little pearl.

"hasten, pearl, or i shall be angry with thee!"cried hester prynne, who, however, inured to such behaviour on the elf-child's partat other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. "leap acrossthe brook, naughty child, and run hither! else i must come to thee!" but pearl, not a whit startled at her mother'sthreats any more than mollified by her entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of passion,gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions.she accompanied this wild outbreak with piercing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on allsides, so that, alone as she was in her childish and unreasonable wrath, it seemed as if ahidden multitude were lending her their sympathy

and encouragement. seen in the brook oncemore was the shadowy wrath of pearl's image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stampingits foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, still pointing its small forefingerat hester's bosom. "i see what ails the child," whispered hesterto the clergyman, and turning pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her troubleand annoyance, "children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed aspectof things that are daily before their eyes. pearl misses something that she has alwaysseen me wear!" "i pray you," answered the minister, "if thouhast any means of pacifying the child, do it forthwith! save it were the cankered wrathof an old witch like mistress hibbins," added

he, attempting to smile, "i know nothing thati would not sooner encounter than this passion in a child. in pearl's young beauty, as inthe wrinkled witch, it has a preternatural effect. pacify her if thou lovest me!" hester turned again towards pearl with a crimsonblush upon her cheek, a conscious glance aside clergyman, and then a heavy sigh, while, evenbefore she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a deadly pallor. "pearl," said she sadly, "look down at thyfeet! there!—before thee!—on the hither side of the brook!" the child turned her eyes to the point indicated,and there lay the scarlet letter so close

upon the margin of the stream that the goldembroidery was reflected in it. "bring it hither!" said hester. "come thou and take it up!" answered pearl. "was ever such a child!" observed hester asideto the minister. "oh, i have much to tell thee about her! but, in very truth, she isright as regards this hateful token. i must bear its torture yet a little longer—onlya few days longer—until we shall have left this region, and look back hither as to aland which we have dreamed of. the forest cannot hide it! the mid-ocean shall take itfrom my hand, and swallow it up for ever!" with these words she advanced to the marginof the brook, took up the scarlet letter,

and fastened it again into her bosom. hopefully,but a moment ago, as hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there was a senseof inevitable doom upon her as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate.she had flung it into infinite space! she had drawn an hour's free breath! and hereagain was the scarlet misery glittering on the old spot! so it ever is, whether thustypified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom. hesternext gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair and confined them beneath her cap. asif there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richnessof her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her.

when the dreary change was wrought, she extendedher hand to pearl."dost thou know thy mother now, child?", asked she, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone."wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has her shame uponher—now that she is sad?" "yes; now i will!" answered the child, boundingacross the brook, and clasping hester in her arms "now thou art my mother indeed! and iam thy little pearl!" in a mood of tenderness that was not usualwith her, she drew down her mother's head, and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. butthen—by a kind of necessity that always impelled this child to alloy whatever comfortshe might chance to give with a throb of anguish—pearl

put up her mouth and kissed the scarlet letter,too. "that was not kind!" said hester. "when thouhast shown me a little love, thou mockest me!" "why doth the minister sit yonder?" askedpearl. "he waits to welcome thee," replied her mother."come thou, and entreat his blessing! he loves thee, my little pearl, and loves thy mother,too. wilt thou not love him? come he longs to greet thee!" "doth he love us?" said pearl, looking upwith acute intelligence into her mother's face. "will he go back with us, hand in hand,we three together, into the town?"

"not now, my child," answered hester. "butin days to come he will walk hand in hand with us. we will have a home and firesideof our own; and thou shalt sit upon his knee; and he will teach thee many things, and lovethee dearly. thou wilt love him—wilt thou not?" "and will he always keep his hand over hisheart?" inquired pearl."foolish child, what a question is that!" exclaimed her mother."come, and ask his blessing!" but, whether influenced by the jealousy thatseems instinctive with every petted child towards a dangerous rival, or from whatevercaprice of her freakish nature, pearl would

show no favour to the clergyman. it was onlyby an exertion of force that her mother brought her up to him, hanging back, and manifestingher reluctance by odd grimaces; of which, ever since her babyhood, she had possesseda singular variety, and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of differentaspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. the minister—painfully embarrassed,but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child's kindlier regards—bentforward, and impressed one on her brow. hereupon, pearl broke away from her mother, and, runningto the brook, stooped over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss wasquite washed off and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water. she then remainedapart, silently watching hester and the clergyman;

while they talked together and made such arrangementsas were suggested by their new position and the purposes soon to be fulfilled. and now this fateful interview had come toa close. the dell was to be left in solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with theirmultitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no mortal bethe wiser. and the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with whichits little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble,with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore. xx. the minister in a maze

as the minister departed, in advance of hesterprynne and little pearl, he threw a backward glance, half expecting that he should discoveronly some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly fadinginto the twilight of the woods. so great a vicissitude in his life could not at oncebe received as real. but there was hester, clad in her gray robe, still standing besidethe tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had eversince been covering with moss, so that these two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burdenon them, might there sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace. andthere was pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook—now that the intrusivethird person was gone—and taking her old

place by her mother's side. so the ministerhad not fallen asleep and dreamed! in order to free his mind from this indistinctnessand duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled andmore thoroughly defined the plans which hester and himself had sketched for their departure.it had been determined between them that the old world, with its crowds and cities, offeredthem a more eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of new england or all america,with its alternatives of an indian wigwam, or the few settlements of europeans scatteredthinly along the sea-board. not to speak of the clergyman's health, so inadequate to sustainthe hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire developmentwould secure him a home only in the midst

of civilization and refinement; the higherthe state the more delicately adapted to it the man. in furtherance of this choice, itso happened that a ship lay in the harbour; one of those unquestionable cruisers, frequentat that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surfacewith a remarkable irresponsibility of character. this vessel had recently arrived from thespanish main, and within three days' time would sail for bristol. hester prynne—whosevocation, as a self-enlisted sister of charity, had brought her acquainted with the captainand crew—could take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a childwith all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable.

the minister had inquired of hester, withno little interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. itwould probably be on the fourth day from the present. "this is most fortunate!" he hadthen said to himself. now, why the reverend mr. dimmesdale considered it so very fortunatewe hesitate to reveal. nevertheless—to hold nothing back from the reader—it was because,on the third day from the present, he was to preach the election sermon; and, as suchan occasion formed an honourable epoch in the life of a new england clergyman, he couldnot have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career."at least, they shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that i leave no publicduty unperformed or ill-performed!" sad, indeed,

that an introspection so profound and acuteas this poor minister's should be so miserably deceived! we have had, and may still have,worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence,at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease that had long since begun to eat intothe real substance of his character. no man, for any considerable period, can wear oneface to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to whichmay be the true. the excitement of mr. dimmesdale's feelingsas he returned from his interview with hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, andhurried him townward at a rapid pace. the pathway among the woods seemed wilder, moreuncouth with its rude natural obstacles, and

less trodden by the foot of man, than he rememberedit on his outward journey. but he leaped across the plashy places, thrust himself throughthe clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame, inshort, all the difficulties of the track, with an unweariable activity that astonishedhim. he could not but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath he hadtoiled over the same ground, only two days before. as he drew near the town, he tookan impression of change from the series of familiar objects that presented themselves.it seemed not yesterday, not one, not two, but many days, or even years ago, since hehad quitted them. there, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he rememberedit, and all the peculiarities of the houses,

with the due multitude of gable-peaks, anda weather-cock at every point where his memory suggested one. not the less, however, camethis importunately obtrusive sense of change. the same was true as regarded the acquaintanceswhom he met, and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the little town. theylooked neither older nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor couldthe creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was impossible to describein what respect they differed from the individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a partingglance; and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him of their mutability.a similar impression struck him most remarkably as he passed under the walls of his own church.the edifice had so very strange, and yet so

familiar an aspect, that mr. dimmesdale'smind vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a dream hitherto, orthat he was merely dreaming about it now. this phenomenon, in the various shapes whichit assumed, indicated no external change, but so sudden and important a change in thespectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a single day had operatedon his consciousness like the lapse of years. the minister's own will, and hester's will,and the fate that grew between them, had wrought this transformation. it was the same townas heretofore, but the same minister returned not from the forest. he might have said tothe friends who greeted him—"i am not the man for whom you take me! i left him yonderin the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell,

by a mossy tree trunk, and near a melancholybrook! go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated figure, his thin cheek, hiswhite, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow, be not flung down there, like a cast-off garment!" hisfriends, no doubt, would still have insisted with him—"thou art thyself the man!" butthe error would have been their own, not his. before mr. dimmesdale reached home, his innerman gave him other evidences of a revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling. in truth,nothing short of a total change of dynasty and moral code, in that interior kingdom,was adequate to account for the impulses now communicated to the unfortunate and startledminister. at every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other,with a sense that it would be at once involuntary

and intentional, in spite of himself, yetgrowing out of a profounder self than that which opposed the impulse. for instance, hemet one of his own deacons. the good old man addressed him with the paternal affectionand patriarchal privilege which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and hisstation in the church, entitled him to use and, conjoined with this, the deep, almostworshipping respect, which the minister's professional and private claims alike demanded.never was there a more beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom may comportwith the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a lower social rank, and inferiororder of endowment, towards a higher. now, during a conversation of some two or threemoments between the reverend mr. dimmesdale

and this excellent and hoary-bearded deacon,it was only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from utteringcertain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion-supper.he absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself inutterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without hishaving fairly given it. and, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoidlaughing, to imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal deacon would have been petrifiedby his minister's impiety. again, another incident of the same nature.hurrying along the street, the reverend mr. dimmesdale encountered the eldest female memberof his church, a most pious and exemplary

old dame, poor, widowed, lonely, and witha heart as full of reminiscences about her dead husband and children, and her dead friendsof long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied gravestones. yet all this, which wouldelse have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old soul,by religious consolations and the truths of scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continuallyfor more than thirty years. and since mr. dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the goodgrandam's chief earthly comfort—which, unless it had been likewise a heavenly comfort, couldhave been none at all—was to meet her pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and berefreshed with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing gospel truth, from his beloved lips, intoher dulled, but rapturously attentive ear.

but, on this occasion, up to the moment ofputting his lips to the old woman's ear, mr. dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls wouldhave it, could recall no text of scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and,as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul.the instilment thereof into her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to dropdown dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous infusion. what he reallydid whisper, the minister could never afterwards recollect. there was, perhaps, a fortunatedisorder in his utterance, which failed to impart any distinct idea to the good widowscomprehension, or which providence interpreted after a method of its own. assuredly, as theminister looked back, he beheld an expression

of divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemedlike the shine of the celestial city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy pale. again, a third instance. after parting fromthe old church member, he met the youngest sister of them all. it was a maiden newly-won—andwon by the reverend mr. dimmesdale's own sermon, on the sabbath after his vigil—to barterthe transitory pleasures of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume brightersubstance as life grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with finalglory. she was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in paradise. the minister knewwell that he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity of her heart, whichhung its snowy curtains about his image, imparting

to religion the warmth of love, and to lovea religious purity. satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl away fromher mother's side, and thrown her into the pathway of this sorely tempted, or—shallwe not rather say?—this lost and desperate man. as she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whisperedhim to condense into small compass, and drop into her tender bosom a germ of evil thatwould be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes. such was his senseof power over this virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt potentto blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all its oppositewith but a word. so—with a mightier struggle than he had yet sustained—he held his genevacloak before his face, and hurried onward,

making no sign of recognition, and leavingthe young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. she ransacked her conscience—whichwas full of harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag—and took herselfto task, poor thing! for a thousand imaginary faults, and went about her household dutieswith swollen eyelids the next morning. before the minister had time to celebratehis victory over this last temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more ludicrous,and almost as horrible. it was—we blush to tell it—it was to stop short in the road,and teach some very wicked words to a knot of little puritan children who were playingthere, and had but just begun to talk. denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth,he met a drunken seaman, one of the ship's

crew from the spanish main. and here, sincehe had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor mr. dimmesdale longed at least to shakehands with the tarry black-guard, and recreate himself with a few improper jests, such asdissolute sailors so abound with, and a volley of good, round, solid, satisfactory, and heaven-defyingoaths! it was not so much a better principle, as partly his natural good taste, and stillmore his buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him safely through the lattercrisis. "what is it that haunts and tempts me thus?"cried the minister to himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his handagainst his forehead. "am i mad? or am i given over utterly to thefiend? did i make a contract with him in the

forest, and sign it with my blood? and doeshe now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness whichhis most foul imagination can conceive?" at the moment when the reverend mr. dimmesdalethus communed with himself, and struck his forehead with his hand, old mistress hibbins,the reputed witch-lady, is said to have been passing by. she made a very grand appearance,having on a high head-dress, a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famousyellow starch, of which anne turner, her especial friend, had taught her the secret, beforethis last good lady had been hanged for sir thomas overbury's murder. whether the witchhad read the minister's thoughts or no, she came to a full stop, looked shrewdly intohis face, smiled craftily, and—though little

given to converse with clergymen—began aconversation. "so, reverend sir, you have made a visit intothe forest," observed the witch-lady, nodding her high head-dress at him. "the next timei pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and i shall be proud to bear you company.without taking overmuch upon myself my good word will go far towards gaining any strangegentleman a fair reception from yonder potentate you wot of." "i profess, madam," answered the clergyman,with a grave obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good breeding madeimperative—"i profess, on my conscience and character, that i am utterly bewilderedas touching the purport of your words! i went

not into the forest to seek a potentate, neitherdo i, at any future time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the favour of suchpersonage. my one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the apostleeliot, and rejoice with him over the many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!" "ha, ha, ha!" cackled the old witch-lady,still nodding her high head-dress at the minister. "well, well! we must needs talk thus in thedaytime! you carry it off like an old hand! but at midnight, and in the forest, we shallhave other talk together!" she passed on with her aged stateliness, butoften turning back her head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognise a secretintimacy of connexion.

"have i then sold myself," thought the minister,"to the fiend whom, if men say true, this yellow-starched and velveted old hag has chosenfor her prince and master?" the wretched minister! he had made a bargainvery like it! tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself with deliberate choice,as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin. and the infectious poisonof that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. it had stupefiedall blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. scorn,bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was goodand holy, all awoke to tempt, even while they frightened him. and his encounter with oldmistress hibbins, if it were a real incident,

did but show its sympathy and fellowship withwicked mortals, and the world of perverted spirits. he had by this time reached his dwelling onthe edge of the burial ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study. theminister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first betraying himself to the worldby any of those strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually impelledwhile passing through the streets. he entered the accustomed room, and looked around himon its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, withthe same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the forestdell into the town and thitherward. here he

had studied and written; here gone throughfast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray; here borne a hundredthousand agonies! there was the bible, in its rich old hebrew, with moses and the prophetsspeaking to him, and god's voice through all. there on the table, with the inky pen besideit, was an unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his thoughts hadceased to gush out upon the page two days before. he knew that it was himself, the thinand white-cheeked minister, who had done and suffered these things, and written thus farinto the election sermon! but he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self withscornful pitying, but half-envious curiosity. that self was gone. another man had returnedout of the forest—a wiser one—with a knowledge

of hidden mysteries which the simplicity ofthe former never could have reached. a bitter kind of knowledge that! while occupied with these reflections, a knockcame at the door of the study, and the minister said, "come in!"—not wholly devoid of anidea that he might behold an evil spirit. and so he did! it was old roger chillingworththat entered. the minister stood white and speechless, with one hand on the hebrew scriptures,and the other spread upon his breast. "welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician"and how found you that godly man, the apostle eliot? but methinks, dear sir, you look pale,as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you. will not my aid berequisite to put you in heart and strength

to preach your election sermon?" "nay, i think not so," rejoined the reverendmr. dimmesdale. "my journey, and the sight of the holy apostle yonder, and the free airwhich i have breathed have done me good, after so long confinement in my study. i think toneed no more of your drugs, my kind physician, good though they be, and administered by afriendly hand." all this time roger chillingworth was lookingat the minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient.but, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man's knowledge,or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with hester prynne.the physician knew then that in the minister's

regard he was no longer a trusted friend,but his bitterest enemy. so much being known, it would appear natural that a part of itshould be expressed. it is singular, however, how long a time often passes before wordsembody things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject,may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it. thus the minister felt no apprehensionthat roger chillingworth would touch, in express words, upon the real position which they sustainedtowards one another. yet did the physician, in his dark way, creep frightfully near thesecret. "were it not better," said he, "that you usemy poor skill tonight? verily, dear sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorousfor this occasion of the election discourse.

the people look for great things from you,apprehending that another year may come about and find their pastor gone." "yes, to another world," replied the ministerwith pious resignation. "heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, i hardlythink to tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of another year! but touching yourmedicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body i need it not." "i joy to hear it," answered the physician."it may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect. happyman were i, and well deserving of new england's gratitude, could i achieve this cure!"

"i thank you from my heart, most watchfulfriend," said the reverend mr. dimmesdale with a solemn smile. "i thank you, and canbut requite your good deeds with my prayers." "a good man's prayers are golden recompense!"rejoined old roger chillingworth, as he took his leave. "yea, they are the current goldcoin of the new jerusalem, with the king's own mint mark on them!" left alone, the minister summoned a servantof the house, and requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous appetite.then flinging the already written pages of the election sermon into the fire, he forthwithbegan another, which he wrote with such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, thathe fancied himself inspired; and only wondered

that heaven should see fit to transmit thegrand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul an organ pipe as he. however, leavingthat mystery to solve itself, or go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward with earnesthaste and ecstasy. thus the night fled away, as if it were awinged steed, and he careering on it; morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the curtains;and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study, and laid it right across the minister'sbedazzled eyes. there he was, with the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurabletract of written space behind him! xxi. the new england holiday betimes in the morning of the day on whichthe new governor was to receive his office

at the hands of the people, hester prynneand little pearl came into the market-place. it was already thronged with the craftsmenand other plebeian inhabitants of the town, in considerable numbers, among whom, likewise,were many rough figures, whose attire of deer-skins marked them as belonging to some of the forestsettlements, which surrounded the little metropolis of the colony. on this public holiday, as on all other occasionsfor seven years past, hester was clad in a garment of coarse gray cloth. not more byits hue than by some indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect of makingher fade personally out of sight and outline; while again the scarlet letter brought herback from this twilight indistinctness, and

revealed her under the moral aspect of itsown illumination. her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietudewhich they were accustomed to behold there. it was like a mask; or, rather like the frozencalmness of a dead woman's features; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that hesterwas actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the worldwith which she still seemed to mingle. it might be, on this one day, that there wasan expression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to be detected now; unless somepreternaturally gifted observer should have first read the heart, and have afterwardssought a corresponding development in the countenance and mien. such a spiritual seermight have conceived, that, after sustaining

the gaze of the multitude through severalmiserable years as a necessity, a penance, and something which it was a stern religionto endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered it freely and voluntarily, inorder to convert what had so long been agony into a kind of triumph. "look your last onthe scarlet letter and its wearer!"—the people's victim and lifelong bond-slave, asthey fancied her, might say to them. "yet a little while, and she will be beyond yourreach! a few hours longer and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbolwhich ye have caused to burn on her bosom!" nor were it an inconsistency too improbableto be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of regret in hester's mind,at the moment when she was about to win her

freedom from the pain which had been thusdeeply incorporated with her being. might there not be an irresistible desire to quaffa last, long, breathless draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with which nearly allher years of womanhood had been perpetually flavoured. the wine of life, henceforth tobe presented to her lips, must be indeed rich, delicious, and exhilarating, in its chasedand golden beaker, or else leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of bitternesswherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency. pearl was decked out with airy gaiety. itwould have been impossible to guess that this bright and sunny apparition owed its existenceto the shape of gloomy gray; or that a fancy,

at once so gorgeous and so delicate as musthave been requisite to contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved atask perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a peculiarity to hester's simplerobe. the dress, so proper was it to little pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitabledevelopment and outward manifestation of her character, no more to be separated from herthan the many-hued brilliancy from a butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf ofa bright flower. as with these, so with the child; her garb was all of one idea with hernature. on this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular inquietude and excitementin her mood, resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that sparkles andflashes with the varied throbbings of the

breast on which it is displayed. childrenhave always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them: always, especially,a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances;and therefore pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the verydance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness ofhester's brow. this effervescence made her flit with a bird-likemovement, rather than walk by her mother's side. she broke continually into shouts of a wild,inarticulate, and sometimes piercing music. when they reached the market-place, she becamestill more restless, on perceiving the stir

and bustle that enlivened the spot; for itwas usually more like the broad and lonesome green before a village meeting-house, thanthe centre of a town's business. "why, what is this, mother?" cried she. "whereforehave all the people left their work to-day? is it a play-day for the whole world? see,there is the blacksmith! he has washed his sooty face, and put on his sabbath-day clothes,and looks as if he would gladly be merry, if any kind body would only teach him how!and there is master brackett, the old jailer, nodding and smiling at me. why does he doso, mother?" "he remembers thee a little babe, my child,"answered hester. "he should not nod and smile at me, for allthat—the black, grim, ugly-eyed old man!"

said pearl. "he may nod at thee, if he will;for thou art clad in gray, and wearest the scarlet letter. but see, mother, how manyfaces of strange people, and indians among them, and sailors! what have they all cometo do, here in the market-place?" "they wait to see the procession pass," saidhester. "for the governor and the magistrates are to go by, and the ministers, and all thegreat people and good people, with the music and the soldiers marching before them." "and will the minister be there?" asked pearl."and will he hold out both his hands to me, as when thou ledst me to him from the brook-side?" "he will be there, child," answered her mother,"but he will not greet thee to-day, nor must

thou greet him." "what a strange, sad man is he!" said thechild, as if speaking partly to herself. "in the dark nighttime he calls us to him, andholds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! and in thedeep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talkswith thee, sitting on a heap of moss! and he kisses my forehead, too, so that the littlebrook would hardly wash it off! but, here, in the sunny day, and among all the people,he knows us not; nor must we know him! a strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over hisheart!" "be quiet, pearl—thou understandest notthese things," said her mother. "think not

now of the minister, but look about thee,and see how cheery is everybody's face to-day. the children have come from their schools,and the grown people from their workshops and their fields, on purpose to be happy,for, to-day, a new man is beginning to rule over them; and so—as has been the customof mankind ever since a nation was first gathered—they make merry and rejoice: as if a good and goldenyear were at length to pass over the poor old world!" it was as hester said, in regard to the unwontedjollity that brightened the faces of the people. into this festal season of the year—as italready was, and continued to be during the greater part of two centuries—the puritanscompressed whatever mirth and public joy they

deemed allowable to human infirmity; therebyso far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appearedscarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction. but we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sabletinge, which undoubtedly characterized the mood and manners of the age. the persons nowin the market-place of boston had not been born to an inheritance of puritanic gloom.they were native englishmen, whose fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the elizabethanepoch; a time when the life of england, viewed as one great mass, would appear to have beenas stately, magnificent, and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed. had they followedtheir hereditary taste, the new england settlers

would have illustrated all events of publicimportance by bonfires, banquets, pageantries, and processions. nor would it have been impracticable,in the observance of majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity,and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state, whicha nation, at such festivals, puts on. there was some shadow of an attempt of this kindin the mode of celebrating the day on which the political year of the colony commenced.the dim reflection of a remembered splendour, a colourless and manifold diluted repetitionof what they had beheld in proud old london—we will not say at a royal coronation, but ata lord mayor's show—might be traced in the customs which our forefathers instituted,with reference to the annual installation

of magistrates. the fathers and founders ofthe commonwealth—the statesman, the priest, and the soldier—seemed it a duty then toassume the outward state and majesty, which, in accordance with antique style, was lookedupon as the proper garb of public and social eminence. all came forth to move in processionbefore the people's eye, and thus impart a needed dignity to the simple framework ofa government so newly constructed. then, too, the people were countenanced, ifnot encouraged, in relaxing the severe and close application to their various modes ofrugged industry, which at all other times, seemed of the same piece and material withtheir religion. here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merrimentwould so readily have found in the england

of elizabeth's time, or that of james—norude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleemanwith an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no merryandrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps a hundred years old, but still effective,by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy. all such professorsof the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by therigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which give law its vitality. notthe less, however, the great, honest face of the people smiled—grimly, perhaps, butwidely too. nor were sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and sharedin, long ago, at the country fairs and on

the village-greens of england; and which itwas thought well to keep alive on this new soil, for the sake of the courage and manlinessthat were essential in them. wrestling matches, in the different fashions of cornwall anddevonshire, were seen here and there about the market-place; in one corner, there wasa friendly bout at quarterstaff; and—what attracted most interest of all—on the platformof the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing anexhibition with the buckler and broadsword. but, much to the disappointment of the crowd,this latter business was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, who hadno idea of permitting the majesty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of one ofits consecrated places.

it may not be too much to affirm, on the whole,(the people being then in the first stages of joyless deportment, and the offspring ofsires who had known how to be merry, in their day), that they would compare favourably,in point of holiday keeping, with their descendants, even at so long an interval as ourselves.their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackestshade of puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent yearshave not sufficed to clear it up. we have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gaiety. the picture of human life in the market-place,though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the english emigrants,was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue.

a party of indians—in their savage fineryof curiously embroidered deerskin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armedwith the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear—stood apart with countenances of inflexible gravity,beyond what even the puritan aspect could attain. nor, wild as were these painted barbarians,were they the wildest feature of the scene. this distinction could more justly be claimedby some mariners—a part of the crew of the vessel from the spanish main—who had comeashore to see the humours of election day. they were rough-looking desperadoes, withsun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard; their wide short trousers were confined aboutthe waist by belts, often clasped with a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a longknife, and in some instances, a sword. from

beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf,gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity.they transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding onall others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would havecost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitaefrom pocket flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. it remarkablycharacterised the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a licence wasallowed the seafaring class, not merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more desperatedeeds on their proper element. the sailor of that day would go near to be arraignedas a pirate in our own. there could be little

doubt, for instance, that this very ship'screw, though no unfavourable specimens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty,as we should phrase it, of depredations on the spanish commerce, such as would have perilledall their necks in a modern court of justice. but the sea in those old times heaved, swelled,and foamed very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardlyany attempts at regulation by human law. the buccaneer on the wave might relinquish hiscalling and become at once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, evenin the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it wasdisreputable to traffic or casually associate. thus the puritan elders in their black cloaks,starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats,

smiled not unbenignantly at the clamour andrude deportment of these jolly seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversionwhen so reputable a citizen as old roger chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter the market-placein close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel. the latter was by far the most showy and gallantfigure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. he wore a profusionof ribbons on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a goldchain, and surmounted with a feather. there was a sword at his side and a sword-cut onhis forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to displaythan hide. a landsman could hardly have worn

this garb and shown this face, and worn andshown them both with such a galliard air, without undergoing stern question before amagistrate, and probably incurring a fine or imprisonment, or perhaps an exhibitionin the stocks. as regarded the shipmaster, however, all was looked upon as pertainingto the character, as to a fish his glistening scales. after parting from the physician, the commanderof the bristol ship strolled idly through the market-place; until happening to approachthe spot where hester prynne was standing, he appeared to recognise, and did not hesitateto address her. as was usually the case wherever hester stood, a small vacant area—a sortof magic circle—had formed itself about

her, into which, though the people were elbowingone another at a little distance, none ventured or felt disposed to intrude. it was a forcibletype of the moral solitude in which the scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer; partlyby her own reserve, and partly by the instinctive, though no longer so unkindly, withdrawal ofher fellow-creatures. now, if never before, it answered a good purpose by enabling hesterand the seaman to speak together without risk of being overheard; and so changed was hesterprynne's repute before the public, that the matron in town, most eminent for rigid morality,could not have held such intercourse with less result of scandal than herself. "so, mistress," said the mariner, "i mustbid the steward make ready one more berth

than you bargained for! no fear of scurvyor ship fever this voyage. what with the ship's surgeon and this other doctor, our only dangerwill be from drug or pill; more by token, as there is a lot of apothecary's stuff aboard,which i traded for with a spanish vessel." "what mean you?" inquired hester, startledmore than she permitted to appear. "have you another passenger?" "why, know you not," cried the shipmaster,"that this physician here—chillingworth he calls himself—is minded to try my cabin-farewith you? ay, ay, you must have known it; for he tells me he is of your party, and aclose friend to the gentleman you spoke of—he that is in peril from these sour old puritanrulers."

"they know each other well, indeed," repliedhester, with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost consternation. "they have longdwelt together." nothing further passed between the marinerand hester prynne. but at that instant she beheld old roger chillingworth himself, standingin the remotest corner of the market-place and smiling on her; a smile which—acrossthe wide and bustling square, and through all the talk and laughter, and various thoughts,moods, and interests of the crowd—conveyed secret and fearful meaning. xxii. the procession before hester prynne could call together herthoughts, and consider what was practicable

to be done in this new and startling aspectof affairs, the sound of military music was heard approaching along a contiguous street.it denoted the advance of the procession of magistrates and citizens on its way towardsthe meeting-house: where, in compliance with a custom thus early established, and eversince observed, the reverend mr. dimmesdale was to deliver an election sermon. soon the head of the procession showed itself,with a slow and stately march, turning a corner, and making its way across the market-place.first came the music. it comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly adaptedto one another, and played with no great skill; but yet attaining the great object for whichthe harmony of drum and clarion addresses

itself to the multitude—that of impartinga higher and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes before the eye. littlepearl at first clapped her hands, but then lost for an instant the restless agitationthat had kept her in a continual effervescence throughout the morning; she gazed silently,and seemed to be borne upward like a floating sea-bird on the long heaves and swells ofsound. but she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sunshine on theweapons and bright armour of the military company, which followed after the music, andformed the honorary escort of the procession. this body of soldiery—which still sustainsa corporate existence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient and honourable fame—wascomposed of no mercenary materials. its ranks

were filled with gentlemen who felt the stirringsof martial impulse, and sought to establish a kind of college of arms, where, as in anassociation of knights templars, they might learn the science, and, so far as peacefulexercise would teach them, the practices of war. the high estimation then placed uponthe military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of thecompany. some of them, indeed, by their services in the low countries and on other fields ofeuropean warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name and pomp of soldiership.the entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with plumage nodding over theirbright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspire to equal.

and yet the men of civil eminence, who cameimmediately behind the military escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye.even in outward demeanour they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughtystride look vulgar, if not absurd. it was an age when what we call talent had far lessconsideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of charactera great deal more. the people possessed by hereditary right the quality of reverence,which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, andwith a vastly diminished force in the selection and estimate of public men. the change maybe for good or ill, and is partly, perhaps, for both. in that old day the english settleron these rude shores—having left king, nobles,

and all degrees of awful rank behind, whilestill the faculty and necessity of reverence was strong in him—bestowed it on the whitehair and venerable brow of age—on long-tried integrity—on solid wisdom and sad-colouredexperience—on endowments of that grave and weighty order which gave the idea of permanence,and comes under the general definition of respectability. these primitive statesmen,therefore—bradstreet, endicott, dudley, bellingham, and their compeers—who wereelevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant,but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, rather than activity of intellect. they hadfortitude and self-reliance, and in time of difficulty or peril stood up for the welfareof the state like a line of cliffs against

a tempestuous tide. the traits of characterhere indicated were well represented in the square cast of countenance and large physicaldevelopment of the new colonial magistrates. so far as a demeanour of natural authoritywas concerned, the mother country need not have been ashamed to see these foremost menof an actual democracy adopted into the house of peers, or make the privy council of thesovereign. next in order to the magistrates came theyoung and eminently distinguished divine, from whose lips the religious discourse ofthe anniversary was expected. his was the profession at that era in which intellectualability displayed itself far more than in political life; for—leaving a higher motiveout of the question it offered inducements

powerful enough in the almost worshippingrespect of the community, to win the most aspiring ambition into its service. even politicalpower—as in the case of increase mather—was within the grasp of a successful priest. it was the observation of those who beheldhim now, that never, since mr. dimmesdale first set his foot on the new england shore,had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pacein the procession. there was no feebleness of step as at other times; his frame was notbent, nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. yet, if the clergyman were rightlyviewed, his strength seemed not of the body. it might be spiritual and imparted to himby angelical ministrations. it might be the

exhilaration of that potent cordial whichis distilled only in the furnace-glow of earnest and long-continued thought. or perchance hissensitive temperament was invigorated by the loud and piercing music that swelled heaven-ward,and uplifted him on its ascending wave. nevertheless, so abstracted was his look, it might be questionedwhether mr. dimmesdale even heard the music. there was his body, moving onward, and withan unaccustomed force. but where was his mind? far and deep in its own region, busying itself,with preternatural activity, to marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soonto issue thence; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing of what was around him;but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame and carried it along, unconscious ofthe burden, and converting it to spirit like

itself. men of uncommon intellect, who havegrown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw thelife of many days and then are lifeless for as many more. hester prynne, gazing steadfastly at the clergyman,felt a dreary influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not, unless thathe seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach. one glance of recognitionshe had imagined must needs pass between them. she thought of the dim forest, with its littledell of solitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand-in-hand,they had mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholy murmur of the brook.how deeply had they known each other then!

and was this the man? she hardly knew himnow! he, moving proudly past, enveloped as it were, in the rich music, with the processionof majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unattainable in his worldly position, andstill more so in that far vista of his unsympathizing thoughts, through which she now beheld him!her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly asshe had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the clergyman and herself. andthus much of woman was there in hester, that she could scarcely forgive him—least ofall now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching fate might be heard, nearer, nearer,nearer!—for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world—whileshe groped darkly, and stretched forth her

cold hands, and found him not. pearl either saw and responded to her mother'sfeelings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister.while the procession passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, like a birdon the point of taking flight. when the whole had gone by, she looked up into hester's face— "mother," said she, "was that the same ministerthat kissed me by the brook?" "hold thy peace, dear little pearl!" whisperedher mother. "we must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest." "i could not be sure that it was he—so strangehe looked," continued the child. "else i would

have run to him, and bid him kiss me now,before all the people, even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. what would the ministerhave said, mother? would he have clapped his hand over his heart, and scowled on me, andbid me begone?" "what should he say, pearl," answered hester,"save that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be given in the market-place?well for thee, foolish child, that thou didst not speak to him!" another shade of the same sentiment, in referenceto mr. dimmesdale, was expressed by a person whose eccentricities—insanity, as we shouldterm it—led her to do what few of the townspeople would have ventured on—to begin a conversationwith the wearer of the scarlet letter in public.

it was mistress hibbins, who, arrayed in greatmagnificence, with a triple ruff, a broidered stomacher, a gown of rich velvet, and a gold-headedcane, had come forth to see the procession. as this ancient lady had the renown (whichsubsequently cost her no less a price than her life) of being a principal actor in allthe works of necromancy that were continually going forward, the crowd gave way before her,and seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried the plague among its gorgeousfolds. seen in conjunction with hester prynne—kindly as so many now felt towards the latter—thedread inspired by mistress hibbins had doubled, and caused a general movement from that partof the market-place in which the two women stood.

"now, what mortal imagination could conceiveit?" whispered the old lady confidentially to hester. "yonder divine man! that sainton earth, as the people uphold him to be, and as—i must needs say—he really looks!who, now, that saw him pass in the procession, would think how little while it is since hewent forth out of his study—chewing a hebrew text of scripture in his mouth, i warrant—totake an airing in the forest! aha! we know what that means, hester prynne! but truly,forsooth, i find it hard to believe him the same man. many a church member saw i, walkingbehind the music, that has danced in the same measure with me, when somebody was fiddler,and, it might be, an indian powwow or a lapland wizard changing hands with us! that is buta trifle, when a woman knows the world. but

this minister. couldst thou surely tell, hester,whether he was the same man that encountered thee on the forest path?" "madam, i know not of what you speak," answeredhester prynne, feeling mistress hibbins to be of infirm mind; yet strangely startledand awe-stricken by the confidence with which she affirmed a personal connexion betweenso many persons (herself among them) and the evil one. "it is not for me to talk lightlyof a learned and pious minister of the word, like the reverend mr. dimmesdale." "fie, woman—fie!" cried the old lady, shakingher finger at hester. "dost thou think i have been to the forest so many times, and haveyet no skill to judge who else has been there?

yea, though no leaf of the wild garlands whichthey wore while they danced be left in their hair! i know thee, hester, for i behold thetoken. we may all see it in the sunshine! and it glows like a red flame in the dark.thou wearest it openly, so there need be no question about that. but this minister! letme tell thee in thine ear! when the black man sees one of his own servants, signed andsealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the reverend mr. dimmesdale, he hath a wayof ordering matters so that the mark shall be disclosed, in open daylight, to the eyesof all the world! what is that the minister seeks to hide, with his hand always over hisheart? ha, hester prynne?" "what is it, good mistress hibbins?" eagerlyasked little pearl.

"hast thou seen it?""no matter, darling!" responded mistress hibbins, making pearl a profound reverence. "thou thyselfwilt see it, one time or another. they say, child, thou art of the lineage of the princeof air! wilt thou ride with me some fine night to see thy father? then thou shalt know whereforethe minister keeps his hand over his heart!" laughing so shrilly that all the market-placecould hear her, the weird old gentlewoman took her departure. by this time the preliminary prayer had beenoffered in the meeting-house, and the accents of the reverend mr. dimmesdale were heardcommencing his discourse. an irresistible feeling kept hester near the spot. as thesacred edifice was too much thronged to admit

another auditor, she took up her positionclose beside the scaffold of the pillory. it was in sufficient proximity to bring thewhole sermon to her ears, in the shape of an indistinct but varied murmur and flow ofthe minister's very peculiar voice. this vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment,insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher spoke,might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. like all othermusic, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue nativeto the human heart, wherever educated. muffled as the sound was by its passage through thechurch walls, hester prynne listened with such intenseness, and sympathized so intimately,that the sermon had throughout a meaning for

her, entirely apart from its indistinguishablewords. these, perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been only a grosser medium,and have clogged the spiritual sense. now she caught the low undertone, as of the windsinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it rose through progressive gradationsof sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe andsolemn grandeur. and yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for everin it an essential character of plaintiveness. a loud or low expression of anguish—thewhisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, that touched a sensibilityin every bosom! at times this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, andscarcely heard sighing amid a desolate silence.

but even when the minister's voice grew highand commanding—when it gushed irrepressibly upward—when it assumed its utmost breadthand power, so overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid walls, anddiffuse itself in the open air—still, if the auditor listened intently, and for thepurpose, he could detect the same cry of pain. what was it? the complaint of a human heart,sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to thegreat heart of mankind; beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness,—at every moment,—in eachaccent,—and never in vain! it was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergymanhis most appropriate power. during all this time, hester stood, statue-like,at the foot of the scaffold. if the minister's

voice had not kept her there, there would,nevertheless, have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hourof her life of ignominy. there was a sense within her—too ill-defined to be made athought, but weighing heavily on her mind—that her whole orb of life, both before and after,was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity. little pearl, meanwhile, had quitted her mother'sside, and was playing at her own will about the market-place. she made the sombre crowdcheerful by her erratic and glistening ray, even as a bird of bright plumage illuminatesa whole tree of dusky foliage by darting to and fro, half seen and half concealed amidthe twilight of the clustering leaves. she

had an undulating, but oftentimes a sharpand irregular movement. it indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day was doublyindefatigable in its tip-toe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother'sdisquietude. whenever pearl saw anything to excite her ever active and wandering curiosity,she flew thitherward, and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as her own property,so far as she desired it, but without yielding the minutest degree of control over her motionsin requital. the puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less inclinedto pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty andeccentricity that shone through her little figure, and sparkled with its activity. sheran and looked the wild indian in the face,

and he grew conscious of a nature wilder thanhis own. thence, with native audacity, but still with a reserve as characteristic, sheflew into the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked wild men of the ocean,as the indians were of the land; and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at pearl,as if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted witha soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time. one of these seafaring men the shipmaster,indeed, who had spoken to hester prynne was so smitten with pearl's aspect, that he attemptedto lay hands upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss. finding it as impossible to touchher as to catch a humming-bird in the air,

he took from his hat the gold chain that wastwisted about it, and threw it to the child. pearl immediately twined it around her neckand waist with such happy skill, that, once seen there, it became a part of her, and itwas difficult to imagine her without it. "thy mother is yonder woman with the scarletletter," said the seaman, "wilt thou carry her a message from me?" "if the message pleases me, i will," answeredpearl. "then tell her," rejoined he, "that i spakeagain with the black-a-visaged, hump shouldered old doctor, and he engages to bring his friend,the gentleman she wots of, aboard with him. so let thy mother take no thought, save forherself and thee. wilt thou tell her this,

thou witch-baby?" "mistress hibbins says my father is the princeof the air!" cried pearl, with a naughty smile. "if thou callest me that ill-name, i shalltell him of thee, and he will chase thy ship with a tempest!" pursuing a zigzag course across the marketplace,the child returned to her mother, and communicated what the mariner had said. hester's strong,calm steadfastly-enduring spirit almost sank, at last, on beholding this dark and grim countenanceof an inevitable doom, which at the moment when a passage seemed to open for the ministerand herself out of their labyrinth of misery—showed itself with an unrelenting smile, right inthe midst of their path.

with her mind harassed by the terrible perplexityin which the shipmaster's intelligence involved her, she was also subjected to another trial.there were many people present from the country round about, who had often heard of the scarletletter, and to whom it had been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated rumours,but who had never beheld it with their own bodily eyes. these, after exhausting othermodes of amusement, now thronged about hester prynne with rude and boorish intrusiveness.unscrupulous as it was, however, it could not bring them nearer than a circuit of severalyards. at that distance they accordingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of therepugnance which the mystic symbol inspired. the whole gang of sailors, likewise, observingthe press of spectators, and learning the

purport of the scarlet letter, came and thrusttheir sunburnt and desperado-looking faces into the ring. even the indians were affectedby a sort of cold shadow of the white man's curiosity and, gliding through the crowd,fastened their snake-like black eyes on hester's bosom, conceiving, perhaps, that the wearerof this brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity amongher people. lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this worn-outsubject languidly reviving itself, by sympathy with what they saw others feel) lounged idlyto the same quarter, and tormented hester prynne, perhaps more than all the rest, withtheir cool, well-acquainted gaze at her familiar shame. hester saw and recognized the selfsamefaces of that group of matrons, who had awaited

her forthcoming from the prison-door sevenyears ago; all save one, the youngest and only compassionate among them, whose burial-robeshe had since made. at the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burningletter, it had strangely become the centre of more remark and excitement, and was thusmade to sear her breast more painfully, than at any time since the first day she put iton. while hester stood in that magic circle ofignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her for ever,the admirable preacher was looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience whose veryinmost spirits had yielded to his control. the sainted minister in the church! the womanof the scarlet letter in the marketplace!

what imagination would have been irreverentenough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both! xxiii. the revelation of the scarlet letter the eloquent voice, on which the souls ofthe listening audience had been borne aloft as on the swelling waves of the sea, at lengthcame to a pause. there was a momentary silence, profound as what should follow the utteranceof oracles. then ensued a murmur and half-hushed tumult, as if the auditors, released fromthe high spell that had transported them into the region of another's mind, were returninginto themselves, with all their awe and wonder still heavy on them. in a moment more thecrowd began to gush forth from the doors of

the church. now that there was an end, theyneeded more breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed,than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame, and had burdenedwith the rich fragrance of his thought. in the open air their rapture broke into speech.the street and the market-place absolutely babbled, from side to side, with applausesof the minister. his hearers could not rest until they had told one another of what eachknew better than he could tell or hear. according to their united testimony, neverhad man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day;nor had inspiration ever breathed through mortal lips more evidently than it did throughhis. its influence could be seen, as it were,

descending upon him, and possessing him, andcontinually lifting him out of the written discourse that lay before him, and fillinghim with ideas that must have been as marvellous to himself as to his audience. his subject,it appeared, had been the relation between the deity and the communities of mankind,with a special reference to the new england which they were here planting in the wilderness.and, as he drew towards the close, a spirit as of prophecy had come upon him, constraininghim to its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of israel were constrained, onlywith this difference, that, whereas the jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin ontheir country, it was his mission to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newlygathered people of the lord. but, throughout

it all, and through the whole discourse, therehad been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could not be interpreted otherwisethan as the natural regret of one soon to pass away. yes; their minister whom they soloved—and who so loved them all, that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh—hadthe foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon leave them in their tears.this idea of his transitory stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the effect whichthe preacher had produced; it was as if an angel, in his passage to the skies, had shakenhis bright wings over the people for an instant—at once a shadow and a splendour—and had sheddown a shower of golden truths upon them. thus, there had come to the reverend mr. dimmesdale—asto most men, in their various spheres, though

seldom recognised until they see it far behindthem—an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph than any previous one, orthan any which could hereafter be. he stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminenceof superiority, to which the gifts or intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a reputationof whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergyman in new england's earliest days, when the professionalcharacter was of itself a lofty pedestal. such was the position which the minister occupied,as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit at the close of his electionsermon. meanwhile hester prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with thescarlet letter still burning on her breast! now was heard again the clamour of the music,and the measured tramp of the military escort

issuing from the church door. the processionwas to be marshalled thence to the town hall, where a solemn banquet would complete theceremonies of the day. once more, therefore, the train of venerableand majestic fathers were seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew backreverently, on either side, as the governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, theholy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them.when they were fairly in the marketplace, their presence was greeted by a shout. this—thoughdoubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the child-like loyalty whichthe age awarded to its rulers—was felt to be an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasmkindled in the auditors by that high strain

of eloquence which was yet reverberating intheir ears. each felt the impulse in himself, and in the same breath, caught it from hisneighbour. within the church, it had hardly been kept down; beneath the sky it pealedupward to the zenith. there were human beings enough, and enough of highly wrought and symphoniousfeeling to produce that more impressive sound than the organ tones of the blast, or thethunder, or the roar of the sea; even that mighty swell of many voices, blended intoone great voice by the universal impulse which makes likewise one vast heart out of the many.never, from the soil of new england had gone up such a shout! never, on new england soilhad stood the man so honoured by his mortal brethren as the preacher!

how fared it with him, then? were there notthe brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head? so etherealised by spiritas he was, and so apotheosised by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the procession,really tread upon the dust of earth? as the ranks of military men and civil fathersmoved onward, all eyes were turned towards the point where the minister was seen to approachamong them. the shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd after anotherobtained a glimpse of him. how feeble and pale he looked, amid all his triumph! theenergy—or say, rather, the inspiration which had held him up, until he should have deliveredthe sacred message that had brought its own strength along with it from heaven—was withdrawn,now that it had so faithfully performed its

office. the glow, which they had just beforebeheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly amongthe late decaying embers. it seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a death-likehue: it was hardly a man with life in him, that tottered on his path so nervously, yettottered, and did not fall! one of his clerical brethren—it was thevenerable john wilson—observing the state in which mr. dimmesdale was left by the retiringwave of intellect and sensibility, stepped forward hastily to offer his support. theminister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man's arm. he still walked onward,if that movement could be so described, which rather resembled the wavering effort of aninfant, with its mother's arms in view, outstretched

to tempt him forward. and now, almost imperceptibleas were the latter steps of his progress, he had come opposite the well-remembered andweather-darkened scaffold, where, long since, with all that dreary lapse of time between,hester prynne had encountered the world's ignominious stare. there stood hester, holdinglittle pearl by the hand! and there was the scarlet letter on her breast! the ministerhere made a pause; although the music still played the stately and rejoicing march towhich the procession moved. it summoned him onward—inward to the festival!—but herehe made a pause. bellingham, for the last few moments, hadkept an anxious eye upon him. he now left his own place in the procession, and advancedto give assistance judging, from mr. dimmesdale's

aspect that he must otherwise inevitably fall.but there was something in the latter's expression that warned back the magistrate, althougha man not readily obeying the vague intimations that pass from one spirit to another. thecrowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder. this earthly faintness, was, in their view,only another phase of the minister's celestial strength; nor would it have seemed a miracletoo high to be wrought for one so holy, had he ascended before their eyes, waxing dimmerand brighter, and fading at last into the light of heaven! he turned towards the scaffold, and stretchedforth his arms. "hester," said he, "come hither! come, mylittle pearl!"

it was a ghastly look with which he regardedthem; but there was something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. the child,with the bird-like motion, which was one of her characteristics, flew to him, and claspedher arms about his knees. hester prynne—slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and againsther strongest will—likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. at this instantold roger chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd—or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed,and evil was his look, he rose up out of some nether region—to snatch back his victimfrom what he sought to do! be that as it might, the old man rushed forward, and caught theminister by the arm. "madman, hold! what is your purpose?" whisperedhe. "wave back that woman! cast off this child!

all shall be well! do not blacken your fame,and perish in dishonour! i can yet save you! would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?" "ha, tempter! methinks thou art too late!"answered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. "thy power is not whatit was! with god's help, i shall escape thee now!" he again extended his hand to the woman ofthe scarlet letter. "hester prynne," cried he, with a piercingearnestness, "in the name of him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at thislast moment, to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable agony—i withheld myselffrom doing seven years ago, come hither now,

and twine thy strength about me! thy strength,hester; but let it be guided by the will which god hath granted me! this wretched and wrongedold man is opposing it with all his might!—with all his own might, and the fiend's! come,hester—come! support me up yonder scaffold." the crowd was in a tumult. the men of rankand dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise,and so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw—unable to receive the explanationwhich most readily presented itself, or to imagine any other—that they remained silentand inactive spectators of the judgement which providence seemed about to work. they beheldthe minister, leaning on hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approachthe scaffold, and ascend its steps; while

still the little hand of the sin-born childwas clasped in his. old roger chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected withthe drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, thereforeto be present at its closing scene. "hadst thou sought the whole earth over,"said he looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret—no high placenor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me—save on this very scaffold!" "thanks be to him who hath led me hither!"answered the minister. yet he trembled, and turned to hester, withan expression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, thatthere was a feeble smile upon his lips.

"is not this better," murmured he, "than whatwe dreamed of in the forest?" "i know not! i know not!" she hurriedly replied."better? yea; so we may both die, and little pearl die with us!" "for thee and pearl, be it as god shall order,"said the minister; "and god is merciful! let me now do the will which he hath made plainbefore my sight. for, hester, i am a dying man. so let me make haste to take my shameupon me!" partly supported by hester prynne, and holdingone hand of little pearl's, the reverend mr. dimmesdale turned to the dignified and venerablerulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the people, whose great heartwas thoroughly appalled yet overflowing with

tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deeplife-matter—which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise—was nowto be laid open to them. the sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the clergyman,and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the earth, to put inhis plea of guilty at the bar of eternal justice. "people of new england!" cried he, with avoice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic—yet had always a tremor throughit, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe—"ye,that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold me here, the one sinnerof the world! at last—at last!—i stand upon the spot where, seven years since, ishould have stood, here, with this woman,

whose arm, more than the little strength wherewithi have crept hitherward, sustains me at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down uponmy face! lo, the scarlet letter which hester wears! ye have all shuddered at it! whereverher walk hath been—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose—ithath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. but there stoodone in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!" it seemed, at this point, as if the ministermust leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. but he fought back the bodily weakness—and,still more, the faintness of heart—that was striving for the mastery with him. hethrew off all assistance, and stepped passionately

forward a pace before the woman and the children. "it was on him!" he continued, with a kindof fierceness; so determined was he to speak out the whole. "god's eye beheld it! the angelswere for ever pointing at it! (the devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with thetouch of his burning finger!) but he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you withthe mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!—and sad, becausehe missed his heavenly kindred! now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you! he bidsyou look again at hester's scarlet letter! he tells you, that, with all its mysterioushorror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, hisown red stigma, is no more than the type of

what has seared his inmost heart! stand anyhere that question god's judgment on a sinner! behold! behold, a dreadful witness of it!" with a convulsive motion, he tore away theministerial band from before his breast. it was revealed! but it were irreverent to describethat revelation. for an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentratedon the ghastly miracle; while the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face,as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. then, down he sank uponthe scaffold! hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. oldroger chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of whichthe life seemed to have departed.

"thou hast escaped me!" he repeated more thanonce. "thou hast escaped me!" "may god forgive thee!" said the minister."thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" he withdrew his dying eyes from the old man,and fixed them on the woman and the child. "my little pearl," said he, feebly and therewas a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay,now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with thechild—"dear little pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest!but now thou wilt?" pearl kissed his lips. a spell was broken.the great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part had developed all her sympathies;and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek,

they were the pledge that she would grow upamid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it.towards her mother, too, pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled. "hester," said the clergyman, "farewell!" "shall we not meet again?" whispered she,bending her face down close to his. "shall we not spend our immortallife together? surely, surely, we have ransomed one another,with all this woe! thou lookest far into eternity, with thosebright dying eyes! then tell me what thou seest!""hush, hester—hush!" said he, with tremulous

solemnity. "the law we broke!—the sin hereawfully revealed!—let these alone be in thy thoughts! i fear! i fear! it may be, that,when we forgot our god—when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul—itwas thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and purereunion. god knows; and he is merciful! he hath proved his mercy, most of all, in myafflictions. by giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! by sending yonderdark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! by bringing me hither,to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! had either of these agonies beenwanting, i had been lost for ever! praised be his name! his will be done! farewell!"

that final word came forth with the minister'sexpiring breath. the multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice ofawe and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur that rolledso heavily after the departed spirit. xxiv. conclusion after many days, when time sufficed for thepeople to arrange their thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there was more thanone account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold. most of the spectators testified to havingseen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a scarlet letter—the very semblance of thatworn by hester prynne—imprinted in the flesh.

as regarded its origin there were variousexplanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural. some affirmed thatthe reverend mr. dimmesdale, on the very day when hester prynne first wore her ignominiousbadge, had begun a course of penance—which he afterwards, in so many futile methods,followed out—by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. others contended that the stigmahad not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old roger chillingworth, being a potentnecromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. others,again and those best able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderfuloperation of his spirit upon the body—whispered their belief, that the awful symbol was theeffect of the ever-active tooth of remorse,

gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, andat last manifesting heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. thereader may choose among these theories. we have thrown all the light we could acquireupon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep printout of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness. it is singular, nevertheless, that certainpersons, who were spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have removedtheir eyes from the reverend mr. dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever onhis breast, more than on a new-born infant's. neither, by their report, had his dying wordsacknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any—the

slightest—connexion on his part, with theguilt for which hester prynne had so long worn the scarlet letter. according to thesehighly-respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying—conscious, also,that the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels—haddesired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to theworld how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own righteousness. after exhaustinglife in his efforts for mankind's spiritual good, he had made the manner of his deatha parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in theview of infinite purity, we are sinners all alike. it was to teach them, that the holiestamongst us has but attained so far above his

fellows as to discern more clearly the mercywhich looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would lookaspiringly upward. without disputing a truth so momentous, we must be allowed to considerthis version of mr. dimmesdale's story as only an instance of that stubborn fidelitywith which a man's friends—and especially a clergyman's—will sometimes uphold hischaracter, when proofs, clear as the mid-day sunshine on the scarlet letter, establishhim a false and sin-stained creature of the dust. the authority which we have chiefly followed—amanuscript of old date, drawn up from the verbal testimony of individuals, some of whomhad known hester prynne, while others had

heard the tale from contemporary witnessesfully confirms the view taken in the foregoing pages. among many morals which press uponus from the poor minister's miserable experience, we put only this into a sentence:—"be true!be true! be true! show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait wherebythe worst may be inferred!" nothing was more remarkable than the changewhich took place, almost immediately after mr. dimmesdale's death, in the appearanceand demeanour of the old man known as roger chillingworth. all his strength and energy—allhis vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him, insomuch that he positivelywithered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed thatlies wilting in the sun. this unhappy man

had made the very principle of his life toconsist in the pursuit and systematic exercise of revenge; and when, by its completest triumphconsummation that evil principle was left with no further material to support it—when,in short, there was no more devil's work on earth for him to do, it only remained forthe unhumanised mortal to betake himself whither his master would find him tasks enough, andpay him his wages duly. but, to all these shadowy beings, so long our near acquaintances—aswell roger chillingworth as his companions we would fain be merciful. it is a curioussubject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge;each renders one individual dependent for

the food of his affections and spiritual fifeupon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn anddesolate by the withdrawal of his subject. philosophically considered, therefore, thetwo passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestialradiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. in the spiritual world, the old physicianand the minister—mutual victims as they have been—may, unawares, have found theirearthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love. leaving this discussion apart, we have a matterof business to communicate to the reader. at old roger chillingworth's decease, (whichtook place within the year), and by his last

will and testament, of which governor bellinghamand the reverend mr. wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount ofproperty, both here and in england to little pearl, the daughter of hester prynne. so pearl—the elf child—the demon offspring,as some people up to that epoch persisted in considering her—became the richest heiressof her day in the new world. not improbably this circumstance wrought a very materialchange in the public estimation; and had the mother and child remained here, little pearlat a marriageable period of life might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage ofthe devoutest puritan among them all. but, in no long time after the physician's death,the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared,

and pearl along with her. for many years,though a vague report would now and then find its way across the sea—like a shapelesspiece of driftwood tossed ashore with the initials of a name upon it—yet no tidingsof them unquestionably authentic were received. the story of the scarlet letter grew intoa legend. its spell, however, was still potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the poorminister had died, and likewise the cottage by the sea-shore where hester prynne had dwelt.near this latter spot, one afternoon some children were at play, when they beheld atall woman in a gray robe approach the cottage-door. in all those years it had never once beenopened; but either she unlocked it or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand,or she glided shadow-like through these impediments—and,

at all events, went in. on the threshold she paused—turned partlyround—for perchance the idea of entering alone and all so changed, the home of so intensea former life, was more dreary and desolate than even she could bear. but her hesitationwas only for an instant, though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast. and hester prynne had returned, and takenup her long-forsaken shame! but where was little pearl? if still alive she must nowhave been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood. none knew—nor ever learned withthe fulness of perfect certainty—whether the elf-child had gone thus untimely to amaiden grave; or whether her wild, rich nature

had been softened and subdued and made capableof a woman's gentle happiness. but through the remainder of hester's life there wereindications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of love and interestwith some inhabitant of another land. letters came, with armorial seals upon them, thoughof bearings unknown to english heraldry. in the cottage there were articles of comfortand luxury such as hester never cared to use, but which only wealth could have purchasedand affection have imagined for her. there were trifles too, little ornaments, beautifultokens of a continual remembrance, that must have been wrought by delicate fingers at theimpulse of a fond heart. and once hester was seen embroidering a baby-garment with sucha lavish richness of golden fancy as would

have raised a public tumult had any infantthus apparelled, been shown to our sober-hued community. in fine, the gossips of that day believed—andmr. surveyor pue, who made investigations a century later, believed—and one of hisrecent successors in office, moreover, faithfully believes—that pearl was not only alive,but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully haveentertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside. but there was a more real life for hesterprynne, here, in new england, than in that unknown region where pearl had found a home.here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and

here was yet to be her penitence. she hadreturned, therefore, and resumed—of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrateof that iron period would have imposed it—resumed the symbol of which we have related so darka tale. never afterwards did it quit her bosom. but, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful,and self-devoted years that made up hester's life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigmawhich attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowedover, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too. and, as hester prynne had no selfishends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all theirsorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone througha mighty trouble. women, more especially—in

the continually recurring trials of wounded,wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion—or with the dreary burdenof a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought came to hester's cottage, demandingwhy they were so wretched, and what the remedy! hester comforted and counselled them, as bestshe might. she assured them, too, of her firm belief that, at some brighter period, whenthe world should have grown ripe for it, in heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed,in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutualhappiness. earlier in life, hester had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destinedprophetess, but had long since recognised the impossibility that any mission of divineand mysterious truth should be confided to

a woman stained with sin, bowed down withshame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow. the angel and apostle of the coming revelationmust be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful, and wise; moreover, not throughdusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how sacred love should make ushappy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end. so said hester prynne, and glanced her sadeyes downward at the scarlet letter. and, after many, many years, a new grave was delved,near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which king's chapel has since beenbuilt. it was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust ofthe two sleepers had no right to mingle. yet

one tomb-stone served for both. all around,there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate—asthe curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport—thereappeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. it bore a device, a herald's wording of whichmay serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre isit, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:— "on a field, sable, the letter a, gules"

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