From thisintense consciousness of being the object of severe and universalobservation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at lengthrelieved by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, afigure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. AnIndian, in his native garb, was standing there; but the red menwere not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements, thatone of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne, at sucha time; much less would he have excluded all other objects andideas from her mind. By the Indian's side, and evidentlysustaining a companionship with him, stood a white man, clad in astrange disarray of civilized and savage costume.
He was small instature, with a furrowed visage, which, as yet, could hardly betermed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features,as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that itcould not fail to mould the physical to itself, and becomemanifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seeminglycareless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he hadendeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficientlyevident to HesterPrynne, that one of this man's shoulders rose higherthan the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving thatthin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressedher infant to her bosom, with soconvulsive a force that the poor babe uttered another cry ofpain. But the mother did not seem to hear it.
At his arrival in themarket-place, and some time before she saw him, the stranger hadbent his eyes on HesterPrynne. It was carelessly, at first, like a man chieflyaccustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are oflittle value and import, unless they bear relation to somethingwithin his mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen andpenetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across hisfeatures, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making onelittle pause, with all its wreathed intervolutionsin open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion,which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by aneffort of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expressionmight have passed for calmness. After a brief space, theconvulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided intothe depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastenedon his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowlyand calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air,and laid it on his lips.
Then, touching theshoulder of a townsman who stood near to him, he addressed him ina formal and courteous manner.
"I pray you, goodSir," said he, "who is this woman?--and wherefore isshe here set up to public shame?"
"You must needs bea 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, andher evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you,in godly MasterDimmesdale's church."
"You saytruly," replied the other. "I am a stranger, and havebeen a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievousmishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds amongthe heathen-folk, to the southward; and amnow brought hither by this Indian, to be redeemed out of mycaptivity. Will it please you, therefore, to tell me of HesterPrynne's,--have I her name rightly?--of thiswoman's offences, and what has brought her to yonderscaffold?"
"Truly, friend,and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your troubles andsojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman, "to findyourself, at length, in a land where iniquity is searched out, andpunished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godlyNew England. Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was the wife of acertain learned man, English by birth, but who had long dweltin Amsterdam, whence, some good time agone, he was minded to crossover and cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To thispurpose, he sent his wife before him, remaining himself to lookafter some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two years,or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston, no tidings have come ofthis learned gentleman, Master Prynne; and his young wife, look you,being left to her own misguidance----"
"Ah!--aha!--I conceive you," said the stranger with a bittersmile. "So learned a man as you speak of should have learnedthis too in his books. And who, by your favor, Sir, may be thefather of yonder babe--it is some three or four months old, Ishould judge--which Mistress Prynne is holding in herarms?"
"Of a truth,friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel who shallexpound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman."Madam Hesterabsolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid theirheads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking onat this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that Godsees him."
"The learnedman," observed the stranger, with another smile, "shouldcome himself to look into the mystery."
"It behooves himwell, if he be still in life," responded the townsman."Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy,bethinking themselves that this woman is youthful and fair, anddoubtless was strongly tempted to her fall;--and that, moreover,as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of thesea;--they have not been bold to put in force the extremity ofour righteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But,in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne tostand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory,and then and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life,to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom."
"A wisesentence!" remarked the stranger, gravely bowing his head."Thus she willbe a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter beengraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, thatthe partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on thescaffold by her side. But he will be known!--he will beknown!--he will be known!"
He bowed courteously tothe communicative townsman, and, whispering a few words to hisIndian attendant, they both made their way through the crowd.
While this passed, Hester Prynne hadbeen standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towardsthe stranger; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of intenseabsorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed tovanish, leaving only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps,would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she nowdid, with the hot, midday sun burning down upon her face, andlighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on herbreast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a wholepeople, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the featuresthat should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of thefireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronlyveil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of ashelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It wasbetter to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than togreet him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, asit were,to the public exposure, anddreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn fromher. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voicebehind her until it had repeated her name more than once, in aloud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.
"Hearken unto me,HesterPrynne!" said the voice.
It has already beennoticed, that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stoodwas a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to themeeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont tobe made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all theceremonial that attended such public observances in those days.Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat GovernorBellingham himself, with four sergeants about his chair,bearing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather inhis hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvettunic beneath; agentleman advanced in years, and with a hard experience written inhis wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head andrepresentative of a community, which owed its origin and progress,and its present state of development, not to the impulses ofyouth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and thesombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely becauseit imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters, bywhom the chief ruler was surrounded, were distinguished by adignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms ofauthority were felt to possess the sacredness of divineinstitutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just, and sage. But,out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy toselect the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who shouldhe less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman'sheart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than thesages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemedconscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay inthe larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, asshe lifted her eyes towards thebalcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled.
The voice which hadcalled her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldestclergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of hiscontemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. Thislast attribute, however, had been less carefully developed thanhis intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter ofshame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with aborder of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap; while his grayeyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking,like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulteratedsunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed toold volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one ofthose portraits would have, to step forth, as he now did, andmeddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
"Hester Prynne," said theclergyman, "I have striven with my young brother here,under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged tosit,"--here Mr.Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man besidehim,--"I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth,that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, andbefore these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all thepeople, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin.Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the betterjudge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror,such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy; insomuchthat you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you tothis grievous fall. But he opposes to me, (with a youngman's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years,) that itwere wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay openher heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presenceof so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, theshame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in theshowing of it forth. What say youto it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou or I that shalldeal with this poor sinner's soul?"
There was a murmuramong the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and GovernorBellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in anauthoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards theyouthful clergyman whom he addressed.
"Good MasterDimmesdale," said he, "the responsibility of thiswoman's soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you,therefore, to exhort her to repentance, and to confession,as a proof andconsequence thereof."
The directness of thisappeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr.Dimmesdale; a young clergyman, who had come from one of thegreat English universities, bringing all the learning of the ageinto our wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervor hadalready given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. Hewas a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, andimpending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which,unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibilityand a vast power of self-restraint. Notwithstanding his highnative gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air aboutthis young minister,--an apprehensive, a startled, ahalf-frightened look,--as of a being who felt himself quiteastray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, andcould only be at ease in some seclusion of his own.Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trode in theshadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike;coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance,and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affectedthem like the speech of anangel.
Such was the young manwhom the Reverend Mr.Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to thepublic notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, tothatmystery of a woman'ssoul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of hisposition drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lipstremulous.
"Speak to thewoman, my brother," said Mr. Wilson. "It is of moment to her soul,and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, inwhose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!"
The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent hishead, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward.
"HesterPrynne," said he,leaning over the balcony, and looking down steadfastly into hereyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest theaccountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be forthy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment willthereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee tospeak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Benot silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for,believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a highplace, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yetbetter were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. Whatcan thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him,as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee anopen ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumphover the evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed howthou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage tograsp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is nowpresented to thy lips!"
The young pastor'svoice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feelingthat it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purportof the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and broughtthe listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby, atHester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for itdirected its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale,and held up its little arms, with a half pleased, half plaintivemurmur. So powerful seemed theminister'sappeal, that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne wouldspeak out the guilty name; or else that the guilty one himself, inwhatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by aninward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend thescaffold.
Hester shook herhead.
"Woman, transgressnot beyond the limits of Heaven's mercy!" cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson,more harshly than before. "That little babe hath beengifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thouhast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, mayavail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast."
"Never!" replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but intothe deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It istoo deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I mightendure his agony, as well as mine!"
"Speak, woman!" saidanother voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowdabout the scaffold. "Speak; and give your child a father!"
"I will not speak!"answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to thisvoice, which she too surely recognized. "And my child must seek aheavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!"
"She will not speak!"murmured Mr.Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand uponhis heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drewback, with a long respiration. "Wondrous strength and generosityof a woman's heart! She will not speak!"
Discerning theimpracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, whohad carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to themultitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but withcontinual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did hedwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which hisperiods were rolling over the people's heads, that itassumed new terrors in theirimagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flamesof the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal ofshame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. Shehad borne, that morning, all that nature could endure; and as hertemperament was not of the order that escapes from too intensesuffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itselfbeneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties ofanimal life remained entire. In this state, the voice of thepreacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon herears. The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal,pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she stroveto hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathize withits trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back toprison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clampedportal. It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that thescarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of theinterior.
