專四晨讀美文：The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter
After her return to the prison,
Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement
that demanded constant watchfulness,
lest she should perpetrate violence on herself,
or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe.
As night approached,
it proving impossible to quell her insubordination
by rebuke or threats of punishment,
Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician.
He described him as a man of skill
in all Christian modes of physical science,
and likewise familiar with
whatever the savage people could teach,
in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest.
To say the truth,
there was much need of professional assistance,
not merely for Hester herself,
but still more urgently for the child;
who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom,
seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil,
the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system.
It now writhed in convulsions of pain,
and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony
which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.
Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment,
appeared that individual of singular aspect,
whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest
to the wearer of the scarlet letter.
He was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any offence,
but as the most convenient
and suitable mode of disposing of him,
until the magistrates should have conferred
with the Indian sagamores respecting his ransom.
His name was announced as Roger Chillingworth.
The jailer, after ushering him into the room,
remained a moment,
marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed his entrance;
for Hester Prynne had immediately become as still as death,
although the child continued to moan.
"Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient,"
said the practitioner.
"Trust me, good jailer,
you shall briefly have peace in your house;
and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter
be more amenable to just authority
than you may have found her heretofore."
"Nay, if your worship can accomplish that,"
answered Master Brackett,
"I shall own you for a man of skill indeed!
Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one;
and there lacks little, that I should take in hand
to drive Satan out of her with stripes."