pluck them off.

Roger Chillingworth had by this time approached the window, and smiled
grimly down.

"There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human
ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's
composition," remarked he, as much to himself as to his companion. "I
saw her, the other day, bespatter the Governor himself with water, at
the cattle-trough in Spring Lane. What, in Heaven's name, is she? Is
the imp altogether evil? Hath she affections? Hath she any
discoverable principle of being?"

"None, save the freedom of a broken law," answered Mr. Dimmesdale, in
a quiet way, as if he had been discussing the point within himself.
"Whether capable of good, I know not."

The child probably overheard their voices; for, looking up to the
window, with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence,
she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The
sensitive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light
missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapped her little hands, in the
most extravagant ecstasy. Hester Prynne, likewise, had involuntarily
looked up; and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one
another in silence, till the child laughed aloud, and shouted,--"Come
away, mother! Come away, or yonder old Black Man will catch you! He
hath got hold of the minister already. Come away, mother, or he will
catch you! But he cannot catch little Pearl!"

So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking
fantastically, among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature
that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor
owned herself akin to it. It was as if she had been made afresh, out
of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life,
and be a law unto herself, without her eccentricities being reckoned
to her for a crime.

"There goes a woman," resumed Roger Chillingworth, after a pause,
"who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery of
hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. Is Hester
Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet letter on her
breast?"

"I do verily believe it," answered the clergyman. "Nevertheless, I
cannot answer for her. There was a look of pain in her face, which I
would gladly have been spared the sight of. But still, methinks, it
must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as
this poor woman Hester is,