The idea that Satan, or the Black Man, lived in the forest was common among Puritans.
In this passage Roger Chillingworth is unmistakably linked with the Black Man
or Satan.
From The Scarlet Letter (Chapter 10)
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
shrank, 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!"
