"Madam, I know not of what you speak," answered Hester Prynne,
feeling Mistress Hibbins to be of infirm mind; yet strangely
startled and awe-stricken by the confidence with which she
affirmed a personal connexion between so many persons (herself
among them) and the Evil One. "It is not for me to talk lightly
of a learned and pious minister of the Word, like the Reverend
Mr. Dimmesdale."
"Fie, woman--fie!" cried the old lady, shaking her finger at
Hester. "Dost thou think I have been to the forest so many
times, and have yet no skill to judge who else has been there?
Yea, though no leaf of the wild garlands which they wore while
they danced be left in their hair! I know thee, Hester, for I
behold the token. We may all see it in the sunshine! and it
glows like a red flame in the dark. Thou wearest it openly, so
there need be no question about that. But this minister! Let me
tell thee in thine ear! When the Black Man sees one of his own
servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters
so that the mark shall be disclosed, in open daylight, to the
eyes of all the world! What is that the minister seeks to hide,
with his hand always over his heart? Ha, Hester Prynne?"
"What is it, good Mistress Hibbins?" eagerly asked little Pearl.
"Hast thou seen it?"
"No matter, darling!" responded Mistress Hibbins, making Pearl a
profound reverence. "Thou thyself wilt see it, one time or
another. They say, child, thou art of the lineage of the Prince
of Air! Wilt thou ride with me some fine night to see thy
father? Then thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his
hand over his heart!"
Laughing so shrilly that all the market-place could hear her,
the weird old gentlewoman took her departure.
By this time the preliminary prayer had been offered in the
meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale
were heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling
kept Hester near the spot. As the sacred edifice was too much
thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position
close beside the scaffold of the pillory. It was in sufficient
proximity to bring the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of
an indistinct but varied murmur and flow of the minister's very
peculiar voice.
This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment, insomuch that a
listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the
preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the
mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion
and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to
the human heart, wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by
its passage through the church walls, Hester Prynne listened
with such intenseness, and sympathized so intimately, that the
sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its
indistinguishable words. These, perhaps, if more distinctly
heard, might have been only a grosser medium, and have clogged
the spiritual sense. Now she caught the low undertone, as of the
wind sinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it
rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and power,
until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe
and solemn grandeur. And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes
became, there was for ever in it an essential character of
plaintiveness. A loud or low expression of anguish--the whisper,
or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity,
that touched a sensibility in every bosom! At times this deep
strain of pathos was all that could be heard, and scarcely heard
sighing amid a desolate silence. But even when the minister's
voice grew high and commanding--when it gushed irrepressibly
upward--when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so
overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid
walls, and diffuse itself in the open air--still, if the auditor
listened intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same
cry of pain. What was it? The complaint of a human heart,
sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of
guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind; beseeching its
sympathy or forgiveness,--at every moment,--in each accent,--and
never in vain! It was this profound and continual undertone that
gave the clergyman his most appropriate power.