C 9
Under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the reader will
remember, was hidden another name, which its former wearer had
resolved should never more be spoken. It has been related, how, in
the crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne’s ignominious exposure,
stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the
perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find
embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of
sin before the people. Her matronly fame was trodden under all
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, there remained nothing but the
contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributed in
strict accordance arid proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of
their previous relationship. Then whyÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯since the choice was with
himselfÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯should the individual, whose connexion with the fallen
woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come
forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? He
resolved not 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 roll of
mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interest, to vanish out
of life as completely as 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 likewise a
new purpose; dark, it is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to
engage the full strength of his faculties.
In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the
Puritan town as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than
the learning and intelligence of which he possessed more than a
common measure. As his studies, at a previous period of his life, had
made him extensively acquainted with the medical science of the
day, it was as a physician that he presented himself and as such was
cordially received. Skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical
profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom, it
would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought other
emigrants across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human
frame, it may be that the higher and more subtle faculties of such
men were materialised, and that they lost 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, had hitherto lain in the guardianship of an
aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godly deportment
were stronger testimonials in his favour than any that he could have
produced in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon was one who
combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with the daily and
habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body Roger
Chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested his
familiarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique
physic; in which every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched
and heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if 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 conceal from his patients that these
simple medicines, Nature’s boon to the untutored savage, had quite
as large a share of his own confidence as the European
Pharmacopoeia, which so many learned doctors had spent centuries
in elaborating.
This learned stranger was exemplary as regarded at least the
outward forms of a religious life; and early after his arrival, had
chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The
young divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was
considered by his more fervent admirers as little less than a
heavenly ordained apostle, destined, should he live and labour for
the ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds, for the now feeble
New England Church, as the early Fathers had achieved for the
infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, however, the health
of 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 devotion to study, his
scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty, and more than all, to the fasts
and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the
grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his
spiritual lamp. Some declared, that if Mr. Dimmesdale were really
going to die, it was cause enough that the world was not worthy to
be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other hand,
with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if Providence
should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own
unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all
this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could
be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice,
though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of
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 of pain.
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, few people could tell whence, dropping down as
it were out of the sky or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect
of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. He was
now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered
herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and
plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquainted with
hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. He was heard
to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby and other famous menÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯whose
scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernaturalÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
as having been his correspondents or associates. Why, with such
rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What, could he,
whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? In
answer to this query, a rumour gained groundÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and however absurd,
was entertained by some very sensible peopleÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯that Heaven had
wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent Doctor of
Physic from a German university bodily through the air and setting
him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale’s study! Individuals of wiser
faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven promotes its purposes without
aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition,
were inclined to see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth’s so
opportune arrival.
This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the
physician ever manifested in the young clergyman; he attached
himself to him as a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard
and confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility. He expressed
great alarm at his pastor’s state of health, but was anxious to 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’s flock, were alike
importunate that he should make trial of the physician’s frankly
offered skill. 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 tremulous than beforeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯when it had now become a constant
habit, rather than a casual gesture, to press his hand over his heart?
Was he weary of his labours? Did he wish to die? These questions
were solemnly propounded to Mr. Dimmesdale by the elder ministers
of Boston, and the deacons of his church, who, to use their own
phrase, “dealt with him,” on the sin of rejecting the aid which
Providence so manifestly held out. He listened in silence, and finally
promised to 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
professional advice, “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 spiritual go
with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill
to the proof in my behalf.”
“Ah,” replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness, which,
whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, “it is thus
that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having
taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily! And saintly
men, who walk with God on earth, would fain be away, to walk with
him on the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem.”
“Nay,” rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his heart,
with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, “were I worthier to walk
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 Chillingworth became the
medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only the
disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look
into the character and qualities of the patient, 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 with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the sea-
shore, or in the forest; mingling various walks with the splash and
murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem among the tree-
tops. Often, likewise, one was the guest of the other in his place of
study and retirement 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 with a
range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for
among the members of his own profession. In truth, he was startled,
if not shocked, to find this attribute in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale
was a true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment
largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself
powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage
continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of society would
he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always
be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him,
supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. Not the
less, however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the
occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of
another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held
converse. It was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer
atmosphere into the close and stifled study, 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 air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed with comfort.
So the minister, and the physician with him, withdrew again within
the limits of what their Church defined as orthodox.
Thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinised his patient carefully, both as
he saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in
the range of thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when
thrown amidst other moral scenery, 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
him good. Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of
the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these. In Arthur
Dimmesdale, thought and imagination were so active, and sensibility
so intense, that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its
groundwork there. So Roger ChillingworthÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯the man of skill, the kind
and friendly physicianÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯strove to 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. Few secrets can escape an investigator, who has
opportunity and licence to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow
it up. A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the
intimacy of his physician. If the latter possess native sagacity, and a
nameless something more let us call it intuition; if he show no
intrusive egotism, nor disagreeable prominent characteristics of his
own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his
mind into such affinity with his patient’s, that this last shall unawares
have spoken what 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 qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded
by his recognised character as a physician;Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯then, at some
inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow
forth in 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
have said, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had
as wide a field as the whole sphere of human thought and study to
meet upon; they discussed every topic of ethics and 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 fancied must exist there, ever stole out of the
minister’s consciousness into his companion’s ear. The latter had his
suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale’s bodily
disease had 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
in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister’s life-
tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician.
There was much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable
object was attained. It was held to be the best possible measure for
the young clergyman’s welfare; unless, indeed, as often urged by
such as felt authorised to do so, he had selected some one of the
many blooming damsels, spiritually devoted to him, to become his
devoted wife. This latter step, however, there was no present
prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take;
he rejected all suggestions of 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 unsavoury
morsel always at another’s board, and endure the life-long chill
which must be his lot who 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 love for
the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, to be constantly
within reach of his voice.
The new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good
social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the site on
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 call up 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, with a 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 all
events, 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 picturesque as the woe-
denouncing seer. Here the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich
with parchment-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 Roger
Chillingworth arranged his study and laboratory: not such as a
modern man of science would reckon even tolerably complete, but
provided with a distilling apparatus and the means of compounding
drugs and chemicals, which the practised alchemist knew well how
to turn to 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
bestowing a mutual and not incurious inspection into one another’s
business.
And the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s best discerning friends, as
we have intimated, very reasonably imagined that the hand of
Providence had done all this for the purposeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯besought in so many
public and domestic and secret prayersÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯of restoring the young
minister to health. But, it must now be said, another portion of the
community had latterly begun to take its own view of the relation
betwixt Mr. Dimmesdale and the mysterious old physician. When an
uninstructed multitude attempts to see 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 thus attained are often so profound and so unerring as
to possess the character of truth supernaturally revealed. The
people, in the case of which we speak, could justify its prejudice
against Roger Chillingworth by no fact or argument worthy of serious
refutation. There was an aged handicraftsman, it is true, who had
been a citizen of London at the period of Sir Thomas Overbury’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 company with 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, had
enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the
savage priests, who were universally acknowledged to be powerful
enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their
skill in the black art. A large numberÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and many of these were
persons of such sober sense and practical observation that their
opinions would have been valuable in other mattersÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯affirmed that
Roger Chillingworth’s aspect had undergone a remarkable change
while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with Mr.
Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative,
scholar-like. Now there was something ugly and evil in his face,
which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more
obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him. According to the
vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the
lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as might be
expected, his visage was getting sooty with the smoke.
To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused 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 sensible man, 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 transfigured with the
glory which he would unquestionably win. Meanwhile, nevertheless,
it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony through which he
must struggle towards his triumph.
Alas! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depth of the poor
minister’s eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory anything
but secure.
