Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1892-06-25
coNTINuED ]
CHAPTER XIV.

and which had ever since been covering
with moss, so that these two fated ones,
with earth's heaviest burden on them,
a single hours rest and solace. And
there was Pearl, too, lightly dancing
from the margin of the brook-now that
the intrusive third person was gone
and taking her old place by her mothers
side So the minister had not fallen
asleep and dreamed.
In order to free his mind from this in
distinctness and duplicity of impression,
which vexed it with a strange dis
quietude, he recalled and more thor
oughly defined the plans which Hester
and himself had sketched for their de-
parture. It had been determined be-
tween them that the Old World, with
its crowds and cities, offered them a
more eligible shelter and concealment
than the wilds of New England or all
America, with its alternatives of an In
dian wigwam or the few settlements of
Europeans scattered thinly along the
seaboard. Not to speak of the clergy
mans health, so inadequate to sustain
the hardships of forest life, his native
gifts, his culture and his entire develop
ment would secure him home only in
the midst of civilization and refinement;
the higher the state the more delicately
adapted to it the man.
In furtherance of this choice, it so hap
pened that ship lay in the harbor; one
of those questionable cruisers frequent
at that day, which, without being abso-
lutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed
over its surface with remarkable ire
sponsibility of character. This vessel
had recently arrived from the Spanish
Main, and within three days time would
sail for Bristol Hester Prynne-whose
vocation, as self enlisted sister of
charity, had brought her acquainted
with the captain and crew-could take
upon herself to secure the passage of two
individuals and a child with all the Sc
crecy which circumstances rendered
more than desirable.
The minister had inquired of Hester,
with no little interest, the precise time
at which the vessel might be expected to
depart. 1t would probably be on the
fourth day from the present. "That is
most fortunate!" he had then said to him.
self. Now, why the Reverend Mr.. Dim
mesdale considered it so very fortunate,
we hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless, to
hold nothing back from the reader, it
was because on the third day from the
present he was to preach the election
sermon, and as such an occasion formed
an honorable epoch in the life of New
England clergyman he could not have
CHANGED upon more suitable mode and
time of terminating his professional ca
reer.
SAT least they shall say of me, p
thought this exemplary man, "that
leave no public duty unperformed nor
i'll performedw Sad, indeed, that an in
trospection so profound and acute as
this poor minister's should be so misera-
bly, deceived We have had and may
4 still have worse things to tell of him,
1 but none we apprehend SO pitiably
weak; no evidence, at once so slight and
! irrefragable, of subtle disease that had
long since begun to eat into the real
substance of his character. No man for
any considerable period can wear one
face to himself and another to the null.
titude without finally getting bewildered
as to which may be the true.
The excitement of Mr. Dinmesdale's
feelings as he returned from his inter
view with Hester lent him unaccus-
toned physical energy and hurried him
downward at rapid pace. The path
l way among the woods seemed wilder,
more uncouth with its rude natural OBJ
stacles, and less trodden by the foot Of
l man, than he remembered it on his out
ward journey. But he leaped across
the plashy places, thrust himself
1 through the clinging underbrush,
climbed the ascent, plunged into the
l hollow, and evercame, in short, all the
4 difficulties of the track with an un-
weariable activity that astonished him.
1 He could not but recall how feebly, and
with what frequent pauses for breath
I he had toiled over the same ground
| only two days before. As he drew neal
I the town he took an impression OF
change from the series of familiar OBJ
l jects that presented themselves. II
l seemed not yesterday, not one, not two,
| but many days, or even years ago, since
he had quilted them. There, indeed,
1 was each former trace of the street, as
1 he remembered it, and all the peculiar.
tiles of the houses, with the due multi.
4 tude of gable peaks, and weathercocb
| at every point where his memory sug-
gested one.
n
Not the less, however, came this i'm.
| Fortunately obtrusiye sense of change
l The same was true as regarded the ac-
| quaintances whom he met, and all the
| well known shapes OF human life about
| the little town. They looked neither
| older nor younger now; the boards OF
the aged were no whittier, nor could the
l creeping babe of yesterday walk ON his
l feet today; it was impossible to describe
4 in what respect they differed from the
4 individuals on whom he had SO recently
bestowed parting glance; and yet the
| minister's deepest sense seemed to in.
| form them Of their mutability. A SINH.
Lar impression struck him most remark
| ably, as he passed under the walls of his
| own church. The edifce had so very
| strange and yet SO familiar an aspect
1 that Mr.. Dimmesdale's mind yibrated
I between two ideas-either that lie had
seen it only in dream hitherto, or that
he was merely dreaming about it now.
This phenomenon, in the various shapes
which it assumed, indicated no external
l change, but so sudden and important a
| change IN the spectator of the familiar
scene that the intervening space of a
single day had operated on his conscious
mes Ike the lapse Of years. The min
| ister's own will, and Hester's will, and
the fate that grew between them, had
wrought this transformation. 1t was
the same town as heretofore, but the
same minister returned not from the
1 forest He might have said to the friends
who greeted him: II am not the man
Cor whom you take mel 1 left him yon-
der in the forest, withdrawn into secret
dell by a messy tree trunk and near q
melancholy brook! Go seek your min.
lister and see If his emaciated figure, his
thin cheek, his white. heavy. pain wrin.