Chapter Chapter 8 · THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER

. 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

tonight? 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.

IX.