Chapter 8
THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER
Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy
cap—such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue
themselves with, in their domestic privacy—walked
foremost, and appeared to be showing off his
estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements.
The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff,
beneath his grey beard, in the antiquated
fashion of King James's reign, caused his
head to look not a little like that of John
the Baptist in a charger. The impression made
by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten
with more than autumnal age, was hardly in
keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment
wherewith he had evidently done his utmost
to surround himself. But it is an error to
suppose that our great forefathers—though
accustomed to speak and think of human existence
as a state merely of trial and warfare, and
though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods
and life at the behest of duty—made it a
matter of conscience to reject such means
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 over Governor Bellingham's shoulders,
while its wearer suggested that pears and
peaches might yet be naturalised in the New
England climate, and that purple grapes might
possibly be compelled to flourish against
the sunny garden-wall. The old clergyman,
nurtured at the rich bosom of the English
Church, had a long established and legitimate
taste for all good and comfortable things,
and however stern he might show himself in
the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such
transgressions as that of Hester Prynne, still,
the genial benevolence of his private life
had won him warmer affection than 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 as having taken
a brief and reluctant part in the scene of
Hester Prynne's disgrace; and, in close companionship
with him, old Roger Chillingworth, a person
of great skill in physic, who for two or three
years past had been settled in the town. It
was understood that this learned man was the
physician as well as friend of the young minister,
whose health had severely suffered of late
by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the
labours and duties of the pastoral relation.
The Governor, in advance of his visitors,
ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open
the leaves of the great hall window, found
himself close to little Pearl. The shadow
of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne, and
partially concealed her.
"What have we here?" said Governor Bellingham,
looking with surprise at the scarlet little
figure before him. "I profess, I have never
seen the like since my days of vanity, in
old King James's time, when I was wont to
esteem it a high favour 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 a guest into my hall?"
"Ay, indeed!" cried good old Mr. Wilson. "What
little bird of scarlet plumage may this be?
Methinks I have seen just such figures when
the sun has been shining through a richly
painted window, and tracing out the golden
and crimson images across the floor. But that
was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who
art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to
bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art
thou a Christian child—ha? Dost know thy
catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty
elfs or fairies whom we thought to have left
behind us, with other relics of Papistry,
in merry old England?"
"I am mother's child," answered the scarlet
vision, "and my name is Pearl!"
"Pearl?—Ruby, rather—or Coral!—or Red
Rose, at the very least, judging from thy
hue!" responded the old minister, putting
forth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little
Pearl on the cheek. "But where is this mother
of thine? Ah! I see," he added; and, turning
to Governor Bellingham, whispered, "This is
the selfsame child of whom we have held speech
together; and behold here the unhappy woman,
Hester Prynne, her mother!"
"Sayest thou so?" cried the Governor. "Nay,
we might have judged 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
good time, 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 on the wearer of the scarlet
letter, "there hath been much question concerning
thee of late. The point hath been weightily
discussed, whether we, that are of authority
and influence, do well discharge our consciences
by trusting an immortal soul, such as there
is in yonder child, to the guidance of one
who hath stumbled and fallen amid the pitfalls
of this world. Speak thou, the child's own
mother! Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy
little one's temporal and eternal welfare
that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad
soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed
in the truths of heaven and earth? What canst
thou 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 we
would transfer 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 at this 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
are about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray
you, examine this
Pearl—since that is her name—and see whether
she hath had such
Christian nurture as befits a child of her
age."
The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair
and made an effort 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 take flight
into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little
astonished at this outbreak—for he was a
grandfatherly sort of personage, and usually
a vast favourite with children—essayed,
however, to proceed with the examination.
"Pearl," said he, with great solemnity, "thou
must take heed to instruction, that so, in
due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom
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, the daughter of a pious home,
very soon after her talk with the child about
her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her
of those truths which the human spirit, at
whatever stage of immaturity, 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 England Primer, or the first column
of the Westminster Catechisms, although unacquainted
with the outward form of either of those celebrated
works. But that perversity, which all children
have more or less of, and of which little
Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most
inopportune moment, took thorough possession
of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her
to speak words amiss. After putting her finger
in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals
to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, the
child finally announced that she had not been
made at all, but had been plucked by her mother
off the bush of wild roses that grew by the
prison-door.
This phantasy was probably suggested by the
near proximity of the Governor's red roses,
as Pearl stood outside of the window, together
with her recollection of the prison rose-bush,
which she had passed in coming hither.
Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his
face, whispered something in the young clergyman's
ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill,
and even then, with her fate hanging in the
balance, was startled to perceive what a change
had come over his features—how much uglier
they were, how his dark complexion seemed
to have grown duskier, and his figure more
misshapen—since the days when she had familiarly
known him. She met his eyes for an instant,
but was immediately constrained to give all
her attention to the scene now going forward.
"This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly
recovering from the astonishment into which
Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is
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, its present
depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen,
we need inquire no further."
Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her
forcibly into her arms, confronting the old
Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression.
Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with
this sole treasure to keep her heart alive,
she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights
against the world, and was ready to defend
them to the death.
"God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave
her in requital of all things else which ye
had taken from me. She is my happiness—she
is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps
me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too! See
ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable
of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold
the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall
not take her! I will die first!"
"My poor woman," said the not unkind old minister,
"the child shall be well cared for—far better
than thou canst do for it."
"God gave her into my keeping!" repeated Hester
Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek.
"I will not give her up!" And here by a sudden
impulse, she turned to the young clergyman,
Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment,
she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct
her eyes. "Speak thou for me!" cried she.
"Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of
my soul, and knowest me better than these
men can. I will not lose the child! Speak
for me! Thou knowest—for thou hast sympathies
which these men lack—thou knowest what is
in my heart, and what are a mother's rights,
and how much the stronger they are when that
mother has but her child and the scarlet letter!
Look thou to it! I will not lose the child!
Look to it!"
At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated
that Hester Prynne's situation had provoked
her to little less than madness, the young
minister at once came forward, pale, and holding
his hand over his heart, as was his custom
whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament
was thrown into agitation. He looked now more
careworn and emaciated than as we described
him at the scene of Hester's public ignominy;
and whether it were his failing health, or
whatever the cause might be, his large dark
eyes had a world of pain in their troubled
and melancholy depth.
"There is truth in what she says," began the
minister, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but
powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoed
and the hollow armour rang with it—"truth
in what Hester says, and in the feeling which
inspires her! God gave her the child, and
gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of
its nature and requirements—both seemingly
so peculiar—which no other mortal being
can possess. And, moreover, is there not a
quality of awful sacredness in the relation
between 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 it otherwise, do we not thereby
say that the Heavenly Father, the creator
of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deed
of sin, and made of no account the distinction
between unhallowed lust and holy love? This
child of its father's guilt and its mother's
shame has come from the hand of God, to work
in many ways upon her heart, who pleads so
earnestly 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 was meant, doubtless, the mother herself
hath told us, for a retribution, 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 troubled joy! Hath she not
expressed this thought in the garb of the
poor child, so forcibly reminding us of that
red symbol which sears her bosom?"
"Well said again!" cried good Mr. Wilson.
"I feared the woman had no better thought
than to make a mountebank of her child!"
"Oh, not so!—not so!" continued Mr. Dimmesdale.
"She recognises, believe me, the solemn miracle
which God hath wrought in the existence of
that child. And may she feel, too—what,
methinks, is the very truth—that this boon
was meant, above all things else, to keep
the mother's soul alive, and to preserve her
from blacker depths of sin into which Satan
might else have sought to plunge her! Therefore
it is good for this poor, sinful woman, that
she hath an infant immortality, a being capable
of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her
care—to be trained up by her to righteousness,
to remind her, at every moment, of her fall,
but yet to teach her, as if it were by the
Creator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring
the child to heaven, the child also will bring
its parents thither! Herein is the sinful
mother happier than the sinful father. For
Hester Prynne's sake, then, and no less for
the poor child's sake, let us leave them as
Providence hath seen fit to place them!"
"You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness,"
said old
Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him.
"And there is a weighty import in what my
young brother hath spoken," added the Rev.
Mr. Wilson.
"What say you, worshipful Master Bellingham?
Hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?"
"Indeed hath he," answered the magistrate;
"and hath adduced such arguments, that we
will even leave the matter as it now stands;
so long, at least, as there shall be no further
scandal in the woman. Care must be had nevertheless,
to put the child to due and stated examination
in the catechism, at thy hands or Master Dimmesdale's.
Moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-men
must take heed that she go both to school
and to meeting."
The young minister, on ceasing to speak had
withdrawn a few steps from the group, and
stood with his face partially concealed in
the heavy folds of the window-curtain; while
the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight
cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the
vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild
and flighty little elf stole softly towards
him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both
her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress
so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that
her mother, who was looking on, asked herself—"Is
that 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 her lifetime had been softened by such
gentleness as now. The minister—for, save
the long-sought regards of woman, nothing
is sweeter than these marks of childish preference,
accorded spontaneously by a spiritual instinct,
and therefore seeming to imply in us something
truly worthy to be loved—the minister looked
round, laid his hand on the child's head,
hesitated an instant, and then kissed her
brow. Little Pearl's unwonted mood of sentiment
lasted no longer; she laughed, and went capering
down the hall so airily, that old Mr. Wilson
raised a question whether even her tiptoes
touched the floor.
"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 to see the mother's part in her.
Would it be beyond a philosopher's research,
think ye, gentlemen, to analyse that child's
nature, and, from it make a mould, to give
a shrewd guess at the father?"
"Nay; it would be sinful, in such a question,
to follow the clue of profane philosophy,"
said Mr. Wilson. "Better to fast and pray
upon it; and still better, it may be, to leave
the mystery as we find it, unless Providence
reveal it of its own accord. Thereby, every
good Christian man hath a title to show a
father's kindness towards the poor, deserted
babe."
The affair being so satisfactorily concluded,
Hester Prynne, with Pearl, departed from the
house. As they descended the steps, it is
averred that the lattice of a chamber-window
was thrown open, and forth into the sunny
day was thrust the face of Mistress 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 seemed to cast a shadow over the
cheerful newness of the house. "Wilt thou
go with us to-night? There will be a merry
company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised
the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should
make one."
"Make my excuse to him, so please you!" answered
Hester, with a triumphant smile. "I must tarry
at home, and keep watch over my little Pearl.
Had they taken her from me, I would willingly
have gone with thee 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 she drew back her
head.
But here—if we suppose this interview betwixt
Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic,
and not a parable—was already an illustration
of the young minister's argument against sundering
the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring
of her frailty. Even thus early had the child
saved her from Satan's snare.
