VII.-THE GOVERNOR’S HALL.

Hester Prynne
went, one day, to the
mansion of Governor
Bellingham, with a
pair of gloves, which
she had fringed and
embroidered to his order,
and which were
to be worn on some
great occasion of
state; for, though the
chances of a popular
election had caused
this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest
rank, he still held an honorable and influential place among the
colonial magistracy.Hester PrynneAnother and far more important reason than the delivery of
a pair of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at this time, to
seek an interview with a personage of so much power and activity
in the affairs of the settlement. It had reached her ears, that
there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants,
cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and
government, to deprive her of her child. On the supposition
that Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good
people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest in the
mother’s soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block
from her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really
capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements
of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the
fairer prospect of these advantages, by being transferred to wiser
and better guardianship than Hester Prynne’s. Among those
who promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to be
one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and indeed, not
a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which, in later
days, would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than
that of the selectmen of the town, should then have been a question
publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took
sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters
of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight,
than the welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed
up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. The
period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when
a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig not only
caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the
colony, but resulted in an important modification of the framework
itself of the legislature.Full of concern, therefore,—but so conscious of her own right
that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public,
on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies
of nature, on the other,—Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary
cottage. Little Pearl, of course, was her companion. She
was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother’s side,
and, constantly in motion, from morn till sunset, could have
accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. Often,
nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to
be taken up in arms; but was soon as imperious to be set down
again, and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway,
with many a harmless trip and tumble. We have spoken of
Pearl’s rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep
and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity
both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown,
and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There
was fire in her and throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated
offshoot of a passionate moment. Her mother, in contriving
the child’s garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her
imagination their full play; arraying her in a crimson velvet
tunic, of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies
and flourishes of gold-thread. So much strength of coloring,
which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a
fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl’s beauty, and made
her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon
the earth.But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and, indeed,
of the child’s whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably
reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne
was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter
in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life! The
mother herself—as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched
into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form—had
carefully wrought out the similitude; lavishing many hours of
morbid ingenuity, to create an analogy between the object of her
affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in
truth, Pearl was the one, as well as the other; and only in consequence
of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to
represent the scarlet letter in her appearance.As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town,
the children of the Puritans looked up from their play,—or
what passed for play with those sombre little urchins,—and
spake gravely one to another:—“Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter; and,
of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter
running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling
mud at them!”But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping
her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening
gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies,
and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit
of them, an infant pestilence,—the scarlet fever, or some such
half-fledged angel of judgment,—whose mission was to punish
the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted,
too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused
the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. The victory
accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked
up, smiling, into her face.Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor
Bellingham. This was a large wooden house, built in a
fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets
of our older towns; now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and
melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences,
remembered or forgotten, that have happened, and passed
away, within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was
the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness,
gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human
habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed,
a very cheery aspect; the walls being overspread with a kind
of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully
intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise over the
front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds
had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy
might have befitted Aladdin’s palace, rather than the mansion
of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with
strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable
to the quaint taste of the age, which had been drawn in the
stucco when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable,
for the admiration of after times.Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, began to caper
and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth
of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to
play with.“No, my little Pearl!” said her mother. “Thou must gather
thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee!”They approached the door; which was of an arched form,
and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of
the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, with wooden
shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer
that hung at the portal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which
was answered by one of the Governor’s bond-servants; a free-born
Englishman, but now a seven years’ slave. During that
term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a
commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. The
serf wore the blue coat, which was the customary garb of serving-men
of that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls
of England.“Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within?” inquired
Hester.“Yea, forsooth,” replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open
eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in
the country, he had never before seen. “Yea, his honorable
worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with
him, and likewise a leech. Ye may not see his worship now.”“Nevertheless, I will enter,” answered Hester Prynne, and
the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air,
and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great
lady in the land, offered no opposition.So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of
entrance. With many variations, suggested by the nature of his
building-materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode of
social life, Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation
after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land.
Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending
through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium
of general communication, more or less directly, with all the
other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was
lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small
recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though
partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated
by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old
books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat.
Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles
of England, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our
own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre-table, to be
turned over by the casual guest. The furniture of the hall consisted
of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately
carved with wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise a table
in the same taste; the whole being of the Elizabethan age, or
perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred hither from the Governor’s
paternal home. On the table—in token that the sentiment
of old English hospitality had not been left behind—stood
a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had Hester or
Pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant
of a recent draught of ale.On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers
of the Bellingham lineage, some with armor on their
breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All
were characterized by the sternness and severity which old portraits
so invariably put on; as if they were the ghosts, rather
than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with
harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of
living men.At about the centre of the oaken panels, that lined the hall,
was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral
relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured
by a skilful armorer in London, the same year in which
Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a
steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget, and greaves, with a pair of
gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the
helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with
white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about
upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere
idle show, but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn
muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the
head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a
lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and
Finch as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new
country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier, as
well as a statesman and ruler.Little Pearl—who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming
armor as she had been with the glittering frontispiece of the
house—spent some time looking into the polished mirror of
the breastplate.“Mother,” cried she, “I see you here. Look! Look!”Hester looked, by way of humoring the child; and she saw
that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the
scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions,
so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her
appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it.
Pearl pointed upward, also, at a similar picture in the head-piece;
smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that
was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. That
look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected in the mirror,
with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester
Prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her own child,
but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into Pearl’s
shape.“Come along, Pearl,” said she, drawing her away. “Come
and look into this fair garden. It may be we shall see flowers
there; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods.”Pearl, accordingly, ran to the bow-window, at the farther end
of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden-walk, carpeted
with closely shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and
immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared
already to have relinquished, as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate
on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close
struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental
gardening. Cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin-vine,
rooted at some distance, had run across the intervening space,
and deposited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the
hall-window; as if to warn the Governor that this great lump
of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as New England earth
would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, however, and a
number of apple-trees, probably the descendants of those planted
by the Reverend Mr. Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula;
that half-mythological personage, who rides through our
early annals, seated on the back of a bull.Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose,
and would not be pacified.“Hush, child, hush!” said her mother, earnestly. “Do not
cry, dear little Pearl! I hear voices in the garden. The Governor
is coming, and gentlemen along with him!”In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue a number of
persons were seen approaching towards the house. Pearl, in utter
scorn of her mother’s attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch
scream, and then became silent; not from any notion of obedience,
but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition
was excited by the appearance of these new personages.