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“I have thought of death,” said she,—“have wished for it,—would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! It is even now at my lips.” “Drink, then,” replied he, still with the same cold composure. “Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne?
So Roger Chillingworth a deformed old figure with a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked took leave of Hester Prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and there a herb, or grubbed up a root and put it into the basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched the ground as he crept onward.
The penalty thereof is death. But the magistracy, in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom." "A wise sentence!" remarked the stranger gravely.
There was one that lined a hatcase with a paper of Benlowes' poetry; Prynne bought it by chance and put a new demi-castor into it. The first time he wore it he felt only a singing in his head, which within two days turned to a vertigo.
The consequences belong to general history. Never was scheme of ecclesiastical ambition more completely shattered than Laud's; never was historical retribution more condign. Compensation was subsequently voted to them for the iniquitous fines imposed on them by the Star Chamber, and Prynne before long was one of the chief instruments in bringing Laud to trial and the block.
An Indian in his native garb was standing there; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements that one of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne at such a time; much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind.
Had the statesmen of the Convention taken a different course, had they held long debates on the principles of government, had they drawn up a new constitution and sent it to Charles, had conferences been opened, had couriers been passing and repassing during some weeks between Westminster and the Netherlands, with projects and counterprojects, replies by Hyde and rejoinders by Prynne, the coalition on which the public safety depended would have been dissolved: the Presbyterians and Royalists would certainly have quarrelled: the military factions might possibly have been reconciled; and the misjudging friends of liberty might long have regretted, under a rule worse than that of the worst Stuart, the golden opportunity which had been suffered to escape.
Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to communicate to the reader. Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in England to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne.
It was an obscure night in early May. An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark grey of the midnight.
A letter to him from the Dean, dated July 8th, A.D. 1634, is quoted by Prynne, "We have obeyed your Grace's direction in pulling down the exorbitant seates within our Quire whereby the church is very much beautified.... Lastly wee most humbly beseech your Grace to take notice that many and most necessary have beene the occasions of extraordinary expences this yeare for ornaments, etc."
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