The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certainsummer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied bya pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all withtheir eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door.Amongst any other population, or at a later period in thehistory of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified thebearded physiognomies of these good people would have auguredsome awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothingshort of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, onwhom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed theverdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of thePuritan character, an inference of this kind could not soindubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant,or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to thecivil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. Itmight be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodoxreligionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle orvagrant Indian, whom the white man's firewater had made riotousabout the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadowof the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old MistressHibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to dieupon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the samesolemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators, asbefitted a people among whom religion and law were almostidentical, and in whose character both were so thoroughlyinterfused, that the mildest and severest acts of publicdiscipline 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, apenalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mockinginfamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as sterna dignity as the punishment of death itself.

It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when ourstory begins its course, that the women, of whom there wereseveral in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest inwhatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The agehad not so much refinement, that any sense of improprietyrestrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale fromstepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their notunsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearestto the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially,there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of oldEnglish birth and breeding than in their fair descendants,separated from them by a series of six or seven generations;for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive motherhad transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicateand briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if notcharacter of less force and solidity than her own. The women whowere now standing about the prison-door stood within less thanhalf a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth hadbeen the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex.They were her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their nativeland, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largelyinto their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shoneon broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round andruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and hadhardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of NewEngland. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speechamong these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that wouldstartle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purportor its volume of tone.

"Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye apiece 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 of such malefactresses as this HesterPrynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up forjudgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together,would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipfulmagistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not."

"People say," said another, "that the Reverend MasterDimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heartthat such a scandal should have come upon his congregation."

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but mercifulovermuch--that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "Atthe very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron onHester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced atthat, I warrant me. But she--the naughty baggage--little willshe care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, lookyou, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenishadornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"

"Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding achild by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pangof it will be always in her heart."

"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice ofher gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female,the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of theseself-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon usall, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is,both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let themagistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves iftheir own wives and daughters go astray."

"Mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is thereno virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear ofthe gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips forthe lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes MistressPrynne herself."

The door of the jail being flung open from within thereappeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging intosunshine, the grim and gristly presence of the town-beadle, witha sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. Thispersonage prefigured and represented in his aspect the wholedismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was hisbusiness to administer in its final and closest application tothe offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his lefthand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whomhe thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of theprison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with naturaldignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air asif by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby ofsome three months old, who winked and turned aside its littleface from the too vivid light of day; because its existence,heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the greytwilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of theprison.

When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fullyrevealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse toclasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulseof motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal acertain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. Ina moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shamewould but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on herarm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and aglance that would not be abashed, looked around at hertownspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in finered cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantasticflourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was soartistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeousluxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last andfitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which wasof a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, butgreatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations ofthe colony.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on alarge scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that itthrew off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besidesbeing beautiful from regularity of feature and richness ofcomplexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked browand deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner ofthe feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certainstate and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, andindescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication.And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in theantique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from theprison. Those who had before known her, and had expected tobehold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, wereastonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shoneout, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which shewas enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer,there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. Her attire,which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, andhad modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express theattitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood,by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point whichdrew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so thatboth men and women who had been familiarly acquainted withHester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for thefirst time--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantasticallyembroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect ofa spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity,and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarkedone of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before thisbrazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it? Why, gossips,what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates,and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for apunishment?"

"It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames,"if we stripped Madame Hester's rich gown off her daintyshoulders; and as for the red letter which she hath stitched socuriously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel tomake a fitter one!"

"Oh, peace, neighbours--peace!" whispered their youngestcompanion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in thatembroidered letter but she has felt it in her heart."

The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. "Make way,good people--make way, in the King's name!" cried he. "Open apassage; and I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set whereman, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparelfrom this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on therighteous colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is draggedout into the sunshine! Come along, Madame Hester, and show yourscarlet letter in the market-place!"

A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators.Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular processionof stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynneset forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. Acrowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little ofthe matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ranbefore her progress, turning their heads continually to stareinto her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at theignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, inthose days, from the prison door to the market-place. Measuredby the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned ajourney of some length; for haughty as her demeanour was, sheperchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those thatthronged 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 thatrankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore,Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, andcame to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of themarket-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston'searliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there.

In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine,which now, for two or three generations past, has been merelyhistorical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the oldtime, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of goodcitizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists ofFrance. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and aboveit rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, sofashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, andthus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominywas embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood andiron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our commonnature--whatever be the delinquencies of the individual--nooutrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide hisface for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do.In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently inother cases, her sentence bore that she should stand a certaintime upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe aboutthe neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which wasthe most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowingwell her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and wasthus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the heightof a man's shoulders above the street.

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he mighthave seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attireand mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remindhim of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustriouspainters have vied with one another to represent; somethingwhich should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of thatsacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeemthe world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the mostsacred quality of human life, working such effect, that theworld was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the morelost for the infant that she had borne.

The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must alwaysinvest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature,before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, insteadof shuddering at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgracehad not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were sternenough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence,without a murmur at its severity, but had none of theheartlessness of another social state, which would find only atheme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had therebeen a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it musthave been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence ofmen no less dignified than the governor, and several of hiscounsellors, a judge, a general, 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 couldconstitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty,or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferredthat the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnestand effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre andgrave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a womanmight, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes,all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It wasalmost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionatenature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings andvenomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in everyvariety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terriblein the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed ratherto behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornfulmerriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burstfrom the multitude--each man, each woman, each littleshrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts--HesterPrynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainfulsmile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom toendure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek outwith the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from thescaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.

Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she wasthe most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or,at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass ofimperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especiallyher memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing upother scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, onthe edge of the western wilderness: other faces than werelowering upon her from beneath the brims of thosesteeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling andimmaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports,childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maidenyears, came swarming back upon her, intermingled withrecollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life;one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were ofsimilar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was aninstinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself by theexhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weightand hardness of the reality.

Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point ofview that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along whichshe had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on thatmiserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in OldEngland, and her paternal home: a decayed house of grey stone,with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half obliteratedshield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility.She saw her father's face, with its bold brow, and reverendwhite beard that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff;her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious lovewhich it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even sinceher death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentleremonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face,glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interiorof the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it.There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken inyears, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim andbleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over manyponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange,penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read thehuman soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as HesterPrynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightlydeformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right.Next rose before her in memory's picture-gallery, the intricateand narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the hugecathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaintin architecture, of a continental city; where new life hadawaited her, still in connexion with the misshapen scholar: anew life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuftof green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of theseshifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan,settlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levellingtheir stern regards at Hester Prynne--yes, at herself--who stoodon the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and theletter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with goldthread, upon her bosom.

Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to herbreast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward atthe scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, toassure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yesthese were her realities--all else had vanished!