This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the
physician ever manifested in the young clergyman; he attached
himself to him as a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly
regard and confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility.
He expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health, but
was anxious to attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken,
seemed not despondent of a favourable result. The elders, the
deacons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens of
Mr. Dimmesdale's flock, were alike importunate that he should
make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill. Mr.
Dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties.
"I need no medicine," said he.
But how could the young minister say so, when, with every
successive Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his
voice more tremulous than before--when it had now become a
constant habit, rather than a casual gesture, to press his hand
over his heart? Was he weary of his labours? Did he wish to die?
These questions were solemnly propounded to Mr. Dimmesdale by
the elder ministers of Boston, and the deacons of his church,
who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him," on the sin of
rejecting the aid which Providence so manifestly held out. He
listened in silence, and finally promised to confer with the
physician.
"Were it God's will," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, when, in
fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old Roger
Chillingworth's professional advice, "I could be well content
that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains,
should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be
buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal
state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof
in my behalf."
"Ah," replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness, which,
whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is
thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not
having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily!
And saintly men, who walk with God on earth, would fain be away,
to walk with him on the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem."
"Nay," rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his
heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, "were I
worthier to walk there, I could be better content to toil here."
"Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly," said the
physician.
In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became
the medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only
the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved
to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these
two men, so different in age, came gradually to spend much time
together. For the sake of the minister's health, and to enable
the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took
long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest; mingling various
walks with the splash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn
wind-anthem among the tree-tops. Often, likewise, one was the
guest of the other in his place of study and retirement. There
was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of
science, in whom he recognised an intellectual cultivation of no
moderate depth or scope; together with a range and freedom of
ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members of
his own profession. In truth, he was startled, if not shocked,
to find this attribute in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale was a
true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment
largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself
powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage
continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of
society would he have been what is called a man of liberal
views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the
pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him
within its iron framework. Not the less, however, though with a
tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of
looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of
intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. It
was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer
atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was
wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams,
and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales
from books. But the air was too fresh and chill to be long
breathed with comfort. So the minister, and the physician with
him, withdrew again within the limits of what their Church
defined as orthodox.