The Scarlet Letter

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?"