VIII.
THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER.
Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap,--such as elderlygentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in their domesticprivacy,--walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate,and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circumferenceof an elaborate ruff, beneath his gray beard, in the antiquatedfashion of King James's reign, caused his head to look not a littlelike that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by hisaspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnalage, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoymentwherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But itis an error to suppose that our grave forefathers--though accustomedto speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial andwarfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and lifeat the behest of duty--made it a matter of conscience to reject suchmeans of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp.This creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerable pastor,John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen overGovernor Bellingham's shoulder; while its wearer suggested that pearsand peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate, andthat purple grapes might possibly be compelled to nourish, against thesunny garden-wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom ofthe English Church, had a long-established and legitimate taste forall good and comfortable things; and however stern he might showhimself in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressionsas that of Hester Prynne, still the genial benevolence of his privatelife had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of hisprofessional contemporaries.
Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guests: one theReverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember as havingtaken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of Hester Prynne'sdisgrace; and, in close companionship with him, old RogerChillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who, for two orthree years past, had been settled in the town. It was understood thatthis learned man was the physician as well as friend of the youngminister, whose health had severely suffered, of late, by his toounreserved self-sacrifice to the labors and duties of the pastoralrelation.
The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or two steps,and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall-window, found himselfclose to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtain fell on HesterPrynne, and partially concealed her.
"What have we here?" said Governor Bellingham, looking with surpriseat the scarlet little figure before him. "I profess, I have never seenthe like, since my days of vanity, in old King James's time, when Iwas wont to esteem it a high favor to be admitted to a court mask!There used to be a swarm of these small apparitions, in holiday time;and we called them children of the Lord of Misrule. But how gat such aguest into my hall?"
"Ay, indeed!" cried good old Mr. Wilson. "What little bird of scarletplumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures, when thesun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing outthe golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in theold land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thymother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christianchild,--ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughtyelfs or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with otherrelics of Papistry, in merry old England?"
"I am mother's child," answered the scarlet vision, "and my name isPearl!"
"Pearl?--Ruby, rather!--or Coral!--or Red Rose, at the very least,judging from thy hue!" responded the old minister, putting forth hishand in a vain attempt to pat little Pearl on the cheek. "But where isthis mother of thine? Ah! I see," he added; and, turning to GovernorBellingham, whispered, "This is the selfsame child of whom we haveheld speech together; and behold here the unhappy woman, HesterPrynne, her mother!"
"Sayest thou so?" cried the Governor. "Nay, we might have judged thatsuch a child's mother must needs be a scarlet woman, and a worthy typeof her of Babylon! But she comes at a good time; and we will look intothis matter forthwith."
Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall, followedby his three guests.
"Hester Prynne," said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on thewearer of the scarlet letter, "there hath been much questionconcerning thee, of late. The point hath been weightily discussed,whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge ourconsciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonderchild, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen, amid thepitfalls of this world. Speak thou, the child's own mother! Were itnot, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfarethat she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplinedstrictly, 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!" answeredHester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token.
"Woman, it is thy badge of shame!" replied the stern magistrate. "Itis because of the stain which that letter indicates, that we wouldtransfer thy child to other hands."
"Nevertheless," said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale,"this badge hath taught me--it daily teaches me--it is teaching me atthis moment--lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better,albeit they can profit nothing to myself."
"We will judge warily," said Bellingham, "and look well what we areabout 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 an effort todraw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child, unaccustomed to the touchor familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window,and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird, ofrich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, nota little astonished at this outbreak,--for he was a grandfatherly sortof personage, and usually a vast favorite with children,--essayed,however, to proceed with the examination.
"Pearl," said he, with great solemnity, "thou must take heed toinstruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom thepearl 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 the childabout her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truthswhich the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes withsuch eager interest. Pearl, therefore, so large were the attainmentsof her three years' lifetime, could have borne a fair examination inthe New England Primer, or the first column of the WestminsterCatechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either ofthose celebrated works. But that perversity which all children havemore or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now,at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, andclosed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After puttingher finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer goodMr. Wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had notbeen made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush ofwild roses that grew by the prison-door.
This fantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of theGovernor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window; togetherwith her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed incoming hither.
Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered somethingin the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man ofskill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, wasstartled to perceive what a change had come over his features,--howmuch uglier they were,--how his dark complexion seemed to have grownduskier, and his figure more misshapen,--since the days when she hadfamiliarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but wasimmediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene nowgoing forward.
"This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from theastonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is achild of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Withoutquestion, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its presentdepravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire nofurther."
Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms,confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierceexpression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this soletreasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessedindefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them tothe death.
"God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave her in requital of allthings else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!--she ismy torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishesme too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of beingloved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution formy sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!"
"Look thou to it! I will not lose the child!"]
"My poor woman," said the not unkind old minister, "the child shall bewell cared for!--far better than thou canst do it!"
"God gave her into my keeping," repeated Hester Prynne, raising hervoice almost to a shriek. "I will not give her up!"--And here, by asudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, atwhom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once todirect her eyes.--"Speak thou for me!" cried she. "Thou wast mypastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than thesemen can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me! Thou knowest,--forthou hast sympathies which these men lack!--thou knowest what is in myheart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger theyare, when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! Lookthou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it!"
At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that Hester Prynne'ssituation had provoked her to little less than madness, the youngminister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over hisheart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperamentwas thrown into agitation. He looked now more care-worn and emaciatedthan as we described him at the scene of Hester's public ignominy; andwhether it were his failing health, or whatever the cause might be,his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled andmelancholy depth.
"There is truth in what she says," began the minister, with a voicesweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoed, andthe hollow armor rang with it,--"truth in what Hester says, and in thefeeling which inspires her! God gave her the child, and gave her, too,an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements,--bothseemingly so peculiar,--which no other mortal being can possess. And,moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relationbetween this mother and this child?"
"Ay!--how is that, good Master Dimmesdale?" interrupted the Governor."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, the Creatorof all flesh, hath lightly recognized a deed of sin, and made of noaccount the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? Thischild of its father's guilt and its mother's shame hath come from thehand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads soearnestly, and with such bitterness of spirit, the right to keep her.It was meant for a blessing; for the one blessing of her life! It wasmeant, doubtless, as the mother herself hath told us, for aretribution too; a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment;a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony, in the midst of a troubledjoy! Hath she not expressed this thought in the garb of the poorchild, so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears herbosom?"
"Well said, again!" cried good Mr. Wilson. "I feared the woman had nobetter thought than to make a mountebank of her child!"
"O, not so!--not so!" continued Mr. Dimmesdale. "She recognizes,believe me, the solemn miracle which God hath wrought, in theexistence of that child. And may she feel, too,--what, methinks, isthe very truth,--that this boon was meant, above all things else, tokeep the mother's soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker depthsof sin into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her!Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath aninfant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow,confided to her care,--to be trained up by her to righteousness,--toremind her, at every moment, of her fall,--but yet to teach her, as itwere by the Creator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child toheaven, the child also will bring its parent thither! Herein is thesinful mother happier than the sinful father. For Hester Prynne'ssake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, let us leave themas Providence hath seen fit to place them!"
"You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said old RogerChillingworth, smiling at him.
"And there is a weighty import in what my young brother hath spoken,"added the Reverend Mr. Wilson. "What say you, worshipful MasterBellingham? Hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?"
"Indeed hath he," answered the magistrate, "and hath adduced sucharguments, that we will even leave the matter as it now stands; solong, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman.Care must be had, nevertheless, to put the child to due and statedexamination in the catechism, at thy hands or Master Dimmesdale's.Moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-men must take heed that shego both to school and to meeting."
The young minister, on ceasing to speak, had withdrawn a few stepsfrom the group, and stood with his face partially concealed in theheavy folds of the window-curtain; while the shadow of his figure,which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with thevehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf,stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both herown, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal sounobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself,--"Isthat my Pearl?" Yet she knew that there was love in the child's heart,although it mostly 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 to implyin us something truly worthy to be loved,--the minister looked round,laid his hand on the child's head, hesitated an instant, and thenkissed her brow. Little Pearl's unwonted mood of sentiment lasted nolonger; she laughed, and went capering down the hall, so airily, thatold Mr. Wilson raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched thefloor.
"The little baggage hath witchcraft in her, I profess," said he to Mr.Dimmesdale. "She needs no old woman's broomstick to fly withal!"
"A strange child!" remarked old Roger Chillingworth. "It is easy tosee the mother's part in her. Would it be beyond a philosopher'sresearch, think ye, gentlemen, to analyze that child's nature, and,from its make and mould, to give a shrewd guess at the father?"
"Nay; it would be sinful, in such a question, to follow the clew ofprofane philosophy," said Mr. Wilson. "Better to fast and pray uponit; and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it,unless Providence reveal it of its own accord. Thereby, every goodChristian man hath a title to show a father's kindness towards thepoor, deserted babe."
The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne, withPearl, departed from the house. As they descended the steps, it isaverred that the lattice of a chamber-window was thrown open, andforth into the sunny day was thrust the face of Mistress Hibbins,Governor Bellingham's bitter-tempered sister, and the same who, a fewyears later, was executed as a witch.
"Hist, hist!" said she, while her ill-omened physiognomy seemed tocast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. "Wilt thou gowith us to-night? There will be a merry company in the forest; and Iwellnigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should makeone."
"Make my excuse to him, so please you!" answered Hester, with atriumphant smile. "I must tarry at home, and
keep watch over my littlePearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone withthee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man's book too,and that with mine own blood!"
"We shall have thee there anon!" said the witch-lady, frowning, as shedrew back her head.
But here--if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins andHester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable--was already anillustration of the young minister's argument against sundering therelation of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. Even thusearly had the child saved her from Satan's snare.