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Chapter 22. The procession.

Before Hester Prynne could call together her thoughts and consider what was practicable to be done in this new

and startling aspect of affairs, the sound of military music was heard approaching along a contiguous street.

It denoted the advance of the procession of magistrates and citizens on its way towards the meeting house,

where, in compliance with the custom thus early established and ever since observed,

the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was to deliver an election sermon.

Soon, the head of the procession showed itself with a slow and stately march, turning a corner,

and making its way across the marketplace.

First came the music.

It comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapted to one another,

and played with no great skill, but yet taining the great object for which the harmony of drum and clarion addresses itself to the multitude.

That of imparting a higher and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes before the eye.

Little Pearl, at first, clapped her hands, but then lost, for an instant, the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescence throughout the morning.

She gazed silently and seemed to be born upward like a floating seabird on the long heaves and swells of sound.

...