“We shall have thee there anon!” said
the witch-lady, frowning, as she drew back her head.
But here—if we suppose this interview betwixt
Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic,
and not a parable—was already an illustration
of the young minister’s argument against sundering
the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring of
her frailty. Even thus early had the child saved
her from Satan’s snare.
Under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the
reader will remember, was hidden another name, which
its former wearer had resolved should never more be
spoken. It has been related, how, in the crowd
that witnessed Hester Prynne’s ignominious exposure,
stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging
from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in
whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness
of home, set up as a type of sin before the people.
Her matronly fame was trodden under all men’s
feet. Infamy was babbling around her in the
public market-place. For her kindred, should
the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions
of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but
the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail
to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion
with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous
relationship. Then why—since the choice
was with himself—should the individual,
whose connexion with the fallen woman had been the
most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward
to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little
desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside
her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all
but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key
of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from
the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties
and interest, to vanish out of life as completely
as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither
rumour had long ago consigned him. This purpose
once effected, new interests would immediately spring
up, and likewise a new purpose; dark, it is true,
if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full
strength of his faculties.
In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence
in the Puritan town as Roger Chillingworth, without
other introduction than the learning and intelligence
of which he possessed more than a common measure.
As his studies, at a previous period of his life,
had made him extensively acquainted with the medical
science of the day, it was as a physician that he presented
himself and as such was cordially received. Skilful
men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were
of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom,
it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that
brought other emigrants across the Atlantic.
In their researches into the human frame, it may be
that the higher and more subtle faculties of such
men were materialised, and that they lost the spiritual
