THE GOVERNOR'S HALL

As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the Puritans looked up from their play,—or what ed for play with those sombre little urchins—and spoke gravely one to another.
"Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!"
But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence—the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment—whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. The victory accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face.
Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor Bellingham. This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our older towns now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, ed or forgotten, that have happened and ed away within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of the ing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect, the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have be fitted Aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age which had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the iration of after times.
Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with.
"No, my little Pearl!" said her mother; "thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee!"
They approached the door, which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, the wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the Governor's bond servant—a free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a t-stool. The serf wore the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls of England.
"Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within?" inquired Hester.
"Yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. "Yea, his honourable worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. Ye may not see his worship now."
"Nevertheless, I will enter," answered Hester Prynne; and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition.

LA SALA DEL GOBERNADOR

Al llegar madre e hija a los linderos de la poblacin, los nios de los puritanos, en medio de sus juegos, o de lo que pasaba por juego entre aquellos sombros chicuelos, fijaron en ellas las miradas y dijeron:
—Ah viene la mujer de la letra escarlata; y a su lado viene saltando lo que tambin se parece a una letra escarlata. Vamos a arrojarles fango.
Pero Perla, que era una nia intrpida, despus de fruncir el entrecejo, de golpear el suelo con el piececito y de apretar el puo con diversos gestos amenazadores, se lanz de repente contra el grupo de sus enemigos y los puso a todos en fuga. Al mismo tiempo chill y grit con violencia tal, que el corazn de los fugitivos tembl de espanto. Terminada su victoria, Perla regres tranquilamente al lado de su madre, a la que dirigi una risuea mirada.

Sin otra aventura llegaron a la morada del Gobernador. Era sta una gran casa de madera, fabricada al estilo de las que aun se ven en las calles de nuestras ciudades ms antiguas; ahora cubiertas de musgo, derrumbndose, y de aspecto melanclico, mudos testigos de las penas o alegras de que fueron teatro sus obscuras habitaciones. Entonces, sin embargo, haba en su exterior la frescura de la juventud, y en sus ventanas, iluminadas por el sol, pareca brillar aquel contento que reina en las moradas humanas en que aun no ha entrado la muerte.

La casa del Gobernador tena, a la verdad, una apariencia muy alegre: las paredes estaban cubiertas con una especie de estuco con innumerables fragmentos de vidrio, de modo que cuando el sol alumbraba oblicuamente el edificio, brillaba y fulguraba como si sobre l se hubieran arrojado diamantes a manos llenas, lo que le haca parecer ms propio para el palacio de Aladino, que para mansin de un viejo y grave jefe puritano. Estaba adems adornado con figuras y diagramas extraos y al parecer cabalsticos, de acuerdo con el raro gusto de la poca, que haban sido dibujados en el estuco cuando se acab de poner, y se haban endurecido con el tiempo, sin duda para que sirvieran de iracin a las edades futuras.

Perla, cuando contempl esta especie de casa maravillosa, comenz a palmotear y a bailar, y pidi con acento decidido que arrancaran todo aquel frente radiante del edificio, y se lo dieran para jugar con l.
—No, mi querida Perlita, le dijo su madre. T misma tienes que procurarte tus rayos de sol; yo no tengo nada que darte.
Se acercaron a la puerta, que tena la forma de un arco, y estaba flanqueada a cada costado por una torre estrecha o proyeccin del edificio, con ventanas de enrejado de alambre y postigos de madera. Levantando el aldabn de hierro, Ester dio un golpe al que respondi uno de los siervos del Gobernador, ingls de nacimiento y libre, pero que a la sazn era esclavo por siete aos. Durante ese tiempo tena que ser la propiedad de su amo, lo mismo que si fuera un buey. El siervo llevaba el traje azul que era el vestido ordinario de los siervos de aquella poca, como lo fue tambin mucho antes en las antiguas casas solariegas de Inglaterra.

—Est en casa Su Seora el Gobernador Bellingham? pregunt Ester.

—Ciertamente que s, respondi el siervo, contemplando con tamaos ojos la letra escarlata, pues habiendo llegado recientemente al pas, no la haba visto todava. S, Su Seora est en casa; pero con l hay un par de piadosos ministros, y al mismo tiempo un mdico: no creo que podis verle ahora.