"Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!" answered the
minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. "Thy
power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee
now!"
He again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter.
"Hester Prynne," cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the
name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at
this last moment, to do what--for my own heavy sin and miserable
agony--I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither
now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but
let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! This
wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his
might!--with all his own might, and the fiend's! Come,
Hester--come! Support me up yonder scaffold."
The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who
stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by
surprise, and so perplexed as to the purport of what they
saw--unable to receive the explanation which most readily
presented itself, or to imagine any other--that they remained
silent and inactive spectators of the judgement which Providence
seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on
Hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approach
the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little hand
of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger
Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the
drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and
well entitled, therefore to be present at its closing scene.
"Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he looking darkly
at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret--no high
place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me--save
on this very scaffold!"
"Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!" answered the
minister.
Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester, with an expression of
doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed,
that there was a feeble smile upon his lips.
"Is not this better," murmured he, "than what we dreamed of in
the forest?"
"I know not! I know not!" she hurriedly replied. "Better? Yea;
so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us!"
"For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order," said the
minister; "and God is merciful! Let me now do the will which He
hath made plain before my sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man.
So let me make haste to take my shame upon me!"
Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and holding one hand of
little Pearl's, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the
dignified and venerable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were
his brethren; to the people, whose great heart was thoroughly
appalled yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing that
some deep life-matter--which, if full of sin, was full of
anguish and repentance likewise--was now to be laid open to
them. The sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the
clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood
out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar
of Eternal Justice.