San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-06-11

sembrmGShed IerceH 0urrsrfs nds felt 1t IN
her heart.
The grim beadle now made gesture
with his staff.
MAKE way, good people, make way,
in the kings namei" cried he "Open a
passage, and, | promise we, Mistress
Prynne shall be set where man, woman
and child may have a fair sight of her
brave apparel, from this time till an hour
past meridian. A blessing on the right
eous colony of the Massachusetts, where
iniquity is dragged out into the sun
shine! Come along Madam Hester, and
show your scarlet letter in the market
placer
A lame was forthwith opened through
the crowd of spectators. Preceded by
the beadle and attended by an irregular
procession of stern browed men and I'M
kindly visaged women, Hester Prynne
set forth toward the place appointed for
her punishment. A crowd of eagerand
curious schoolboys, understanding lit
tie of the matter in hand; except that it
gave them holiday, ran before her
progress, turning their heads continually
to stare into her face and at the wink
ing baby in her arms, and at the igno-
minions letter ON her breast.
1t was no great distance in those days
from the prison door to the market
place. Measured by the prisoners ex-
perience, however, it might be reckoned
8 journey of some length, for, naughty
as heI demeanor was, she perchance' m
derwent an agony from every footstep
of those that thronged to see her, as if
her heart had been flung into the street
for them all to spurn and trample upon.
In our nature, however, there is pro-
vision, alike marvellous and merciful,
that the sufferer should never know the
intensity of what he endures by its pres
ent torture, but chiefly by the pang that
rankles after it. With almost serene
department, therefore, Hester Prynne
passed through this portion of her or
deal, and came to a sort of scaffold at
the western extremity of the market
place. 1t stood nearly beneath the caves
of Boston's earliest church and appeared
TO De IlXCure Cnere.
In fact this scaffold constituted a por-
ton of penal machine, which now, for
two or three generations past, has been
merely historical and Evolutionary
among us, but was held i'll the old time
to be as effectual an agent in the pro-
motion of good citizenship as ever was
the guillOtine among the terrorists of
France. 1t was, in short, the platform
of the pillory, and above it rose the
framework of that instrument of disci-
pline, so fashioned as to confine the
human head in its tight grasp, and thus
hold it up to the public gaze. The very
ideal of ignominy was embodied and
made manifest in this contrivance of
wood and iron. There can be no out
rage, methinks, against our common ma
ture-whatever be the delinquencies Of
the individual-no outrage more fla
grant than to forbid the culprit to hide
his face for shame, as it was the essence
of this punishment to do.
In Hester Prynne's instance, however,
as not unfreQuently in other cases, her
sentence bore that she should stand
certain time upon the platform, but
without undergoing that grippe about the
neck and confinement of the head, the
proneness to which was the most devil
ish characteristic of this ugly engine
Knowing well her part, she assembled
flight of wooden steps, and was thus dis
played to the surrounding multitude, at
about the height of mans shoulders
above the street The unhappy
culprit sustained herself as best woman
might, under the heavy weight of a
thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened
upon her, and concentrated at her
bosom 1t was almost intolerable to be
borne.
OF an impulsive and passionate nature,
she had fortified herself to encounter the
stings and venomous stabs of public con-
tumely, wreaking itself in every variety
of insult; but there was a quality so
much more terrible in the solemn mood
of the popular mind that she longed
rather to behold all those rigid counte-
nances, contorted with scornful merri-
ment and herself the object. Had a
roar of laughter burst from the multi
tude-each man, each woman. each lit
tie shrill voiced child contributing their
individual parts-Hester Prynne might
have repaid them all with bitter and
disdainful smile. But, under the leaden
infection which it was her doom to
endure, she felt at moments as if she
must needs shrek out with the full
power of her lungs and cast herself