C 8 –
Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy capÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯such as
elderly gentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in their domestic
privacyÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯walked foremost, 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
antiquated fashion of King James’s reign, caused his head to look
not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression
made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more
than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of
worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to
surround himself. But it is an error to suppose that our great
forefathersÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯though accustomed to speak and think of human
existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though
unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty
Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of 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 and peaches might
yet be naturalised in the New England climate, and that purple
grapes might possibly 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 legitimate taste for all
good and comfortable things, and however stern he might show
himself in the 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 accorded to any of his
professional contemporaries.
Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guestsÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯one,
the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember
as having taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of Hester
Prynne’s disgrace; and, in close companionship with him, old Roger
Chillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who for two or three
years past had been settled in the town. It was understood that this
learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young
minister, whose health had severely suffered of late by 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, found
himself close to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtain fell on Hester
Prynne, and partially concealed her.
“What have we here?” said Governor Bellingham, looking with
surprise at the scarlet little figure before him. “I profess, I have never
seen the like since my days of vanity, in old King James’s time, when
I was wont to esteem it a high favour to be admitted to a court mask!
There used to be a swarm of these 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. “What little bird of scarlet
plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures when
the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and
tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that
was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has
ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a
Christian childÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of
those naughty elfs 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 scarlet vision, “and my name
is Pearl!”
“Pearl?Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯Ruby, ratherÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯or Coral!Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯or Red Rose, at the very least,
judging from thy hue!” responded the old minister, putting forth his
hand in a vain attempt to pat little Pearl on the cheek. “But where is
this mother of thine? Ah! I see,” he added; and, turning to Governor
Bellingham, whispered, “This is the 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
worthy type of her of Babylon! But she comes at a good time, and we
will look into this matter forthwith.”
Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall,
followed by his three guests.
“Hester Prynne,” said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on the
wearer of the scarlet letter, “there hath been much question
concerning thee of late. The point hath been weightily discussed,
whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our
consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder
child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen amid the
pitfalls of this world. Speak thou, the child’s own mother! Were it not,
thinkest thou, for thy little one’s temporal and eternal welfare that she
be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly,
and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? What canst thou do
for the child in this kind?”
“I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!”
answered Hester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token.
“Woman, it is thy badge of shame!” replied the stern magistrate. “It
is because of the stain which that letter indicates that we would
transfer thy child to other hands. ”
“Nevertheless,” said the mother, calmly, though growing more
pale, “this badge hath taught meÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯it daily teaches meÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯it is teaching
me at this momentÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and
better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself.”
“We will judge warily,” said Bellingham, “and look well what we are
about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray you, examine this PearlÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
since that is her nameÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and see whether she hath had such
Christian nurture as befits a child of her age.”
The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair and made an effort
to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child, unaccustomed to the
touch or familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open
window, and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird
of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not
a little astonished at this outbreakÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯for he was a grandfatherly sort of
personage, and usually a vast favourite with childrenÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯essayed,
however, to proceed with the examination.
“Pearl,” said he, with great solemnity, “thou must take heed to
instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom
the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made
thee?”
Now Pearl knew well enough who made her, for Hester Prynne,
the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child
about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truths
which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with
such eager interest. Pearl, thereforeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯so large were the attainments
of her three years’ lifetimeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯could have borne a fair examination in
the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster
Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either
of those celebrated works. But that perversity, which all children
have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion,
now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of
her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After
putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to
answer good Mr. Wilson’s question, the child finally announced that
she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother
off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door.
This phantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of
the Governor’s red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window,
together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had
passed in coming hither.
Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, 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 change had come over his features
Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to
have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapenÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯since the days
when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant,
but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the
scene now going forward.
“This is awful!” cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the
astonishment into which Pearl’s response had thrown him. “Here is a
child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without
question, she is equally 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 her forcibly 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 defend them
to the death.
“God gave me the child!” cried she. “He gave her in requital of all
things else which ye had taken from me. She is my happinessÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯she
is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl
punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable
of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold the 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 forÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯far better than thou canst do for it.”
“God gave her into my keeping!” repeated Hester Prynne, raising
her voice almost to a shriek. “I will not give her up!” And here by a
sudden impulse, 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 these men can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me!
Thou knowestÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯for thou hast sympathies which these men lackÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
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 indicated that Hester
Prynne’s situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the
young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand
over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous
temperament was thrown into agitation. He looked now more
careworn 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 dark eyes had a world of pain
in their troubled and melancholy depth.
“There is truth in what she says,” began the minister, with a voice
sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoed
and the hollow armour rang with itÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯”truth in what Hester says, and
in the feeling which inspires her! God gave her the child, and gave
her, too, an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirementsÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
both seemingly so peculiarÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯which no other mortal being can
possess. And, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in
the relation between this mother and this child?”
“AyÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯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 hereby say that the Heavenly Father, the
creator of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deed of sin, and made of
no account the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love?
This child of its father’s guilt and its mother’s shame has come from
the hand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads
so earnestly and with such bitterness of spirit the right to keep her. It
was meant for a blessingÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯for the one blessing of her life! It was
meant, doubtless, the mother herself hath told us, for a retribution,
too; a torture to 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 the poor 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!Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯not so!” continued Mr. Dimmesdale. “She
recognises, believe me, the solemn miracle which God hath wrought
in the existence of that child. And may she feel, tooÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯what, methinks,
is the very truthÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯that this boon was meant, above all things else, to
keep the mother’s soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker
depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her!
Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman, that she hath an
infant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided
to her careÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯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 the
Creator’s sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the
child also will bring its parents thither! Herein is the sinful mother
happier than the sinful father. For Hester Prynne’s sake, then, and
no less for the poor child’s sake, let us leave them as Providence
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 school and to meeting.”
The young minister, on ceasing to speak had withdrawn a few
steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed in
the heavy folds of the window-curtain; while the shadow of his figure,
which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the
vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf stole
softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own,
laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so
unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herselfÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯”Is
that my Pearl?” Yet she knew that there was love in the child’s heart,
although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twice in her
lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. The minister
Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯for, save the 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 something
truly worthy to be lovedÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯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 sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed,
and went capering down the hall so airily, that old Mr. Wilson raised
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 give a 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 pray upon it;
and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless
Providence reveal it of its own accord Thereby, every good Christian
man hath a title to show a father’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 is
averred that the lattice of a chamber-window was thrown open, and
forth into the sunny day 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-omened physiognomy seemed to
cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. “Wilt thou go
with us to-night? There will be a merry company in the forest; and I
well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should
make one.”
“Make my excuse to him, so please you!” answered Hester, 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 signed my name in the Black Man’s
book too, and that with mine own blood!”
“We shall have thee there anon!” said the witch-lady, frowning, as
she drew back her head.
But hereÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins
and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parableÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯was already
an illustration of the young minister’s argument against sundering the
relation of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. Even thus
early had the child saved her from Satan’s snare.
