ed into the midst of them. When they were fairly in
the market-place, their presence was greeted by a shout. This--though
doubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the
childlike loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers--was felt to be
an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors by
that high strain of eloquence which was yet reverberating in their
ears. Each felt the impulse in himself, and, in the same breath,
caught it from his neighbor. Within the church, it had hardly been
kept down; beneath the sky, it pealed upward to the zenith. There were
human beings enough, and enough of highly wrought and symphonious
feeling, to produce that more impressive sound than the organ tones of
the blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the sea; even that mighty
swell of many voices, blended into one great voice by the universal
impulse which makes likewise one vast heart out of the many. Never,
from the soil of New England, had gone up such a shout! Never, on New
England soil, had stood the man so honored by his mortal brethren as
the preacher!

How fared it with him then? Were there not the brilliant particles of
a halo in the air about his head? So etherealized by spirit as he was,
and so apotheosized by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the
procession, really tread upon the dust of earth?

As the ranks of military men and civil fathers moved onward, all eyes
were turned towards the point where the minister was seen to approach
among them. The shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd
after another obtained a glimpse of him. How feeble and pale he
looked, amid all his triumph! The energy--or say, rather, the
inspiration which had held him up, until he should have delivered the
sacred message that brought its own strength along with it from
heaven--was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its
office. The glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his
cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly
among the late-decaying embers. It seemed hardly the face of a man
alive, with such a death-like hue; it was hardly a man with life in
him, that tottered on his path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and did
not fall!

One of his clerical brethren,--it was the venerable John
Wilson,--observing the state in which Mr. Dimmesdale was left by the
retiring wave of intellect and sensibility, stepped forward hastily to
offer his support. The minis