THE MINISTER IN A MAZE.

AS the minister departed, in advance of Hester Prynne and little

Pearl, he threw a backward glance; half expecting that he should

discover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother

and the child, slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So

great a vicissitude in his life could not at once be received as real.

But there was Hester, clad in her grey robe, still standing beside the

tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago,

and which time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these

two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burden on them, might there

sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace. 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 seaboard. 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 civilisation 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 questionable

cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely

outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable

irresponsibility of character. This vessel had recently arrived from

the Spanish Main, and, within three days' time, would sail for

Bristol. Hester Prynne- whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of

Charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain and crew- could

take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a

child, with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than

desirable.

The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest, the

precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. It would

probably be on the fourth day from the present. "That is most

fortunate!" he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr.

Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate, we hesitate to reveal.

Nevertheless- to hold nothing back from the reader- it was because, on

the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election

Sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable epoch in the

life of a New England clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more

suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career. "At

least, they shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that I

leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed!" Sad, indeed,

that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister's

should be so miserably deceived! We have had, and may still have,

worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak;

no evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle

disease, that had long since begun to eat into the real substance of

his character. No man, for any considerable period, can wear one

face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally

getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale's feelings, as he returned from his

interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and

hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the woods

seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural obstacles and less

trodden by the foot of man than he remembered it on his outward

journey. But he leaped across the plashy places, thrust himself

through the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged into

the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track,

with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but

recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath, he had

toiled over the same ground, only two days before. As he drew near the

town, he took an impression of change from the series of familiar

objects that presented themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not one,

nor two, but many days, or even years ago, since he had quitted

them. There, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he

remembered it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due

multitude of gable-peaks, and a weather-cock at every point where

his memory suggested one. Not the less, however, came this

importunately obtrusive sense of change. The same was true as regarded

the acquaintances whom he met, and all the well-known shapes of

human life, about the little town. They looked neither older nor

younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could the

creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was

impossible to describe in what respect they differed from the

individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance;

and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him of their

mutability. A similar impression struck him most remarkably, as he

passed under the walls of his own church. The edifice had so very

strange, and yet so familiar, an aspect, that Mr. Dimmesdale's mind

vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a dream

hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming about it now.

This phenomenon, in the various shapes which it assumed, indicated

no external change, but so sudden and important a change in the

spectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a

single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of

years. The minister's own will, and Hester's will, and the fate that

grew between them, had wrought this transformation. It was the same

town as heretofore; but the same minister returned not from the

forest. He might have said to the friends who greeted him, "I am not

the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest,

withdrawn into a secret dell, by a mossy tree-trunk, and near a

melancholy brook! Go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated

figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow, be not

flung down there, like a cast-off garment!" His friends, no doubt,

would still have insisted with him- "Thou art thyself the man!"- but

the error would have been their own, not his.

Before Mr. Dimmesdale reached home, his inner man gave him other

evidences of a revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling. In

truth, nothing short of a total change of dynasty and moral code, in

that interior kingdom, was adequate to account for the impulses now

communicated to the unfortunate and startled minister. At every step

he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with a

sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional; in spite

of himself, yet growing out of a profounder self than that which

opposed the impulse. For instance, he met one of his own deacons.

The good old man addressed him with the paternal affection and

patriarchal privilege, which his venerable age, his upright and holy

character, and his station in the Church, entitled him to use; and,

conjoined with this, the deep, almost worshipping respect, which the

minister's professional and private claims alike demanded. Never was

there a more beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom

may comport with the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a

lower social rank, and inferior order of endowment, towards a

higher. Now, during a conversation of some two or three moments

between the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale and this excellent and

hoary-bearded deacon, it was only by the most careful self-control

that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous

suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the

communion-supper. He absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes,

lest his tongue should wag itself, in utterance of these horrible

matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without his having

fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart, he could

hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal

deacon would have been petrified by his minister's impiety.

Again, another incident of the same nature. Hurrying along the

street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered the eldest female

member of his church; a most pious and exemplary old dame; poor,

widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her

dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a

burial-ground is full of storied gravestones. Yet all this, which

would else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy

to her devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths of

Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than

thirty years. And, since Mr. Dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the

good grandam's chief earthly comfort- which, unless it had been

likewise a heavenly comfort, could have been none at all- was to

meet her pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be refreshed

with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing Gospel truth, from his

beloved lips, into her dulled, but rapturously attentive ear. But,

on this occasion, up to the moment of putting his lips to the old

woman's ear, Mr. Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls would have

it, could recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief,

pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument

against the immortality of the human soul. The instilment thereof into

her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to drop down

dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous infusion.

What he really did whisper, the minister could never afterwards

recollect. There was, perhaps, a fortunate disorder in his

utterance, which failed to impart any distinct idea to the good

widow's comprehension, or which Providence interpreted after a

method of its own. Assuredly, as the minister looked back, he beheld

an expression of divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemed like the

shine of the celestial city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy pale.

Again, a third instance. After parting from the old church-member,

he met the youngest sister of them all. It was a maiden newly won- and

won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale's own sermon, on the Sabbath

after his vigil, to barter the transitory pleasures of the world for

the heavenly hope, that was to assume brighter substance as life

grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with

final glory. She was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in

Paradise. The minister knew well that he was himself enshrined

within the stainless sanctity of her heart, which hung its snowy

curtains about his image, imparting to religion the warmth of love,

and to love a religious purity. Satan, that afternoon, had surely

led the poor young girl away from her mother's side, and thrown her

into the pathway of this sorely tempted, or- shall we not rather say?-

this lost and desperate man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend

whispered him to condense into small compass and drop into her

tender bosom a germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon,

and bear black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of power over this

virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt potent to

blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and

develop all its opposite with but a word. So- with a mightier struggle

than he had yet sustained- he held his Geneva cloak before his face,

and hurried onward, making no sign of recognition, and leaving the

young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. She ransacked her

conscience- which was full of harmless little matters, like her

pocket, or her workbag- and took herself to task, poor thing! for a

thousand imaginary faults; and went about her household duties with

swollen eyelids the next morning.

Before the minister had time to celebrate his victory over this last

temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more ludicrous, and

almost as horrible. It was- we blush to tell it- it was to stop

short in the road, and teach some very wicked words to a knot of

little Puritan children who were playing there, and had but just begun

to talk. Denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he

met a drunken seaman, one of the ship's crew from the Spanish Main.

And here, since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness,

poor Mr. Dimmesdale longed, at least to shake hands with the tarry

blackguard, and recreate himself with a few improper jests, such as

dissolute sailors so abound with, and a volley of good, round,

solid, satisfactory, and heaven-defying oaths! It was not so much a

better principle, as partly his natural good taste, and still more his

buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him safely through

the latter crisis.

"What is it that haunts and tempts me thus?" cried the minister to

himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his hand

against his forehead. "Am I mad? or am I given over utterly to the

fiend? Did I make a contract with him in the forest, and sign it

with my blood? And does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by

suggesting the performance of every wickedness which his most foul

imagination can conceive?"

At the moment when the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale thus communed with

himself, and struck his forehead with his hand, old Mistress

Hibbins, the reputed witch-lady, is said to have been passing by.

She made a very grand appearance; having on a high head-dress, a

rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch,

of which Ann Turner, her especial friend, had taught her the secret,

before this last good lady had been hanged for Sir Thomas Overbury's

murder. Whether the witch had read the minister's thoughts, or no, she

came to a full stop, looked shrewdly into his face, smiled craftily,

and- though little given to converse with clergymen- began a

conversation.

"So, reverend sir, you have made a visit into the forest,"

observed the witch-lady, nodding her high head-dress at him. "The next

time, I pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and I shall be proud

to bear you company. Without taking overmuch upon myself, my good word

will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair reception

from yonder potentate you wot of!"

"I profess, madam," answered the clergyman, with a grave

obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good-breeding

made imperative- "I profess, on my conscience and character, that I

am utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your words! I went

not into the forest to seek a potentate; neither do I, at any future

time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the favour of

such personage. My one sufficient object was to greet that pious

friend of mine, the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the

many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" cackled the old witch-lady, still nodding her high

head-dress at the minister. "Well, well, we must needs talk thus in

the daytime! You carry it off like an old hand! But at midnight, and

in the forest, we shall have other talk together!"

She passed on with her aged stateliness, but often turning back

her head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognise a secret

intimacy of connection.

"Have I then sold myself," thought the minister, "to the fiend whom,

if men say true, this yellow-starched and velveted old hag has

chosen for her prince and master!"

The wretched minister! He had made a bargain very like it! Tempted

by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself, with deliberate

choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin.

And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused

throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all blessed impulses,

and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn,

bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule

of whatever was good and holy, all awoke, to tempt, even while they

frightened him. And his encounter with old Mistress Hibbins, if it

were a real incident, did but show his sympathy and fellowship with

wicked mortals, and the world of perverted spirits.

He had, by this time, reached his dwelling, on the edge of the

burial-ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study.

The minister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first

betraying himself to the world by any of those strange and wicked

eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while passing

through the streets. He entered the accustomed room, and looked around

him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried

comfort of the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had

haunted him throughout his walk from the forest-dell into the town,

and thitherward. Here he had studied and written; here, gone through

fast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray; here,

borne a hundred thousand agonies! There was the Bible, in its rich old

Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets speaking to him, and God's voice

through all! There, on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was

an unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his

thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page, two days before. He

knew that it was himself, the thin and white-cheeked minister, who had

done and suffered these things, and written thus far into the Election

Sermon! But he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self with

scornful, pitying, but half-envious curiosity. That self was gone.

Another man had returned out of the forest; a wiser one; with a

knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never

could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that!

While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of

the study, and the minister said, "Come in!"- not wholly devoid of

an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. And so he did! It was old

Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood, white and

speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other

spread upon his breast.

"Welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician. "And how found you

that godly man, the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir, you look

pale; as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for

you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength

to preach your Election Sermon?"

"Nay, I think not so," rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "My

journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free air

which I have breathed, have done me good, after so long confinement in

my study. I think to need no more of your drugs, my kind physician,

good though they be, and administered by a friendly hand."

All this time, Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister

with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient.

But, in spite of his outward show, the latter was almost convinced

of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion,

with respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician

knew then, that, in the minister's regard, he was no longer a

trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy. So much being known, it would

appear natural that a part of it should be expressed. It is

singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody

things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a

certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without

disturbing it. Thus, the minister felt no apprehension that Roger

Chillingworth would touch, in express words, upon the real position

which they sustained towards one another. Yet did the physician, in

his dark way, creep frightfully near the secret.

"Were it not better," said he, "that you use my poor skill to-night?

Verily, dear sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorous

for this occasion of the Election discourse. The people look for great

things from you; apprehending that another year may come about, and

find their pastor gone."

"Yea, to another world," replied the minister, with pious

resignation. "Heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, I

hardly think to tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of

another year! But, touching your medicine, kind sir, in my present

frame of body, I need it not."

"I joy to hear it," answered the physician. "It may be that my

remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due

effect. Happy man were I, and well deserving of New England's

gratitude, could I achieve this cure!"

"I thank you from my heart, most watchful friend," said the Reverend

Mr. Dimmesdale, with a solemn smile. "I thank you, and can but requite

your good deeds with my prayers."

"A good man's prayers are golden recompense!" rejoined old Roger

Chillingworth, as he took his leave. "Yea, they are the current gold

coin of the New Jerusalem, with the King's own mint, mark on them!"

Left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the house, and

requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous

appetite. Then, flinging the already written pages of the Election

Sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote

with such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied

himself inspired; and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to

transmit the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul

an organ-pipe as he. However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or

go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward, with earnest haste and

ecstasy. Thus the night fled away, as if it were winged steed, and

he careering on it; morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the

curtains; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study and

laid it right across the minister's bedazzled eyes. There he was, with

the pen still between his fingers, and a vast immeasurable tract of

written space behind him!