The Scarlet Letter

After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in

a state of nervous excitement, that demanded constant

watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or

do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As night

approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination

by rebuke or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer,

thought fit to introduce a physician. He described him as a man

of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and

likewise familiar with whatever the savage people could teach in

respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest. To

say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance,

not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the

child--who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom,

seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and

despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writhed in

convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little

frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne

throughout the day.

Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment, appeared

that individual, of singular aspect whose presence in the crowd

had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet

letter. He was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any

offence, but as the most convenient and suitable mode of

disposing of him, until the magistrates should have conferred

with the Indian sagamores respecting his ransom. His name was

announced as Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him

into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative

quiet that followed his entrance; for Hester Prynne had

immediately become as still as death, although the child

continued to moan.

"Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient," said the

practitioner. "Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have

peace in your house; and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall

hereafter be more amenable to just authority than you may have

found her heretofore."

"Nay, if your worship can accomplish that," answered Master

Brackett, "I shall own you for a man of skill, indeed! Verily,

the woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little

that I should take in hand, to drive Satan out of her with

stripes."

The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic

quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as

belonging. Nor did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of

the prison keeper left him face to face with the woman, whose

absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a

relation between himself and her. His first care was given to

the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the

trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all

other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the

infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case,

which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain

medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of

water.