Again, a third instance. After parting from the old church
member, he met the youngest sister of them all. It was a maiden
newly-won--and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale's own sermon,
on the Sabbath after his vigil--to barter the transitory
pleasures of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume
brighter substance as life grew dark around her, and which would
gild the utter gloom with final glory. She was fair and pure as
a lily that had bloomed in Paradise. The minister knew well that
he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity of her
heart, which hung its snowy curtains about his image, imparting
to religion the warmth of love, and to love a religious purity.
Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl away
from her mother's side, and thrown her into the pathway of this
sorely tempted, or--shall we not rather say?--this lost and
desperate man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to
condense into small compass, and drop into her tender bosom a
germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear
black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of power over this
virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt
potent to blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked
look, and develop all its opposite with but a word. So--with a
mightier struggle than he had yet sustained--he held his Geneva
cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of
recognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness
as she might. She ransacked her conscience--which was full of
harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag--and
took herself to task, poor thing! for a thousand imaginary
faults, and went about her household duties with swollen eyelids
the next morning.
Before the minister had time to celebrate his victory over this
last temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more
ludicrous, and almost as horrible. It was--we blush to tell
it--it was to stop short in the road, and teach some very wicked
words to a knot of little Puritan children who were playing
there, and had but just begun to talk. Denying himself this
freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he met a drunken seaman, one of
the ship's crew from the Spanish Main. And here, since he had so
valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor Mr. Dimmesdale
longed at least to shake hands with the tarry black-guard, and
recreate himself with a few improper jests, such as dissolute
sailors so abound with, and a volley of good, round, solid,
satisfactory, and heaven-defying oaths! It was not so much a
better principle, as partly his natural good taste, and still
more his buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him
safely through the latter crisis.
"What is it that haunts and tempts me thus?" cried the minister
to himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his
hand against his forehead.