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Chapter 15

Hester and Pearl

So Roger Chillingworth, a deformed old figure,

with a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked,

took leave of Hester-Prin and went stooping away along the earth.

He gathered here and there in Urb, or grubbed up a root,

and put it into the basket on his arm.

His gray beard almost touched the ground as he crept onward.

Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity

to see whether the tender grass of early spring

would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps,

brown across its cheerful verder.

She wondered what sort of herbs they were,

which the old man was so sedulous to gather.

Would not the earth quick into an evil purpose by the sympathy of thy,

greet him with poisonous shrubs of species hitherto unknown

that would start up under his fingers?

Or might it suffice him that every wholesome growth

...