“What mean you?” inquired Hester, startled
more than she permitted to appear. “Have
you another passenger?”
“Why, know you not,” cried the shipmaster,
“that this physician here—Chillingworth
he calls himself—is minded to try my cabin-fare
with you? Ay, ay, you must have known it; for
he tells me he is of your party, and a close friend
to the gentleman you spoke of—he that is
in peril from these sour old Puritan rulers.”
“They know each other well, indeed,” replied
Hester, with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost
consternation. “They have long dwelt together.”
Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hester
Prynne. But at that instant she beheld old Roger
Chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest corner
of the market-place and smiling on her; a smile which—across
the wide and bustling square, and through all the
talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and
interests of the crowd—conveyed secret and
fearful meaning.
Before Hester Prynne could call together her thoughts,
and consider what was practicable to be done in this
new and startling aspect of affairs, the sound of
military music was heard approaching along a contiguous
street. It denoted the advance of the procession
of magistrates and citizens on its way towards the
meeting-house: where, in compliance with a custom
thus early established, and ever since observed, the
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was to deliver an Election
Sermon.
Soon the head of the procession showed itself, with
a slow and stately march, turning a corner, and making
its way across the market-place. First came
the music. It comprised a variety of instruments,
perhaps imperfectly adapted to one another, and played
with no great skill; but yet attaining the great object
for which the harmony of drum and clarion addresses
itself to the multitude—that of imparting
a higher and more heroic air to the scene of life
that passes before the eye. Little Pearl at
first clapped her hands, but then lost for an instant
the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual
effervescence throughout the morning; she gazed silently,
and seemed to be borne upward like a floating sea-bird
on the long heaves and swells of sound. But
she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer
of the sunshine on the weapons and bright armour of
the military company, which followed after the music,
and formed the honorary escort of the procession.
This body of soldiery—which still sustains
a corporate existence, and marches down from past
ages with an ancient and honourable fame—was
composed of no mercenary materials. Its ranks
were filled with gentlemen who felt the stirrings
of martial impulse, and sought to establish a kind
of College of Arms, where, as in an association of
Knights Templars, they might learn the science, and,
so far as peaceful exercise would teach them, the
