Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap--such aselderly gentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in theirdomestic privacy--walked foremost, and appeared to be showingoff his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements.The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his greybeard, in the antiquated fashion of King James's reign, causedhis head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in acharger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe,and frost-bitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly inkeeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith hehad evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is anerror to suppose that our great forefathers--though accustomedto speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trialand warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goodsand life at the behest of duty--made it a matter of conscienceto reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairlywithin their grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance,by the venerable pastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white as asnow-drift, was seen over Governor Bellingham's shoulders, whileits wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet benaturalised in the New England climate, and that purple grapesmight possibly be compelled to flourish against the sunnygarden-wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom ofthe English Church, had a long established and legitimate tastefor all good and comfortable things, and however stern he mightshow himself in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of suchtransgressions as that of Hester Prynne, still, the genialbenevolence of his private life had won him warmer affectionthan was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries.

Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guests--one,the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember ashaving taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of HesterPrynne's disgrace; and, in close companionship with him, oldRoger Chillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who fortwo or three years past had been settled in the town. It wasunderstood that this learned man was the physician as well asfriend of the young minister, whose health had severely sufferedof late by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labours andduties of the pastoral relation.

The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or twosteps, and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall window,found himself close to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtainfell on Hester Prynne, and partially concealed her.

"What have we here?" said Governor Bellingham, looking withsurprise at the scarlet little figure before him. "I profess, Ihave never seen the like since my days of vanity, in old KingJames's time, when I was wont to esteem it a high favour to beadmitted to a court mask! There used to be a swarm of thesesmall apparitions in holiday time, and we called them childrenof the Lord of Misrule. But how gat such a guest into my hall?"

"Ay, indeed!" cried good old Mr. Wilson. "What little bird ofscarlet plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just suchfigures when the sun has been shining through a richly paintedwindow, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across thefloor. But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who artthou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in thisstrange fashion? Art thou a Christian child--ha? Dost know thycatechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies whomwe thought to have left behind us, with other relics ofPapistry, in merry old England?"

"I am mother's child," answered the scarlet vision, "and my nameis Pearl!"

"Pearl?--Ruby, rather--or Coral!--or Red Rose, at the veryleast, judging from thy hue!" responded the old minister,putting forth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little Pearl onthe cheek. "But where is this mother of thine? Ah! I see," headded; and, turning to Governor Bellingham, whispered, "This isthe selfsame child of whom we have held speech together; andbehold here the unhappy woman, Hester Prynne, her mother!"

"Sayest thou so?" cried the Governor. "Nay, we might havejudged 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 goodtime, 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 onthe wearer of the scarlet letter, "there hath been much questionconcerning thee of late. The point hath been weightilydiscussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, dowell discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul,such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one whohath stumbled and fallen amid the pitfalls of this world. Speakthou, the child's own mother! Were it not, thinkest thou, forthy little one's temporal and eternal welfare that she be takenout of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly,and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? What canstthou 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 wewould transfer thy child to other hands."

"Nevertheless," said the mother, calmly, though growing morepale, "this badge hath taught me--it daily teaches me--it isteaching me at this moment--lessons whereof my child may be thewiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself."

"We will judge warily," said Bellingham, "and look well what weare about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray you, examine thisPearl--since that is her name--and see whether she hath had suchChristian nurture as befits a child of her age."

The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair and made aneffort 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 takeflight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little astonishedat this outbreak--for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage,and usually a vast favourite with children--essayed, however, toproceed with the examination.

"Pearl," said he, with great solemnity, "thou must take heed toinstruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thybosom 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, thedaughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with thechild about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her ofthose truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage ofimmaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. Pearl,therefore--so large were the attainments of her three years'lifetime--could have borne a fair examination in the New EnglandPrimer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms,although unacquainted with the outward form of either of thosecelebrated works. But that perversity, which all children havemore or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfoldportion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thoroughpossession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speakwords amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with manyungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, thechild finally announced that she had not been made at all, buthad been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses thatgrew by the prison-door.

This phantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity ofthe Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window,together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, whichshe had passed in coming hither.

Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whisperedsomething in the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked atthe man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in thebalance, was startled to perceive what a change had come overhis features--how much uglier they were, how his dark complexionseemed to have grown duskier, and his figure moremisshapen--since the days when she had familiarly known him. Shemet his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained togive all her attention to the scene now going forward.

"This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from theastonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Hereis 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, itspresent depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, weneed inquire no further."

Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into herarms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost afierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and withthis sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that shepossessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was readyto defend them to the death.

"God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave her in requital ofall things else which ye had taken from me. She is myhappiness--she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me herein life! Pearl punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarletletter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with amillionfold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall nottake her! I will die first!"

"My poor woman," said the not unkind old minister, "the childshall be well cared for--far better than thou canst do for it."

"God gave her into my keeping!" repeated Hester Prynne, raisingher voice almost to a shriek. "I will not give her up!" And hereby a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr.Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly somuch as once to direct her eyes. "Speak thou for me!" cried she."Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowestme better than these men can. I will not lose the child! Speakfor me! Thou knowest--for thou hast sympathies which these menlack--thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother'srights, and how much the stronger they are when that mother hasbut her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I willnot lose the child! Look to it!"

At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that HesterPrynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness,the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding hishand over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarlynervous temperament was thrown into agitation. He looked nowmore careworn and emaciated than as we described him at thescene of Hester's public ignominy; and whether it were hisfailing health, or whatever the cause might be, his large darkeyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth.

"There is truth in what she says," began the minister, with avoice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hallre-echoed and the hollow armour rang with it--"truth in whatHester says, and in the feeling which inspires her! God gave herthe child, and gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of itsnature and requirements--both seemingly so peculiar--which noother mortal being can possess. And, moreover, is there not aquality of awful sacredness in the relation between this motherand this child?"

"Ay--how is that, good Master Dimmesdale?" interrupted theGovernor. "Make that plain, I pray you!"

"It must be even so," resumed the minister. "For, if we deem itotherwise, do we not thereby say that the Heavenly Father, thecreator of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deed of sin, andmade of no account the distinction between unhallowed lust andholy love? This child of its father's guilt and its mother'sshame has come from the hand of God, to work in many ways uponher heart, who pleads so earnestly and with such bitterness ofspirit the right to keep her. It was meant for a blessing--forthe one blessing of her life! It was meant, doubtless, themother herself hath told us, for a retribution, too; a tortureto be felt at many an unthought-of moment; a pang, a sting, anever-recurring agony, in the midst of a troubled joy! Hath shenot expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child, soforcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears her bosom?"

"Well said again!" cried good Mr. Wilson. "I feared the womanhad no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child!"

"Oh, not so!--not so!" continued Mr. Dimmesdale. "Sherecognises, believe me, the solemn miracle which God hathwrought in the existence of that child. And may she feel,too--what, methinks, is the very truth--that this boon wasmeant, above all things else, to keep the mother's soul alive,and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satanmight else have sought to plunge her! Therefore it is good forthis poor, sinful woman, that she hath an infant immortality, abeing capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care--tobe trained up by her to righteousness, to remind her, at everymoment, of her fall, but yet to teach her, as if it were by theCreator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven,the child also will bring its parents thither! Herein is thesinful mother happier than the sinful father. For HesterPrynne's sake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, letus leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them!"

"You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said oldRoger Chillingworth, smiling at him.

"And there is a weighty import in what my young brother hathspoken," added the Rev. Mr. Wilson.

"What say you, worshipful Master Bellingham? Hath he notpleaded well for the poor woman?"

"Indeed hath he," answered the magistrate; "and hath adducedsuch arguments, that we will even leave the matter as it nowstands; so long, at least, as there shall be no further scandalin the woman. Care must be had nevertheless, to put the child todue and stated examination in the catechism, at thy hands orMaster Dimmesdale's. Moreover, at a proper season, thetithing-men must take heed that she go both to school and tomeeting."

The young minister, on ceasing to speak had withdrawn a fewsteps from the group, and stood with his face partiallyconcealed in the heavy folds of the window-curtain; while theshadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor,was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wildand flighty little elf stole softly towards him, and taking hishand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; acaress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother,who was looking on, asked herself--"Is that my Pearl?" Yet sheknew that there was love in the child's heart, although itmostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twice in herlifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. Theminister--for, save the long-sought regards of woman, nothing issweeter than these marks of childish preference, accordedspontaneously by a spiritual instinct, and therefore seeming toimply in us something truly worthy to be loved--the ministerlooked round, laid his hand on the child's head, hesitated aninstant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl's unwonted moodof sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed, and went caperingdown the hall so airily, that old Mr. Wilson raised a questionwhether even her tiptoes touched the floor.

"The little baggage hath witchcraft in her, I profess," said heto Mr. Dimmesdale. "She needs no old woman's broomstick to flywithal!"

"A strange child!" remarked old Roger Chillingworth. "It iseasy to see the mother's part in her. Would it be beyond aphilosopher's research, think ye, gentlemen, to analyse thatchild's nature, and, from it make a mould, to give a shrewdguess at the father?"

"Nay; it would be sinful, in such a question, to follow the clueof profane philosophy," said Mr. Wilson. "Better to fast andpray upon it; and still better, it may be, to leave the mysteryas we find it, unless Providence reveal it of its own accord.Thereby, every good Christian man hath a title to show afather's kindness towards the poor, deserted babe."

The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne,with Pearl, departed from the house. As they descended thesteps, it is averred that the lattice of a chamber-window wasthrown open, and forth into the sunny day was thrust the face ofMistress 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 seemedto cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. "Wiltthou go with us to-night? There will be a merry company in theforest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comelyHester Prynne should make one."

"Make my excuse to him, so please you!" answered Hester, with atriumphant smile. "I must tarry at home, and keep watch over mylittle Pearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly havegone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the BlackMan'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 here--if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbinsand Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable--wasalready an illustration of the young minister's argument againstsundering the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring ofher frailty. Even thus early had the child saved her fromSatan's snare.