THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 7

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• Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  
    honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.

   

Another 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 colouring, 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 elder 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 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 at 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 honourable 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 keep 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 armour on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and  
    robes of peace. All were characterised 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 armourer in London, the same year  
    in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a steel headpiece, 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 armour 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 humouring 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.  
   

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1. Ebooks list page : 86
2. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 2
3. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 11
4. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 10
5. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 8
6. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 5
7. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 9
8. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 20
9. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 6
10. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 4
11. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 23
12. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 3
13. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 1
14. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 12
15. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 14
16. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 16