 commerce, such as
would have perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice.
    But the sea, in those old times, heaved, swelled, and foamed very much at
its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts
at regulation by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his
calling, and become at once, if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land;
nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a
personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic, or casually associate. Thus,
the Puritan elders, in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned
hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamor and rude deportment of these jolly
seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion when so
reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter
the market-place, in close and familiar talk with the commander of the
questionable vessel.
    The latter was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel
went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons on
his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain,
and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side, and a sword-cut on
his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to
display than hide. A landsman could hardly have worn this garb and shown this
face, and worn and shown them both with such a galliard air, without undergoing
stern question before a magistrate, and probably incurring fine or imprisonment,
or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks. As regarded the shipmaster, however, all
was looked upon as pertaining to the character, as to a fish his glistening
scales.
    After parting from the physician, the commander of the Bristol ship strolled
idly through the market-place; until, happening to approach the spot where
Hester Prynne was standing, he appeared to recognize, and did not hesitate to
address her. As was usually the case wherever Hester stood, a small, vacant area
- a sort of magic circle - had formed itself about her, into which, though the
people were elbowing one another at a little distance, none ventured, or felt
disposed to intrude. It was a forcible type of the moral solitude in which the
scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer; partly by her own reserve, and partly
by the instinctive, though no longer so unkindly, withdrawal of her
fellow-creatures. Now
