"
"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 gristly 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.
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