The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1892-10-26
THE SCARLET LETTER.
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
CHAPTER XVII.
THR PROCESSION.


of military music was heard approach
ing along a contiguous street. 1t de-
noted the advance of the procession Of
magistrates and citizens on its way to-
ward the meeting house, where, in com
pliance with custom thus early estab-
lished and ever since observed, the Rev.
erend Mr.. Dimmesdale was to deliver
an election sermon.
Soon the head of the procession showed
itself, with a slow and stately march,
turning a corner and making its way
across tho market place. First came
the music. 1t comprised variety Of
instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapt
ed to one another, and played with no
great skill, but yet attaining the great
| object for which the harmony Of drum
and clarion addresses itself TO the multi
tude-that of imparting a higher and
more heroic air to the scene OF life that
passes before the eye.
Little Pearl at first clapped her hands,
but then lost for an instant the restless
| agitation that had kept her in contin-
ual effervescence throughout the morn
ing. She gazed silently and seemed to
be borne upward, like floating sea bird.
on the long heaves and swells Of sound.
But she was brought back to her former
mood by the simmer of the sunshine ON
the weapons and bright armor of the
military company which followed after
the music and formed the honorary es-
cort of the procession. This body of
soldiery, which still sustains corporate
existence and marches down from past
ages with an ancient and honorable
fame, was composed of no mercenary
materials. Itsranks were filled with gen.
tlemen who felt the STRINGS of martial
impulse and sought to establish kind
Of college of arms, where, as in an asso-
citation of knights Templar, they might
learn the science, and. so far as peaceful
exercise would teach them. the practices
of war.
The high estimation then placed upon
the military character might be seen in
the lofty port of each individual mem
Der of the company. Some of them, in
deed, by their services in the low coun-
tries and Oh other fields Of European
warfare, had fairly won their title to
assume the name and pomp of soldier
ship. The entire array, moreover, clad
in FURNISHED steel and with plumage
nodding over their bright morions, had
brilliancy Of effect which no modern
display can aspire to equal.
And yet the men of civil eminence,
who came Immediately behind the mill
tary escort, were better worth thought
full Observers eye. Even in outward de-
meanor they showed stamp of majesty
that made the warriors naughty stride
look vulgar, if not absurd.
So far as a demeanor of natural au-
thority was concerned, the mother coun-
try need not have been ashamed to see
these foremost men of an actual democ-
.racy adopted into the house of peers or
made the privy council Of he sovereign
Next in order to the magistrates came
the young and eminently distinguished
divine, from whose lips the religious dis
course of the anniversary was expected
His was the profession at that era in
which intellectual ability displayed it
self far more than in political life; for,
leaving higher motive out of the ques-
ton, it offered inducements powerful
enough in the almost worshiping re-
spect of the community to win the most
aspiring ambition into its service. Even
political power, as in the case of In
crease Mather, was within the grasp of
a successful priest.
1t was the observation of those who
beheld him now that never, since Mr..
Dimmesdale first set his foot on the New
England shore, had he exhibited such
energy as was seen in the gait and air
with which he kept his pace in the pro-
cession. There was no feebleness of
step as at other times; his frame was not
bent, nor did his hand rest oninously
upon his heart. =
Hester Prynne, gazing steadfastly at
the clergyman, felt dreary influence
come over her, but wherefore or whence
che knew not, unless that he seemed so
remote from her own sphere and utterly
beyond her reach. One glance of recog-
milton, she had imagined, must needs
pass between them. She thought Of the
dim forest, with its little dell of solitude
and love and anguish, and the messy
tree trunk, where, sitting hand in hand,
they had mingled their sad and passion
ate talk with the melancholy murmur
of the brook. How deeply had they
known each other thenl And was this
the man? She hardly knew him now!
He, moving proudly past, enveloped, as
it were, in the rich music, with the pro-
cession of majestic and venerable ia
theirs; he, so unattainable in his worldly
position, and still more so in that far
vista of his unsympathizing thoughts,
through which she now beheld himi
Her spirit sank with the idea that all
must have been a delusion. and that,
wildly as she had dreamed it, there
could be no real bond betwixt the cler-
gyman and herself. And thus much Of
woman was there in Hester that she
could scarcely forgive him-least of all
now, when the heavy footstep of their
approaching fate might be heard.
nearer, nearer, nearer-for being able so
completely to withdraw himself from
their mutual world, while she groped
darkly and stretched forth her cold
hands and found him not.
Pearl either saw and responded to her
mothers feelings, or herself felt the re-
moteness and intangibility that had fall
en- around the minister. While the pro-
cession passed the child was uneasy. hut-
tering up and down like bird on the
point Of taking fight. When the whole
had gone by she looked up into Hester's
face.
Mother, said she, twas that the same
minister that kissed me by the brook