THE SCARLET LETTER I .
THE PRISON DOOR A throng of bearded men , in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats , inter-mixed with women , some wearing hoods , and others bareheaded , was assembled in front of a wooden edifice , the door of which was heavily timbered with oak , and studded with iron spikes .
The founders of a new colony , whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project , have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery , and another portion as the site of a prison .
In accordance with this rule it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the Vicinity of Cornhill , almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground , on Isaac Johnson 's lot , and round about his grave , which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King 's Chapel .
Certain it is that , some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town , the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age , which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front .
The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World .
Like all that pertains to crime , it seemed never to have known a youthful era .
Before this ugly edifice , and between it and the wheel-track of the street , was a grass-plot , much overgrown with burdock , pig-weed , apple-pern , and such unsightly vegetation , which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society , a prison .
But on one side of the portal , and rooted almost at the threshold , was a wild rose-bush , covered , in this month of June , with its delicate gems , which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in , and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom , in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him .
This rose-bush , by a strange chance , has been kept alive in history ; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness , so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it , or whether , as there is fair authority for believing , it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-door , we shall not take upon us to determine .
Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative , which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal , we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers , and present it to the reader .
It may serve , let us hope , to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track , or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow .
II .
THE MARKET-PLACE The 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 or vagrant Indian , whom the white man 's firewater 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 demeanour on the part of the spectators , as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical , and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused , that the mildest and 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 .
It 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 had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom , a more delicate and briefer beauty , and a slighter physical frame , if not 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 .
Madame 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 acquaintance only with the grey 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 townspeople and neighbours .
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 splendour in accordance with the taste of the age , but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony .