II.-THE MARKET-PLACE.

he grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane,
on a certain summer morning, not less than
two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty
large number of the inhabitants of Boston;
all with their eyes intently fastened on the
iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any
other population, or at a later period in the history of New England,
the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies
of these good people would have augured some awful business
in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated
execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence
of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment.
But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an
inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It
might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child,
whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to
be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, that an Antinomian,
a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist was to be
scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom
the white man’s fire-water had made riotous about the streets,
was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It
might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the
bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the
gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity
of demeanor on the part of the spectators; as befitted a
people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical,
and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that
the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike
made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold was the
sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders,
at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty, which, in our
days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might
then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment
of death itself.heIt was a circumstance to be noted, on the summer morning
when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom
there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar
interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue.
The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety
restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from
stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not
unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to
the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there
was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English
birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants, separated
from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout
that chain of ancestry, every successive mother has transmitted
to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer
beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less
force and solidity, than her own. The women who were now
standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a
century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been
the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They
were her countrywomen; and the beef and ale of their native
land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely
into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone
on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and
ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had
hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New
England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of
speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be,
that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to
its purport or its volume of tone.“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. Madam 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 grisly 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 acquainted only with the gray twilight of
a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.
“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 grisly 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 acquainted only with the gray twilight of
a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood
fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse
to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by
an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal
a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her
dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of
her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the
baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty
smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around
at her towns-people and neighbors. On the breast of her gown,
in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and
fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was
so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous
luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting
decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of
a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly
beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the
colony.The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance
on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy
that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which,
besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness
of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked
brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the
manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by
a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent,
and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its
indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like,
in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued
from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had
expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous
cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her
beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy
in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a
sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it.
Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in
prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to
express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of
her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point
which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,—so
that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted
with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her
for the first time,—was that Scarlet Letter, so fantastically
embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect
of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity,
and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.Scarlet Letter“She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked
one of her female spectators; “but did ever a woman, before
this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it! Why,
gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates,
and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen,
meant for a punishment?”“It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the old
dames, “if we stripped Madam Hester’s rich gown off her
dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath
stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic
flannel, to make a fitter one!”“O, peace, neighbors, peace!” whispered their youngest companion;
“do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that
embroidered letter but she has felt it in her heart.”The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff.“Make way, good people, make way, in the King’s name!”
cried he. “Open a passage; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne
shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight
of her brave apparel, from this time till an hour past meridian.
A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where
iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam
Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!”A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators.
Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession
of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne
set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A
crowd of eager and curious school-boys, understanding little of
the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran
before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into
her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious
letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those
days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by
the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey
of some length; for, haughty as her demeanor was, she
perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that
thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the
street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature,
however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that
the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures
by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after
it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne
passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of
scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood
nearly beneath the eaves of Boston’s earliest church, and appeared
to be a fixture there.In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine,
which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely
historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old
time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship,
as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France.
It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose
the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as
to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it
up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied
and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron.
There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common
nature,—whatever be the delinquencies of the individual,—no
outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face
for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In
Hester Prynne’s instance, however, as not unfrequently in other
cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time
upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the
neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was
the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing
well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was
thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height
of a man’s shoulders above the street.Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he
might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her
attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to
remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many
illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent;
something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast,
of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant
was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest
sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect,
that the world was only the darker for this woman’s beauty,
and the more lost for the infant that she had borne.The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must
always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature,
before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile,
instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne’s
disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were
stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence,
without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness
of another social state, which would find only a theme
for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been
a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been
repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no
less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors,
a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom
sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down
upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a
part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence
of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction
of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual
meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The
unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under
the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened
upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable
to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she
had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs
of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult;
but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn
mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all
those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and
herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude,—each
man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child,
contributing their individual parts,—Hester Prynne might have
repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under
the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt,
at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power
of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the
ground, or else go mad at once.Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she
was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her
eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a
mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind,
and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept
bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a
little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness; other faces
than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those
steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences the most trifling and immaterial,
passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish
quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came
swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever
was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely
as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all
alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit,
to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms,
from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality.Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point
of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along
which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing
on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village,
in Old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of
gray stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated
shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique
gentility. She saw her father’s face, with its bald brow, and
reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan
ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of heedful and
anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which,
face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior
even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle
remonstrance in her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own
of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it.
There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken
in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and
bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over
many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a
strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner’s purpose to
read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister,
as Hester Prynne’s womanly fancy failed not to recall, was
slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than
the right. Next rose before her, in memory’s picture-gallery,
the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, gray houses,
the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and
quaint in architecture, of a Continental city; where a new life
had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar;
a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft
of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these
shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan
settlement, with all the towns-people assembled and levelling their
stern regards at Hester Prynne,—yes, at herself,—who stood
on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter
A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold-thread, upon
her bosom!Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her
breast, that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward
at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure
herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes!—these
were her realities,—all else had vanished!