The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1892-10-26

even as he did yonder among the dark
old trees. What would the minister
have said, mother Would he have
clapped his hand over his heart and
scowled on me and bid me be goneY'
What should he say. PearlY' an
swered Hester, "save that it was no
time to kiss, and that kisses are not to
be given in the market place? Well for
thee, foolish child, that thou didst not
speak to himr'
By this time the preliminary prayer
had been offered in the meeting house,
and the accents of the Reverend Mr..
Dimmesdale were heard commencing
his discourse. An irresistible feeling
kept Hester near the spot. AS the sa-
cred edifice was too much thronged to
admit another auditor, she took up her
position close beside the scaffold of the
pillory. 1t was in sufficient proximity
in the shape of an indistinct but varied
murmur and flow Of the minister's very
peculiar voice.
This vocal organ was in itself rich
endowment, insomuch that listener,
compromising nothing Of the language
in which the preacher spoke, might still
have been swayed to and fro by the mere
tone and cadence. Like all other music,
it breathed passion and pathos and emo
tons high or tender in tongue native
to the human heart wherever educated.
Muffled as the sound was by its passage
through the church walls, Hester Prynne
listened with such intentness, and SYM
pathized so intimately, that the sermon
had throughout meaning for her en-
tirely apart from its indistinguishable
words. These, perhaps, if more dis
tinctly heard, might have been only
grosser medium and have clogged the
spiritual sense. Now she caught the
low undertone, as of the wind sinking
down to repose itself; then assembled
with it, as 1t rose through progressive
gradations Of sweetness and power, I'M
til its volume seemed to envelop her
with an atmosphere Of awe and solemn
grandeur. And yet, majestic as the
voice sometimes became, there was for
ever in it an essential character of plain
tiveness.
A loud or low expression of anguish
the whisper or the shrek, as it might be
conceived, of suffering humanity, that
touched sensibility in every bosoml At
times this deep strain Of pathos was all
that could be heard, and scarcely heard,
signing amid a desolate silence But
even when the minister's voice grew
high and commanding, when it gushed
irrepressibly upward, when it assumed
its utmost breadth and power, so over
filling the church as to burst its way
through the solid walls and diffuse it.
self in the open air-still, if the auditor
listened intently and for the purpose,
he could detect the same cry of pain.
What was it? The complaint of human
heart, sorrow laden, perchance guilty
telling its secret, whether of guilt or
sorrow, to the great heart of mankind.
beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness
at every moment, in each accent and
never in vain! Itwas this profound and
continual undertone that gave the cler-
gyman his most appropriate power.
During all this time Hester stood,
statueike, at the foot of the scaffold. II
the minister's voice had not kept her
there, there would nevertheless have been
an inevitable magnetism in that spot,
whence she dated the first hour of her
life of ignominy. There was a sense
within her--too i'll defined to be made a
thought, but weighing heavily on her
mind-that her whole orb of life, both
before and after, was connected with
this spot, as with the one point that gave
1t unity.
Little Pearl, meanwhile, had quilted
her mothers side, and was playing at
her own will about the market place.
She made the somber crowd cheerful by
her erratic and glistening ray; even as
bird of bright plumage eliminates q
whole tree of dusky foliage by darting
to and fro, half seen and half concealed
amid the twilight of the clustering
leaves. She had an undulating. but Of
tentimes a sharp and irregular move
ment. 1t indicated the restless vivacity
of her spirit, which today was doubly
indefatigable in its tiptoe dance, because
1t was played upon and vibrated with her
mothers disquietude. ip 5,ie
Whenever Pearl saw anything to ex-