The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

  XVI.

  A FOREST WALK.

  Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to make known to Mr.Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior consequences,the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy. Forseveral days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity of addressinghim in some of the meditative walks which she knew him to be in thehabit of taking, along the shores of the peninsula, or on the woodedhills of the neighboring country. There would have been no scandal,indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame,had she visited him in his own study; where many a penitent, ere now,had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened bythe scarlet letter. But, partly that she dreaded the secret orundisguised interference of old Roger Chillingworth, and partly thather conscious heart imputed suspicion where none could have been felt,and partly that both the minister and she would need the whole wideworld to breathe in, while they talked together,--for all thesereasons, Hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacythan beneath the open sky.

  At last, while attending in a sick-chamber, whither the Reverend Mr.Dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he hadgone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indianconverts. He would probably return, by a certain hour, in theafternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the next day, Hester tooklittle Pearl,--who was necessarily the companion of all her mother'sexpeditions, however inconvenient her presence,--and set forth.

  The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the peninsula tothe mainland, was no other than a footpath. It straggled onward intothe mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, andstood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfectglimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it imaged not amissthe moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering. The daywas chill and sombre. Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightlystirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshinemight now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. Thisflitting cheerfulness was always at the farther extremity of some longvista through the forest. The sportive sunlight--feebly sportive, atbest, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene--withdrewitself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced thedrearier, because they had hoped to find them bright.

  "Mother," said little Pearl, "the sunshine does not love you. It runsaway and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on yourbosom. Now, see! There it is, playing, a good way off. Stand youhere, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not fleefrom me; for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!"

  "Nor ever will, my child, I hope," said Hester.

  "And why not, mother?" asked Pearl, stopping short, just at thebeginning of her race. "Will not it come of its own accord, when I ama woman grown?"

  "Run away, child," answered her mother, "and catch the sunshine! Itwill soon be gone."

  Pearl set forth, at a great pace, and, as Hester smiled to perceive,did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst ofit, all brightened by its splendor, and scintillating with thevivacity excited by rapid motion. The light lingered about the lonelychild, as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawnalmost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too.

  "It will go now," said Pearl, shaking her head.

  "See!" answered Hester, smiling. "Now I can stretch out my hand, andgrasp some of it."

  As she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished; or, to judge fromthe bright expression that was dancing on Pearl's features, her mothercould have fancied that the child had absorbed it into herself, andwould give it forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they shouldplunge into some gloomier shade. There was no other attribute that somuch impressed her with a sense of new and untransmitted vigor inPearl's nature, as this never-failing vivacity of spirits; she had notthe disease of sadness, which almost all children, in these latterdays, inherit, with the scrofula, from the troubles of theirancestors. Perhaps this too was a disease, and but the reflex of thewild energy with which Hester had fought against her sorrows, beforePearl's birth. It was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard,metallic lustre to the child's character. She wanted--what some peoplewant throughout life--a grief that should deeply touch her, and thushumanize and make her capable of sympathy. But there was time enoughyet for little Pearl.

  "Come, my child!" said Hester, looking about her from the spot wherePearl had stood still in the sunshine. "We will sit down a little waywithin the wood, and rest ourselves."

  "I am not aweary, mother," replied the little girl. "But you may sitdown, if you will tell me a story meanwhile."

  "A story, child!" said Hester. "And about what?"

  "O, a story about the Black Man," answered Pearl, taking hold of hermother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously,into her face. "How he haunts this forest, and carries a book withhim,--a big, heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly Black Manoffers his book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here amongthe trees; and they are to write their names with their own blood. Andthen he sets his mark on their bosoms! Didst thou ever meet the BlackMan, mother?"

  "And who told you this story, Pearl?" asked her mother, recognizing acommon superstition of the period.

  "It was the old dame in the chimney-corner, at the house where youwatched last night," said the child. "But she fancied me asleep whileshe was talking of it. She said that a thousand and a thousand peoplehad met him here, and had written in his book, and have his mark onthem. And that ugly-tempered lady, old Mistress Hibbins, was one. And,mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letter was the Black Man'smark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetesthim at midnight, here in the dark wood. Is it true, mother? And dostthou go to meet him in the night-time?"

  "Didst thou ever awake, and find thy mother gone?" asked Hester.

  "Not that I remember," said the child. "If thou fearest to leave me inour cottage, thou mightest take me along with thee. I would verygladly go! But, mother, tell me now! Is there such a Black Man? Anddidst thou ever meet him? And is this his mark?"

  "Wilt thou let me be at peace, if I once tell thee?" asked her mother.

  "Yes, if thou tellest me all," answered Pearl.

  "Once in my life I met the Black Man!" said her mother. "This scarletletter is his mark!"

  Thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into the wood tosecure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger alongthe forest track. Here they sat down on a luxuriant heap of moss;which, at some epoch of the preceding century, had been a giganticpine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome shade, and its headaloft in the upper atmosphere. It was a little dell where they hadseated themselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on eitherside, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen anddrowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down greatbranches, from time to time, which choked up the current and compelledit to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in itsswifter and livelier passages, there appeared a channel-way ofpebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along thecourse of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from itswater, at some short distance within the forest, but soon lost alltraces of it amid the bewilderment of tree-trunks and underbrush, andhere and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens. All thesegiant trees and bowlders of granite seemed intent on making a mysteryof the course of this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with itsnever-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart ofthe old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on thesmooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, thestreamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy,like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy withoutplayfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance andevents of sombre
hue.

  "O brook! O foolish and tiresome little brook!" cried Pearl, afterlistening awhile to its talk. "Why art thou so sad? Pluck up a spirit,and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring!"

  But the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among theforest-trees, had gone through so solemn an experience that it couldnot help talking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say.Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushedfrom a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenesshadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, shedanced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course.

  "What does this sad little brook say, mother?" inquired she.

  "If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee ofit," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine! But now,Pearl, I hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one puttingaside the branches. I would have thee betake thyself to play, andleave me to speak with him that comes yonder."

  "Is it the Black Man?" asked Pearl.

  "Wilt thou go and play, child?" repeated her mother. "But do not strayfar into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call."

  "Yes, mother," answered Pearl. "But if it be the Black Man, wilt thounot let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under hisarm?"

  "Go, silly child!" said her mother, impatiently. "It is no Black Man!Thou canst see him now, through the trees. It is the minister!"

  "And so it is!" said the child. "And, mother, he has his hand over hisheart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book,the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear itoutside his bosom, as thou dost, mother?"

  "Go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt another time,"cried Hester Prynne. "But do not stray far. Keep where thou canst hearthe babble of the brook."

  The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook,and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholyvoice. But the little stream would not be comforted, and still kepttelling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery thathad happened--or making a prophetic lamentation about something thatwas yet to happen--within the verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl,who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break offall acquaintance with this repining brook. She set herself, therefore,to gathering violets and wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbinesthat she found growing in the crevices of a high rock.

  When her elf-child had departed, Hester Prynne made a step or twotowards the track that led through the forest, but still remainedunder the deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the minister advancingalong the path, entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he hadcut by the wayside. He looked haggard and feeble, and betrayed anerveless despondency in his air, which had never so remarkablycharacterized him in his walks about the settlement, nor in any othersituation where he deemed himself liable to notice. Here it waswofully visible, in this intense seclusion of the forest, which ofitself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. There was alistlessness in his gait; as if he saw no reason for taking one stepfarther, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, couldhe be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of thenearest tree, and lie there passive, forevermore. The leaves mightbestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a littlehillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no.Death was too definite an object to be wished for, or avoided.

  To Hester's eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale exhibited no symptom ofpositive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little Pearl hadremarked, he kept his hand over his heart.