All people, in a word, would
come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up their
amazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold. Whom
would they discern there, with the red eastern light upon his
brow? Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half-frozen to
death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne
had stood!
Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the
minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a
great peal of laughter. It was immediately responded to by a
light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the
heart--but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as
acute--he recognised the tones of little Pearl.
"Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he, after a moment's pause; then,
suppressing his voice--"Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?"
"Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise;
and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the
side-walk, along which she had been passing. "It is I, and my
little Pearl."
"Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you
hither?"
"I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne
"at Governor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure
for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling.
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