After many days, when time sufficed for the people to arrangetheir thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there wasmore than one account of what had been witnessed on thescaffold.

Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breastof the unhappy minister, a SCARLET LETTER--the very semblance ofthat worn by Hester Prynne--imprinted in the flesh. As regardedits origin there were various explanations, all of which mustnecessarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that theReverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynnefirst wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course ofpenance--which he afterwards, in so many futile methods,followed out--by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Otherscontended that the stigma had not been produced until a longtime subsequent, when old Roger Chillingworth, being a potentnecromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency ofmagic and poisonous drugs. Others, again and those best able toappreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and thewonderful operation of his spirit upon the body--whispered theirbelief, that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever-activetooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, andat last manifesting Heaven's dreadful judgment by the visiblepresence of the letter. The reader may choose among thesetheories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon theportent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office,erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditationhas fixed it in very undesirable distinctness.

It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who werespectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to haveremoved their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied thatthere was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on anew-born infant's. Neither, by their report, had his dying wordsacknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any--theslightest--connexion on his part, with the guilt for whichHester Prynne had so long worn the scarlet letter. According tothese highly-respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious thathe was dying--conscious, also, that the reverence of themultitude placed him already among saints and angels--haddesired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallenwoman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is thechoicest of man's own righteousness. After exhausting life inhis efforts for mankind's spiritual good, he had made the mannerof his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers themighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of InfinitePurity, we are sinners all alike. It was to teach them, that theholiest amongst us has but attained so far above his fellows asto discern more clearly the Mercy which looks down, andrepudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which wouldlook aspiringly upward. Without disputing a truth so momentous,we must be allowed to consider this version of Mr. Dimmesdale'sstory as only an instance of that stubborn fidelity with which aman's friends--and especially a clergyman's--will sometimesuphold his character, when proofs, clear as the mid-day sunshineon the scarlet letter, establish him a false and sin-stainedcreature of the dust.

The authority which we have chiefly followed--a manuscript ofold date, drawn up from the verbal testimony of individuals,some of whom had known Hester Prynne, while others had heard thetale from contemporary witnesses fully confirms the view takenin the foregoing pages. Among many morals which press upon usfrom the poor minister's miserable experience, we put only thisinto a sentence:--"Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to theworld, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst maybe inferred!"

Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place,almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in theappearance and demeanour of the old man known as RogerChillingworth. All his strength and energy--all his vital andintellectual force--seemed at once to desert him, insomuch thathe positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanishedfrom mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting inthe sun. This unhappy man had made the very principle of hislife to consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise ofrevenge; and when, by its completest triumph consummation thatevil principle was left with no further material to supportit--when, in short, there was no more Devil's work on earth forhim to do, it only remained for the unhumanised mortal to betakehimself whither his master would find him tasks enough, and payhim his wages duly. But, to all these shadowy beings, so longour near acquaintances--as well Roger Chillingworth as hiscompanions we would fain be merciful. It is a curious subject ofobservation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the samething at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes ahigh degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders oneindividual dependent for the food of his affections andspiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover,or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by thewithdrawal of his subject. Philosophically considered,therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, exceptthat one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and theother in a dusky and lurid glow. In the spiritual world, the oldphysician and the minister--mutual victims as they havebeen--may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatredand antipathy transmuted into golden love.

Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business tocommunicate to the reader. At old Roger Chillingworth's decease,(which took place within the year), and by his last will andtestament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr.Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amountof property, both here and in England to little Pearl, thedaughter of Hester Prynne.

So Pearl--the elf child--the demon offspring, as some people upto that epoch persisted in considering her--became the richestheiress of her day in the New World. Not improbably thiscircumstance wrought a very material change in the publicestimation; and had the mother and child remained here, littlePearl at a marriageable period of life might have mingled herwild blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among themall. But, in no long time after the physician's death, thewearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl along withher. For many years, though a vague report would now and thenfind its way across the sea--like a shapeless piece of driftwoodtossed ashore with the initials of a name upon it--yet notidings of them unquestionably authentic were received. Thestory of the scarlet letter grew into a legend. Its spell,however, was still potent, and kept the scaffold awful where thepoor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by thesea-shore where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near this latter spot,one afternoon some children were at play, when they beheld atall woman in a gray robe approach the cottage-door. In allthose years it had never once been opened; but either sheunlocked it or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand,or she glided shadow-like through these impediments--and, at allevents, went in.

On the threshold she paused--turned partly round--for perchancethe idea of entering alone and all so changed, the home of sointense a former life, was more dreary and desolate than evenshe could bear. But her hesitation was only for an instant,though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast.

And Hester Prynne had returned, and taken up her long-forsakenshame! But where was little Pearl? If still alive she must nowhave been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood. Noneknew--nor ever learned with the fulness of perfectcertainty--whether the elf-child had gone thus untimely to amaiden grave; or whether her wild, rich nature had been softenedand subdued and made capable of a woman's gentle happiness. Butthrough the remainder of Hester's life there were indicationsthat the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of loveand interest with some inhabitant of another land. Letters came,with armorial seals upon them, though of bearings unknown toEnglish heraldry. In the cottage there were articles of comfortand luxury such as Hester never cared to use, but which onlywealth could have purchased and affection have imagined for her.There were trifles too, little ornaments, beautiful tokens of acontinual remembrance, that must have been wrought by delicatefingers at the impulse of a fond heart. And once Hester was seenembroidering a baby-garment with such a lavish richness ofgolden fancy as would have raised a public tumult had any infantthus apparelled, been shown to our sober-hued community.

In fine, the gossips of that day believed--and Mr. Surveyor Pue,who made investigations a century later, believed--and one ofhis recent successors in office, moreover, faithfullybelieves--that Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy,and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully haveentertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside.

But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne, here, in NewEngland, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found ahome. Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yetto be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed--ofher own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that ironperiod would have imposed it--resumed the symbol of which wehave related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit herbosom. But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, andself-devoted years that made up Hester's life, the scarletletter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scornand bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowedover, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too. And, asHester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure forher own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrowsand perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who hadherself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, moreespecially--in the continually recurring trials of wounded,wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion--orwith the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvaluedand unsought came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they wereso wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted andcounselled them, as best she might. She assured them, too, ofher firm belief that, at some brighter period, when the worldshould have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truthwould be revealed, in order to establish the whole relationbetween man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness.Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herselfmight be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognisedthe impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterioustruth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed downwith shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow. The angeland apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed,but lofty, pure, and beautiful, and wise; moreover, not throughdusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing howsacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a lifesuccessful to such an end.

So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at thescarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave wasdelved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground besidewhich King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that oldand sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust ofthe two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb-stoneserved for both. All around, there were monuments carved witharmorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate--as thecurious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself withthe purport--there appeared the semblance of an engravedescutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which mayserve for a motto and brief description of our now concludedlegend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowingpoint of light gloomier than the shadow:--

"ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES"