From this intense consciousness of being the object of severeand universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter wasat length relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of thecrowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of herthoughts. An Indian in his native garb was standing there; butthe red men were not so infrequent visitors of the Englishsettlements that one of them would have attracted any noticefrom Hester Prynne at such a time; much less would he haveexcluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. By theIndian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship withhim, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilizedand savage costume.

He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which as yetcould hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligencein his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mentalpart that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself andbecome manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seeminglycareless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he hadendeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it wassufficiently evident to Hester Prynne that one of this man'sshoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at the firstinstant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformityof the figure, she pressed her 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 the market-place, and some time before she sawhim, the stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It wascarelessly at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to lookinward, and to whom external matters are of little value andimport, unless they bear relation to something within his mind.Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. Awrithing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snakegliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with allits wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His face darkenedwith some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he soinstantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, saveat a single moment, its expression might have passed forcalmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew almostimperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of hisnature. When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on hisown, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly andcalmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, andlaid it on his lips.

Then touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near to him,he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner:

"I pray you, good Sir," said he, "who is this woman?--andwherefore is she here set up to public shame?"

"You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answeredthe townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savagecompanion, "else you would surely have heard of Mistress HesterPrynne and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, Ipromise you, in godly Master Dimmesdale's church."

"You say truly," replied the other; "I am a stranger, and havebeen a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met withgrievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held inbonds among the heathen-folk to the southward; and am nowbrought 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 this woman's offences,and what has brought her to yonder scaffold?"

"Truly, friend; and methinks it must gladden your heart, afteryour troubles and sojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman,"to find yourself at length in a land where iniquity is searchedout and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here inour godly New England. Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was thewife of a certain learned man, English by birth, but who hadlong ago dwelt in Amsterdam, whence some good time agone he wasminded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of theMassachusetts. To this purpose he sent his wife before him,remaining himself to look after some necessary affairs. Marry,good Sir, in some two years, or less, that the woman has been adweller here in Boston, no tidings have come of this learnedgentleman, Master Prynne; and his young wife, look you, beingleft 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 favour, Sir, may be thefather of yonder babe--it is some three or four months old, Ishould judge--which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms?"

"Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and theDaniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting," answered thetownsman. "Madame Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and themagistrates have laid their heads together in vain. Peradventurethe guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknownof man, and forgetting that God sees him."

"The learned man," observed the stranger with another smile,"should come himself to look into the mystery."

"It behoves him well if he be still in life," responded thetownsman. "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 the sea,they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of ourrighteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But intheir great mercy and tenderness of heart they have doomedMistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on theplatform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for theremainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon herbosom."

"A wise sentence," remarked the stranger, gravely, bowing hishead. "Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until theignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me,nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not atleast, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will beknown--he will be known!--he will be known!"

He bowed courteously to the communicative townsman, andwhispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both madetheir way through the crowd.

While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing on herpedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger--so fixeda gaze that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objectsin the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her.Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible thaneven to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sunburning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with thescarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infantin her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival,staring at the features that should have been seen only in thequiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, orbeneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as it was, she wasconscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousandwitnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt himand her, than to greet him face to face--they two alone. Shefled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreadedthe moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her.Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behindher until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud andsolemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.

"Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!" said the voice.

It has already been noticed that directly over the platform onwhich Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or opengallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whenceproclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of themagistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such publicobservances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which weare describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself with foursergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard ofhonour. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border ofembroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath--agentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written inhis wrinkles. He was not ill-fitted to be the head andrepresentative of a community which owed its origin andprogress, and its present state of development, not to theimpulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies ofmanhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much,precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The othereminent characters by whom the chief ruler was surrounded weredistinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period whenthe forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness ofDivine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just andsage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have beeneasy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, whoshould be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erringwoman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, thanthe sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turnedher face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathyshe might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of themultitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, theunhappy woman grew pale, and trembled.

The voice which had called her attention was that of thereverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston,a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in theprofession, 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 greyeyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking,like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. Helooked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixedto old 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 the clergyman, "I have striven with myyoung brother here, under whose preaching of the Word you havebeen privileged to sit"--here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on theshoulder of a pale young man beside him--"I have sought, I say,to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, herein the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers,and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness andblackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better thanI, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether oftenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardnessand obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer hide the nameof him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes tome--with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond hisyears--that it were wronging the very nature of woman to forceher to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, andin presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought toconvince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, andnot in the showing of it forth. What say 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 and reverend occupants ofthe balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to itspurport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although temperedwith respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed:

"Good Master Dimmesdale," said he, "the responsibility of thiswoman's soul lies greatly with you. It behoves you; therefore,to exhort her to repentance and to confession, as a proof andconsequence thereof."

The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowdupon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale--young clergyman, who had comefrom one of the great English universities, bringing all thelearning of the age into our wild forest land. His eloquence andreligious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminencein his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, witha white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholyeyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it,was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility anda vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high nativegifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about thisyoung minister--an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightenedlook--as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a lossin the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease insome seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties wouldpermit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himselfsimple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with afreshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, asmany people said, affected them like the speech of an angel.

Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and theGovernor had introduced so openly to the public notice, biddinghim speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of awoman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying natureof his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made hislips tremulous.

"Speak to the woman, my brother," said Mr. Wilson. "It is ofmoment to her soul, and, therefore, as the worshipful Governorsays, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhorther 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 the balcony and lookingdown steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good mansays, and seest the accountability under which I labour. If thoufeelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthlypunishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, Icharge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner andfellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity andtenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were tostep down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thypedestal of shame, yet better were it so than to hide a guiltyheart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except ittempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin?Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thoumayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee andthe sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him--who,perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--thebitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!"

The young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, andbroken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather thanthe direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within allhearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy.Even the poor baby at Hester's bosom was affected by the sameinfluence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr.Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms with a half-pleased,half-plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister's appealthat the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne wouldspeak out the guilty name, or else that the guilty one himselfin whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forthby an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascendthe scaffold.

Hester shook her head.

"Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven's mercy!"cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. "Thatlittle babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirmthe counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, andthy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thybreast."

"Never," replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, butinto the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It istoo deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that Imight endure his agony as well as mine!"

"Speak, woman!" said another voice, coldly and sternly,proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold, "Speak; and giveyour child a father!"

"I will not speak!" answered Hester, turning pale as death, butresponding to this voice, which she too surely recognised. "Andmy child must seek a heavenly father; she shall never know anearthly one!"

"She will not speak!" murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning overthe balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited theresult of his appeal. He now drew back with a long respiration."Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! She willnot speak!"

Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind,the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for theoccasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in allits branches, but with continual reference to the ignominiousletter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the houror more during which his periods were rolling over the people'sheads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, andseemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernalpit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestalof shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference.She had borne that morning all that nature could endure; and asher temperament was not of the order that escapes from toointense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelteritself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while thefaculties of animal life remained entire. In this state, thevoice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly,upon her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of herordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; shestrove to hush it mechanically, but seemed scarcely tosympathise with its trouble. With the same hard demeanour, shewas led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze withinits iron-clamped portal. It was whispered by those who peeredafter her that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along thedark passage-way of the interior.