The Scarlet Letter

"Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye a

piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if

we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute,

should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester

Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for

judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together,

would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful

magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not."

"People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master

Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart

that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation."

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful

overmuch--that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At

the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on

Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at

that, I warrant me. But she--the naughty baggage--little will

she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look

you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish

adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"

"Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a

child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang

of it will be always in her heart."

"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of

her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female,

the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these

self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us

all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is,

both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the

magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if

their own wives and daughters go astray."

"Mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there

no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of

the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips for

the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress

Prynne herself."

The door of the jail being flung open from within there

appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into

sunshine, the grim and gristly presence of the town-beadle, with

a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This

personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole

dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his

business to administer in its final and closest application to

the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left

hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom

he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the

prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural

dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as

if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of

some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little

face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence,

heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey

twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the

prison.