And there was Pearl,
too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook--now that the
intrusive third person was gone--and taking her old place by her
mother's side. So the minister had not fallen asleep and
dreamed!
In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity
of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he
recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and
himself had sketched for their departure. It had been determined
between them that the Old World, with its crowds and cities,
offered them a more eligible shelter and concealment than the
wilds of New England or all America, with its alternatives of an
Indian wigwam, or the few settlements of Europeans scattered
thinly along the sea-board. Not to speak of the clergyman's
health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships of a forest life,
his native gifts, his culture, and his entire development would
secure him a home only in the midst of civilization and
refinement; the higher the state the more delicately adapted to
it the man. In furtherance of this choice, it so happened that a
ship lay in the harbour; one of those unquestionable cruisers,
frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of
the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable
irresponsibility of character.
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