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diff --git a/64944-0.txt b/64944-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ccbdcd --- /dev/null +++ b/64944-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2677 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of In colonial days, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will +have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using +this eBook. + +Title: In colonial days + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Mar 28, 2021 [eBook #64944] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images + generously made available by The Internet Archive) + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN COLONIAL DAYS *** + + + + + + IN COLONIAL DAYS + + +[Illustration: + + “Several Personages descending towards the Door” +] + + + + +[Illustration] + + _In + Colonial + Days_ + + + _By_ + + _NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE_ + + + _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY_ + + _Boston_ + + _PUBLISHERS_ + + + + +[Illustration: Copyright, 1896, by JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY Copyright, +1906, by L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (Incorporated)] + + _Copyright, 1896, by_ + + JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY + + _Copyright, 1906, by_ + + L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + + (Incorporated) + + Third Impression, March, 1911 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +[Illustration: List of Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.] + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + PAGE + + “Several Personages descending towards the Door” (_color + plate_) _Frontispiece_ + + COPYRIGHT iv + + LADY READING viii + + HOWE’S MASQUERADE (_Half-title_) ix + + YE OLD PROVINCE HOUSE x + + INITIAL 1 + + THE INDIAN 2 + + “THE STORY OF EACH BLUE TILE” 3 + + “GAGE MAY HAVE BEHELD HIS DISASTROUS VICTORY” 5 + + THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN 6 + + THE BALCONY 7 + + “ONE OF THESE WORTHIES—A TALL, LANK FIGURE” 10 + + COLONEL JOLIFFE AND GRANDDAUGHTER 12 + + “PLEASE YOUR HONOR, THE FAULT IS NONE OF MINE” 15 + + “A STOUT MAN, DRESSED IN RICH AND COURTLY ATTIRE” 18 + + “THE SHAPE OF GAGE, AS TRUE AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS” 22 + + “A TALL MAN, BOOTED AND WRAPPED IN A MILITARY CLOAK” 23 + + “HE RECOILED SEVERAL STEPS FROM THE FIGURE” (_color + plate_) _facing_ 24 + + “A STAGE DRIVER SAT AT ONE OF THE WINDOWS READING A + PENNY PAPER” 27 + + EDWARD RANDOLPH’S PORTRAIT (_Half-title_) 29 + + YE YOUNG CAPTAINE OF YE CASTLE TELLS YE STORY OF YE + PICTURE 35 + + “SOME OF THESE FABLES ARE REALLY AWFUL” (_color plate_) _facing_ 38 + + ALICE BECKONED TO THE PICTURE 41 + + “THE CHAIRMAN OF THE SELECTMEN WAS ADDRESSING TO THE + LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR A LONG AND SOLEMN PROTEST” (_color + plate_) _facing_ 42 + + “SHE SNATCHED AWAY THE SABLE CURTAIN” 45 + + “_Choking with the Blood of the Boston Massacre_” 47 + + _Lady Eleanore’s Mantle_ (_Half-title_) 51 + + YE BEAUTEOUS LADY ELEANORE COMETH TO BOSTON 57 + + “A PALE YOUNG MAN ... PROSTRATED HIMSELF BESIDE THE + COACH” (_color plate_) _facing_ 59 + + GOVERNOR SHUTE DESCENDED THE FLIGHT OF STEPS 60 + + A GATHERING OF RANK, WEALTH, AND BEAUTY 63 + + “I PRAY YOU TAKE ONE SIP OF THIS HOLY WINE” 67 + + “KEEP MY IMAGE IN YOUR REMEMBRANCE” 71 + + “THE COMMUNICATION COULD BE OF NO AGREEABLE IMPORT” 73 + + “YOUNG MAN, WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?” 77 + + “WHAT THING ART THOU?” 80 + + “THAT NIGHT A PROCESSION PASSED BY TORCHLIGHT” (_color + plate_) _facing_ 81 + + OLD ESTHER DUDLEY (_Half-title_) 83 + + “HEAVEN’S CAUSE AND THE KING’S ARE ONE” 89 + + “TAKE THIS KEY AND KEEP IT SAFE” 92 + + “A FEW OF THE STANCH, THOUGH CRESTFALLEN OLD TORIES” 95 + + THE KING OF ENGLAND’S BIRTHDAY 99 + + “RECEIVE MY TRUST” (_color plate_) _facing_ 101 + + FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH 104 + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: HOWE’S MASQUERADE.] + +[Illustration: Yͤ Province House.] + + + + + IN COLONIAL DAYS + + + + + I. + HOWE’S MASQUERADE. + + +[Illustration: One] + +One afternoon, last summer, while walking along Washington Street, my +eye was attracted by a signboard protruding over a narrow archway nearly +opposite the Old South Church. The sign represented the front of a +stately edifice, which was designated as the “OLD PROVINCE HOUSE, kept +by Thomas Waite.” I was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose, long +entertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion of the old royal +governors of Massachusetts; and entering the arched passage, which +penetrated through the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps +transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small and +secluded courtyard. One side of this space was occupied by the square +front of the Province House, three stories high, and surmounted by a +cupola, on the top of which a gilded Indian was discernible with his bow +bent and his arrow on the string, as if aiming at the weathercock on the +spire of the Old South. The figure has kept this attitude for seventy +years or more, ever since good Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver of wood, +first stationed him on his long sentinel’s watch over the city. + +[Illustration] + +The Province House is constructed of brick, which seems recently to have +been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint. A flight of red +freestone steps, fenced in by a balustrade of curiously wrought iron, +ascends from the courtyard to the spacious porch, over which is a +balcony, with an iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to +that beneath. These letters and figures—16 P.S. 79—are wrought into the +iron-work of the balcony, and probably express the date of the edifice, +with the initials of its founder’s name. A wide door with double leaves +admitted me into the hall or entry, on the right of which is the +entrance to the bar-room. + +[Illustration: + + “The story of each blue tile” +] + +It was in this apartment, I presume, that the ancient governors held +their levees, with vice-regal pomp, surrounded by the military men, the +councillors, the judges, and other officers of the crown, while all the +loyalty of the province thronged to do them honor. But the room, in its +present condition, cannot boast even of faded magnificence. The panelled +wainscot is covered with dingy paint, and acquires a duskier hue from +the deep shadow into which the Province House is thrown by the brick +block that shuts it in from Washington Street. A ray of sunshine never +visits this apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches +which have been extinguished from the era of the Revolution. The most +venerable and ornamental object is a chimney-piece set round with Dutch +tiles of blue-figured china, representing scenes from Scripture; and, +for aught I know, the lady of Pownall or Bernard may have sat beside +this fireplace, and told her children the story of each blue tile. A bar +in modern style, well replenished with decanters, bottles, cigar-boxes, +and network bags of lemons, and provided with a beer-pump and a +soda-fount, extends along one side of the room. At my entrance, an +elderly person was smacking his lips, with a zest which satisfied me +that the cellars of the Province House still hold good liquor, though +doubtless of other vintages than were quaffed by the old governors. +After sipping a glass of port sangaree, prepared by the skilful hands of +Mr. Thomas Waite, I besought that worthy successor and representative of +so many historic personages to conduct me over their time-honored +mansion. + +[Illustration] + +He readily complied; but, to confess the truth, I was forced to draw +strenuously upon my imagination, in order to find aught that was +interesting in a house which, without its historic associations, would +have seemed merely such a tavern as is usually favored by the custom of +decent city boarders and old-fashioned country gentlemen. The chambers, +which were probably spacious in former times, are now cut up by +partitions, and subdivided into little nooks, each affording scanty room +for the narrow bed and chair and dressing-table of a single lodger. The +great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a +feature of grandeur and magnificence. It winds through the midst of the +house by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square +landing-place, whence the ascent is continued towards the cupola. A +carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower stories, but growing +dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted +and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. Up these stairs the +military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a governor have +trodden, as the wearers mounted to the cupola, which afforded them so +wide a view over their metropolis and the surrounding country. The +cupola is an octagon, with several windows, and a door opening upon the +roof. From this station, as I pleased myself with imagining, Gage may +have beheld his disastrous victory on Bunker Hill (unless one of the +tri-mountains intervened), and Howe have marked the approaches of +Washington’s besieging army; although the buildings, since erected in +the vicinity, have shut out almost every object, save the steeple of the +Old South, which seems almost within arm’s-length. Descending from the +cupola, I paused in the garret to observe the ponderous white-oak +framework, so much more massive than the frames of modern houses, and +thereby resembling an antique skeleton. The brick walls, the materials +of which were imported from Holland, and the timbers of the mansion, are +still as sound as ever; but the floors and other interior parts being +greatly decayed, it is contemplated to gut the whole, and build a new +house within the ancient frame and brick work. Among other +inconveniences of the present edifice, mine host mentioned that any jar +or motion was apt to shake down the dust of ages out of the ceiling of +one chamber upon the floor of that beneath it. + +[Illustration] + +We stepped forth from the great front window into the balcony, where, in +old times, it was doubtless the custom of the king’s representative to +show himself to a loyal populace, requiting their huzzas and tossed-up +hats with stately bendings of his dignified person. In those days, the +front of the Province House looked upon the street; and the whole site +now occupied by the brick range of stores, as well as the present +courtyard, was laid out in grass-plats, overshadowed by trees and +bordered by a wrought-iron fence. Now, the old aristocratic edifice +hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart modern building. At one of +the back windows I observed some pretty tailoresses, sewing, and +chatting, and laughing, with now and then a careless glance towards the +balcony. Descending thence, we again entered the bar-room, where the +elderly gentleman above mentioned, the smack of whose lips had spoken so +favorably for Mr. Waite’s good liquor, was still lounging in his chair. +He seemed to be, if not a lodger, at least a familiar visitor of the +house, who might be supposed to have his regular score at the bar, his +summer seat at the open window, and his prescriptive corner at the +winter’s fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, I ventured to address him +with a remark, calculated to draw forth his historical reminiscences, if +any such were in his mind; and it gratified me to discover, that, +between memory and tradition, the old gentleman was really possessed of +some very pleasant gossip about the Province House. The portion of his +talk which chiefly interested me was the outline of the following +legend. He professed to have received it at one or two removes from an +eye-witness; but this derivation, together with the lapse of time, must +have afforded opportunities for many variations of the narrative; so +that despairing of literal and absolute truth, I have not scrupled to +make such further changes as seemed conducive to the reader’s profit and +delight. + +[Illustration] + + +At one of the entertainments given at the Province House, during the +latter part of the siege of Boston, there passed a scene which has never +yet been satisfactorily explained. The officers of the British army, and +the loyal gentry of the province, most of whom were collected within the +beleaguered town, had been invited to a masked ball; for it was the +policy of Sir William Howe to hide the distress and danger of the +period, and the desperate aspect of the siege, under an ostentation of +festivity. The spectacle of this evening, if the oldest members of the +provincial court circle might be believed, was the most gay and gorgeous +affair that had occurred in the annals of the government. The +brilliantly lighted apartments were thronged with figures that seemed to +have stepped from the dark canvas of historic portraits, or to have +flitted forth from the magic pages of romance, or at least to have flown +hither from one of the London theatres, without a change of garments. +Steeled knights of the Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen Elizabeth, +and high-ruffled ladies of her court, were mingled with characters of +comedy, such as a party-colored Merry Andrew, jingling his cap and +bells; a Falstaff, almost as provocative of laughter as his prototype; +and a Don Quixote, with a bean-pole for a lance and a potlid for a +shield. + +[Illustration] + +But the broadest merriment was excited by a group of figures +ridiculously dressed in old regimentals, which seemed to have been +purchased at a military rag fair, or pilfered from some receptacle of +the cast-off clothes of both the French and British armies. Portions of +their attire had probably been worn at the siege of Louisburg, and the +coats of most recent cut might have been rent and tattered by sword, +ball, or bayonet, as long ago as Wolfe’s victory. One of these +worthies—a tall, lank figure, brandishing a rusty sword of immense +longitude—purporting to be no less a personage than General George +Washington; and the other principal officers of the American army, such +as Gates, Lee, Putnam, Schuyler, Ward, and Heath, were represented by +similar scarecrows. An interview in the mock-heroic style, between the +rebel warriors and the British commander-in-chief, was received with +immense applause, which came loudest of all from the loyalists of the +colony. There was one of the guests, however, who stood apart, eying +these antics sternly and scornfully, at once with a frown and a bitter +smile. + +It was an old man, formerly of high station and great repute in the +province, and who had been a very famous soldier in his day. Some +surprise had been expressed, that a person of Colonel Joliffe’s known +Whig principles, though now too old to take an active part in the +contest, should have remained in Boston during the siege, and especially +that he should consent to show himself in the mansion of Sir William +Howe. But thither he had come, with a fair granddaughter under his arm; +and there, amid all the mirth and buffoonery, stood this stern old +figure, the best sustained character in the masquerade, because so well +representing the antique spirit of his native land. The other guests +affirmed that Colonel Joliffe’s black puritanical scowl threw a shadow +round about him; although, in spite of his sombre influence, their +gayety continued to blaze higher, like (an ominous comparison) the +flickering brilliancy of a lamp which has but a little while to burn. +Eleven strokes, full half an hour ago, had pealed from the clock of the +Old South, when a rumor was circulated among the company that some new +spectacle or pageant was about to be exhibited, which should put a +fitting close to the splendid festivities of the night. + +[Illustration] + +“What new jest has your Excellency in hand?” asked the Rev. Mather +Byles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him from the +entertainment. “Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more than beseems +my cloth, at your Homeric confabulation with yonder ragamuffin general +of the rebels. One other such fit of merriment, and I must throw off my +clerical wig and band.” + +“Not so, good Dr. Byles,” answered Sir William Howe; “if mirth were a +crime, you had never gained your doctorate in divinity. As to this new +foolery, I know no more about it than yourself; perhaps not so much. +Honestly now, Doctor, have you not stirred up the sober brains of some +of your countrymen to enact a scene in our masquerade?” + +“Perhaps,” slyly remarked the granddaughter of Colonel Joliffe, whose +high spirit had been stung by many taunts against New England,—“perhaps +we are to have a mask of allegorical figures. Victory, with trophies +from Lexington and Bunker Hill,—Plenty, with her overflowing horn, to +typify the present abundance in this good town,—and Glory, with a wreath +for his Excellency’s brow.” + +Sir William Howe smiled at words which he would have answered with one +of his darkest frowns, had they been uttered by lips that wore a beard. +He was spared the necessity of a retort, by a singular interruption. A +sound of music was heard without the house, as if proceeding from a full +band of military instruments stationed in the street, playing, not such +a festal strain as was suited to the occasion, but a slow funeral march. +The drums appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets poured forth a +wailing breath, which at once hushed the merriment of the auditors, +filling all with wonder and some with apprehension. The idea occurred to +many, that either the funeral procession of some great personage had +halted in front of the Province House, or that a corpse, in a +velvet-covered and gorgeously decorated coffin, was about to be borne +from the portal. After listening a moment, Sir William Howe called, in a +stern voice, to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto enlivened +the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies. The man was +drum-major to one of the British regiments. + +“Dighton,” demanded the general, “what means this foolery? Bid your band +silence that dead march; or, by my word, they shall have sufficient +cause for their lugubrious strains! Silence it, sirrah!” + +“Please your Honor,” answered the drum-major, whose rubicund visage had +lost all its color, “the fault is none of mine. I and my band are all +here together; and I question whether there be a man of us that could +play that march without book. I never heard it but once before, and that +was at the funeral of his late Majesty, King George the Second.” + +“Well, well!” said Sir William Howe, recovering his composure; “it is +the prelude to some masquerading antic. Let it pass.” + +A figure now presented itself, but, among the many fantastic masks that +were dispersed through the apartments, none could tell precisely from +whence it came. It was a man in an old-fashioned dress of black serge, +and having the aspect of a steward, or principal domestic in the +household of a nobleman, or great English landholder. This figure +advanced to the outer door of the mansion, and throwing both its leaves +wide open, withdrew a little to one side and looked back towards the +grand staircase, as if expecting some person to descend. At the same +time, the music in the street sounded a loud and doleful summons. The +eyes of Sir William Howe and his guests being directed to the staircase, +there appeared, on the uppermost landing-place that was discernible from +the bottom, several personages descending towards the door. The foremost +was a man of stern visage, wearing a steeple-crowned hat and a skullcap +beneath it; a dark cloak, and huge wrinkled boots that came half-way up +his legs. Under his arm was a rolled-up banner, which seemed to be the +banner of England, but strangely rent and torn; he had a sword in his +right hand, and grasped a Bible in his left. The next figure was of +milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad ruff, over which +descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet, and a doublet and hose of +black satin. He carried a roll of manuscript in his hand. Close behind +these two came a young man of very striking countenance and demeanor, +with deep thought and contemplation on his brow, and perhaps a flash of +enthusiasm in his eye. His garb, like that of his predecessors, was of +an antique fashion, and there was a stain of blood upon his ruff. In the +same group with these were three or four others, all men of dignity and +evident command, and bearing themselves like personages who were +accustomed to the gaze of the multitude. It was the idea of the +beholders, that these figures went to join the mysterious funeral that +had halted in front of the Province House; yet that supposition seemed +to be contradicted by the air of triumph with which they waved their +hands, as they crossed the threshold and vanished through the portal. + +[Illustration: + + “Please your honor.” + + “The fault is none of mine.” +] + +“In the Devil’s name, what is this?” muttered Sir William Howe to a +gentleman beside him; “a procession of the regicide judges of King +Charles the martyr?” + +“These,” said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence almost for the first +time that evening,—“these, if I interpret them aright, are the Puritan +governors,—the rulers of the old, original democracy of Massachusetts. +Endicott, with the banner from which he had torn the symbol of +subjection, and Winthrop, and Sir Henry Vane, and Dudley, Haynes, +Bellingham, and Leverett.” + +“Why had that young man a stain of blood upon his ruff?” asked Miss +Joliffe. + +“Because, in after years,” answered her grandfather, “he laid down the +wisest head in England upon the block, for the principles of liberty.” + +“Will not your Excellency order out the guard?” whispered Lord Percy, +who, with other British officers, had now assembled round the general. +“There may be a plot under this mummery.” + +[Illustration] + +“Tush! we have nothing to fear,” carelessly replied Sir William Howe. +“There can be no worse treason in the matter than a jest, and that +somewhat of the dullest. Even were it a sharp and bitter one, our best +policy would be to laugh it off. See, here come more of these gentry.” + +Another group of characters had now partly descended the staircase. The +first was a venerable and white-bearded patriarch, who cautiously felt +his way downward with a staff. Treading hastily behind him, and +stretching forth his gauntleted hand as if to grasp the old man’s +shoulder, came a tall, soldierlike figure, equipped with a plumed cap of +steel, a bright breastplate, and a long sword, which rattled against the +stairs. Next was seen a stout man, dressed in rich and courtly attire, +but not of courtly demeanor; his gait had the swinging motion of a +seaman’s walk; and chancing to stumble on the staircase, he suddenly +grew wrathful, and was heard to mutter an oath. He was followed by a +noble-looking personage in a curled wig, such as are represented in the +portraits of Queen Anne’s time and earlier; and the breast of his coat +was decorated with an embroidered star. While advancing to the door, he +bowed to the right hand and to the left, in a very gracious and +insinuating style; but as he crossed the threshold, unlike the early +Puritan governors, he seemed to wring his hands with sorrow. + +“Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Dr. Byles,” said Sir William +Howe. “What worthies are these?” + +“If it please your Excellency, they lived somewhat before my day,” +answered the Doctor; “but doubtless our friend, the Colonel, has been +hand-in-glove with them.” + +“Their living faces I never looked upon,” said Colonel Joliffe, gravely; +“although I have spoken face to face with many rulers of this land, and +shall greet yet another with an old man’s blessing, ere I die. But we +talk of these figures. I take the venerable patriarch to be Bradstreet, +the last of the Puritans, who was governor at ninety, or thereabouts. +The next is Sir Edmund Andros, a tyrant, as any New England schoolboy +will tell you; and therefore the people cast him down from his high seat +into a dungeon. Then comes Sir William Phipps, shepherd, cooper, +sea-captain, and governor: may many of his countrymen rise as high, from +as low an origin! Lastly, you saw the gracious Earl of Bellamont, who +ruled us under King William.” + +“But what is the meaning of it all?” asked Lord Percy. + +“Now, were I a rebel,” said Miss Joliffe, half aloud, “I might fancy +that the ghosts of these ancient governors had been summoned to form the +funeral procession of royal authority in New England.” + +Several other figures were now seen at the turn of the staircase. The +one in advance had a thoughtful, anxious, and somewhat crafty expression +of face; and in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was evidently +the result both of an ambitious spirit and of long continuance in high +stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing to a greater than himself. +A few steps behind came an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform, +cut in a fashion old enough to have been worn by the Duke of +Marlborough. His nose had a rubicund tinge, which, together with the +twinkle of his eye, might have marked him as a lover of the wine-cup and +good-fellowship; notwithstanding which tokens, he appeared ill at ease, +and often glanced around him, as if apprehensive of some secret +mischief. Next came a portly gentleman, wearing a coat of shaggy cloth, +lined with silken velvet; he had sense, shrewdness, and humor in his +face, and a folio volume under his arm; but his aspect was that of a man +vexed and tormented beyond all patience and harassed almost to death. He +went hastily down, and was followed by a dignified person, dressed in a +purple velvet suit, with very rich embroidery; his demeanor would have +possessed much stateliness, only that a grievous fit of the gout +compelled him to hobble from stair to stair, with contortions of face +and body. When Dr. Byles beheld this figure on the staircase, he +shivered as with an ague, but continued to watch him steadfastly, until +the gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, made a gesture of anguish +and despair, and vanished into the outer gloom, whither the funeral +music summoned him. + +“Governor Belcher!—my old patron!—in his very shape and dress!” gasped +Dr. Byles. “This is an awful mockery!” + +“A tedious foolery, rather,” said Sir William Howe, with an air of +indifference. “But who were the three that preceded him?” + +“Governor Dudley, a cunning politician,—yet his craft once brought him +to a prison,” replied Colonel Joliffe; “Governor Shute, formerly a +colonel under Marlborough, and whom the people frightened out of the +province; and learned Governor Burnet, whom the Legislature tormented +into a mortal fever.” + +“Methinks they were miserable men, these royal governors of +Massachusetts,” observed Miss Joliffe. “Heavens, how dim the light +grows!” + +It was certainly a fact that the large lamp which illuminated the +staircase now burned dim and dusky: so that several figures, which +passed hastily down the stairs and went forth from the porch, appeared +rather like shadows than persons of fleshly substance. Sir William Howe +and his guests stood at the doors of the contiguous apartments, watching +the progress of this singular pageant, with various emotions of anger, +contempt, or half-acknowledged fear, but still with an anxious +curiosity. The shapes, which now seemed hastening to join the mysterious +procession, were recognized rather by striking peculiarities of dress, +or broad characteristics of manner, than by any perceptible resemblance +of features to their prototypes. Their faces, indeed, were invariably +kept in deep shadow. But Dr. Byles, and other gentlemen who had long +been familiar with the successive rulers of the province, were heard to +whisper the names of Shirley, of Pownall, of Sir Francis Bernard, and of +the well-remembered Hutchinson; thereby confessing that the actors, +whoever they might be, in this spectral march of governors, had +succeeded in putting on some distant portraiture of the real personages. +As they vanished from the door, still did these shadows toss their arms +into the gloom of night, with a dread expression of woe. Following the +mimic representative of Hutchinson came a military figure, holding +before his face the cocked hat which he had taken from his powdered +head; but his epaulets and other insignia of rank were those of a +general officer; and something in his mien reminded the beholders of one +who had recently been master of the Province House, and chief of all the +land. + +[Illustration] + +“The shape of Gage, as true as in a looking-glass!” exclaimed Lord +Percy, turning pale. + +“No, surely,” cried Miss Joliffe, laughing hysterically; “it could not +be Gage, or Sir William would have greeted his old comrade in arms! +Perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass unchallenged.” + +“Of that be assured, young lady,” answered Sir William Howe, fixing his +eyes, with a very marked expression, upon the immovable visage of her +grandfather. “I have long enough delayed to pay the ceremonies of a host +to these departing guests. The next that takes his leave shall receive +due courtesy.” + +[Illustration] + +A wild and dreary burst of music came through the open door. It seemed +as if the procession, which had been gradually filling up its ranks, +were now about to move, and that this loud peal of the wailing trumpets, +and roll of the muffled drums, were a call to some loiterer to make +haste. Many eyes, by an irresistible impulse, were turned upon Sir +William Howe, as if it were he whom the dreary music summoned to the +funeral of departed power. + +“See!—here comes the last!” whispered Miss Joliffe, pointing her +tremulous finger to the staircase. + +A figure had come into view as if descending the stairs; although so +dusky was the region whence it emerged, some of the spectators fancied +that they had seen this human shape suddenly moulding itself amid the +gloom. Downward the figure came, with a stately and martial tread, and +reaching the lowest stair was observed to be a tall man, booted and +wrapped in a military cloak, which was drawn up around the face so as to +meet the flapped brim of a laced hat. The features, therefore, were +completely hidden. But the British officers deemed that they had seen +that military cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on +the collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded +from the folds of the cloak, and glittered in a vivid gleam of light. +Apart from these trifling particulars, there were characteristics of +gait and bearing which impelled the wondering guests to glance from the +shrouded figure to Sir William Howe, as if to satisfy themselves that +their host had not suddenly vanished from the midst of them. + +With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow, they saw the general draw his +sword and advance to meet the figure in the cloak before the latter had +stepped one pace upon the floor. + +“Villain, unmuffle yourself!” cried he. “You pass no farther!” + +The figure, without blenching a hair’s-breadth from the sword which was +pointed at his breast, made a solemn pause and lowered the cape of the +cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently for the spectators to +catch a glimpse at it. But Sir William Howe had evidently seen enough. +The sternness of his countenance gave place to a look of wild amazement, +if not horror, while he recoiled several steps from the figure, and let +fall his sword upon the floor. The martial shape again drew the cloak +about his features and passed on; but reaching the threshold, with his +back towards the spectators, he was seen to stamp his foot and shake his +clinched hands in the air. It was afterwards affirmed that Sir William +Howe had repeated that self-same gesture of rage and sorrow, when, for +the last time, and as the last royal governor, he passed through the +portal of the Province House. + +[Illustration: + + “He recoiled Several Steps from the Figure.” +] + +“Hark!—the procession moves,” said Miss Joliffe. + +The music was dying away along the street, and its dismal strains were +mingled with the knell of midnight from the steeple of the Old South, +and with the roar of artillery, which announced that the beleaguering +army of Washington had intrenched itself upon a nearer height than +before. As the deep boom of the cannon smote upon his ear, Colonel +Joliffe raised himself to the full height of his aged form, and smiled +sternly on the British general. + +“Would your Excellency inquire further into the mystery of the pageant?” +said he. + +“Take care of your gray head!” cried Sir William Howe, fiercely, though +with a quivering lip. “It has stood too long on a traitor’s shoulders!” + +“You must make haste to chop it off, then,” calmly replied the Colonel; +“for a few hours longer, and not all the power of Sir William Howe, nor +of his master, shall cause one of these gray hairs to fall. The empire +of Britain, in this ancient province, is at its last gasp to-night; +almost while I speak it is a dead corpse; and methinks the shadows of +the old governors are fit mourners at its funeral!” + +With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his cloak, and, drawing his +granddaughter’s arm within his own, retired from the last festival that +a British ruler ever held in the old province of Massachusetts Bay. It +was supposed that the Colonel and the young lady possessed some secret +intelligence in regard to the mysterious pageant of that night. However +this might be, such knowledge has never become general. The actors in +the scene have vanished into deeper obscurity than even that wild Indian +band who scattered the cargoes of the tea-ships on the waves, and gained +a place in history, yet left no names. But superstition, among other +legends of this mansion, repeats the wondrous tale, that on the +anniversary night of Britain’s discomfiture, the ghosts of the ancient +governors of Massachusetts still glide through the portal of the +Province House. And last of all comes a figure shrouded in a military +cloak, tossing his clinched hands into the air, and stamping his +iron-shod boots upon the broad freestone steps with a semblance of +feverish despair, but without the sound of a foot-tramp. + + +When the truth-telling accents of the elderly gentleman were hushed, I +drew a long breath and looked round the room, striving, with the best +energy of my imagination, to throw a tinge of romance and historic +grandeur over the realities of the scene. But my nostrils snuffed up a +scent of cigar-smoke, clouds of which the narrator had emitted by way of +visible emblem, I suppose, of the nebulous obscurity of his tale. +Moreover, my gorgeous fantasies were wofully disturbed by the rattling +of the spoon in a tumbler of whiskey punch, which Mr. Thomas Waite was +mingling for a customer. Nor did it add to the picturesque appearance of +the panelled walls, that the slate of the Brookline stage was suspended +against them, instead of the armorial escutcheon of some far-descended +governor. A stage driver sat at one of the windows, reading a penny +paper of the day,—the “Boston Times,”—and presenting a figure which +could nowise be brought into any picture of “Times in Boston,” seventy +or a hundred years ago. On the window-seat lay a bundle, neatly done up +in brown paper, the direction of which I had the idle curiosity to read. +“Miss SUSAN HUGGINS, at the PROVINCE HOUSE.” A pretty chambermaid, no +doubt. In truth, it is desperately hard work, when we attempt to throw +the spell of hoar antiquity over localities with which the living world, +and the day that is passing over us, have aught to do. Yet, as I glanced +at the stately staircase, down which the procession of the old governors +had descended, and as I emerged through the venerable portal, whence +their figures had preceded me, it gladdened me to be conscious of a +thrill of awe. Then diving through the narrow archway, a few strides +transported me into the densest throng of Washington Street. + +[Illustration: + + A stage driver sat at one of the windows reading a penny paper +] + +[Illustration: EDWARD RANDOLPH’S PORTRAIT] + + + + + II. + EDWARD RANDOLPH’S PORTRAIT. + + +The old legendary guest of the Province House abode in my remembrance +from midsummer till January. One idle evening last winter, confident +that he would be found in the snuggest corner of the bar-room, I +resolved to pay him another visit, hoping to deserve well of my country +by snatching from oblivion some else unheard-of fact of history. The +night was chill and raw, and rendered boisterous by almost a gale of +wind, which whistled along Washington Street, causing the gaslights to +flare and flicker within the lamps. As I hurried onward, my fancy was +busy with a comparison between the present aspect of the street, and +that which it probably wore when the British governors inhabited the +mansion whither I was now going. Brick edifices in those times were few, +till a succession of destructive fires had swept, and swept again, the +wooden dwellings and warehouses from the most populous quarters of the +town. The buildings stood insulated and independent, not, as now, +merging their separate existences into connected ranges, with a front of +tiresome identity, but each possessing features of its own, as if the +owner’s individual taste had shaped it, and the whole presenting a +picturesque irregularity, the absence of which is hardly compensated by +any beauties of our modern architecture. Such a scene, dimly vanishing +from the eye by the ray of here and there a tallow candle, glimmering +through the small panes of scattered windows, would form a sombre +contrast to the street as I beheld it, with the gaslights blazing from +corner to corner, flaming within the shops, and throwing a noonday +brightness through the huge plates of glass. + +But the black, lowering sky, as I turned my eyes upward, +wore, doubtless, the same visage as when it frowned upon the +ante-Revolutionary New-Englanders. The wintry blast had the same shriek +that was familiar to their ears. The Old South Church, too, still +pointed its antique spire into the darkness, and was lost between earth +and heaven; and, as I passed, its clock, which had warned so many +generations how transitory was their lifetime, spoke heavily and slow +the same unregarded moral to myself. “Only seven o’clock,” thought I. +“My old friend’s legends will scarcely kill the hours ’twixt this and +bedtime.” + +Passing through the narrow arch, I crossed the courtyard, the confined +precincts of which were made visible by a lantern over the portal of the +Province House. On entering the bar-room, I found, as I expected, the +old tradition-monger seated by a special good fire of anthracite, +compelling clouds of smoke from a corpulent cigar. He recognized me with +evident pleasure; for my rare properties as a patient listener +invariably made me a favorite with elderly gentlemen and ladies of +narrative propensities. Drawing a chair to the fire, I desired mine host +to favor us with a glass apiece of whiskey punch, which was speedily +prepared, steaming hot, with a slice of lemon at the bottom, a dark red +stratum of port wine upon the surface, and a sprinkling of nutmeg strewn +over all. As we touched our glasses together, my legendary friend made +himself known to me as Mr. Bela Tiffany; and I rejoiced at the oddity of +the name, because it gave his image and character a sort of +individuality in my conception. The old gentleman’s draught acted as a +solvent upon his memory, so that it overflowed with tales, traditions, +anecdotes of famous dead people, and traits of ancient manners, some of +which were childish as a nurse’s lullaby, while others might have been +worth the notice of the grave historian. Nothing impressed me more than +a story of a black mysterious picture, which used to hang in one of the +chambers of the Province House, directly above the room where we were +now sitting. The following is as correct a version of the fact as the +reader would be likely to obtain from any other source, although, +assuredly, it has a tinge of romance approaching to the marvellous. + + +In one of the apartments of the Province House there was long +preserved an ancient picture, the frame of which was as black as +ebony, and the canvas itself so dark with age, damp, and smoke, that +not a touch of the painter’s art could be discerned. Time had thrown +an impenetrable veil over it, and left to tradition and fable and +conjecture to say what had once been there portrayed. During the rule +of many successive governors it had hung, by prescriptive and +undisputed right, over the mantel-piece of the same chamber; and it +still kept its place when Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson assumed the +administration of the province, on the departure of Sir Francis +Bernard. + +The Lieutenant-Governor sat, one afternoon, resting his head against the +carved back of his stately armchair, and gazing up thoughtfully at the +void blackness of the picture. It was scarcely a time for such inactive +musing, when affairs of the deepest moment required the ruler’s +decision; for, within that very hour, Hutchinson had received +intelligence of the arrival of a British fleet, bringing three regiments +from Halifax to overawe the insubordination of the people. These troops +awaited his permission to occupy the fortress of Castle William and the +town itself. Yet, instead of affixing his signature to an official +order, there sat the Lieutenant-Governor, so carefully scrutinizing the +black waste of canvas that his demeanor attracted the notice of two +young persons who attended him. One, wearing a military dress of buff, +was his kinsman, Francis Lincoln, the Provincial Captain of Castle +William; the other, who sat on a low stool beside his chair, was Alice +Vane, his favorite niece. + +She was clad entirely in white, a pale, ethereal creature, who, though a +native of New England, had been educated abroad, and seemed not merely a +stranger from another clime, but almost a being from another world. For +several years, until left an orphan, she had dwelt with her father in +sunny Italy, and there had acquired a taste and enthusiasm for sculpture +and painting, which she found few opportunities of gratifying in the +undecorated dwellings of the colonial gentry. It was said that the early +productions of her own pencil exhibited no inferior genius, though, +perhaps, the rude atmosphere of New England had cramped her hand and +dimmed the glowing colors of her fancy. But, observing her uncle’s +steadfast gaze, which appeared to search through the mist of years to +discover the subject of the picture, her curiosity was excited. + +“Is it known, my dear uncle,” inquired she, “what this old picture once +represented? Possibly, could it be made visible, it might prove a +masterpiece of some great artist; else, why has it so long held such a +conspicuous place?” + +[Illustration: + + y^e young captaine of y^e castle tells y^e story of y^e picture. +] + +As her uncle, contrary to his usual custom (for he was as attentive to +all the humors and caprices of Alice as if she had been his own +best-beloved child), did not immediately reply, the young captain of +Castle William took that office upon himself. + +“This dark old square of canvas, my fair cousin,” said he, “has been an +heirloom in the Province House from time immemorial. As to the painter, +I can tell you nothing; but, if half the stories told of it be true, not +one of the great Italian masters has ever produced so marvellous a piece +of work as that before you.” + +Captain Lincoln proceeded to relate some of the strange fables and +fantasies, which, as it was impossible to refute them by ocular +demonstration, had grown to be articles of popular belief, in reference +to this old picture. One of the wildest and at the same time the best +accredited accounts stated it to be an original and authentic portrait +of the Evil One, taken at a witch meeting near Salem; and that its +strong and terrible resemblance had been confirmed by several of the +confessing wizards and witches, at their trial, in open court. It was +likewise affirmed that a familiar spirit, or demon, abode behind the +blackness of the picture, and had shown himself, at seasons of public +calamity, to more than one of the royal governors. Shirley, for +instance, had beheld this ominous apparition, on the eve of General +Abercrombie’s shameful and bloody defeat under the walls of Ticonderoga. +Many of the servants of the Province House had caught glimpses of a +visage frowning down upon them, at morning or evening twilight, or in +the depths of night, while raking up the fire that glimmered on the +hearth beneath; although, if any were bold enough to hold a torch before +the picture, it would appear as black and undistinguishable as ever. The +oldest inhabitant of Boston recollected that his father, in whose days +the portrait had not wholly faded out of sight, had once looked upon it, +but would never suffer himself to be questioned as to the face which was +there represented. In connection with such stories, it was remarkable +that over the top of the frame there were some ragged remnants of black +silk, indicating that a veil had formerly hung down before the picture, +until the duskiness of time had so effectually concealed it. But, after +all, it was the most singular part of the affair that so many of the +pompous governors of Massachusetts had allowed the obliterated picture +to remain in the state chamber of the Province House. + +“Some of these fables are really awful,” observed Alice Vane, who had +occasionally shuddered, as well as smiled, while her cousin spoke. “It +would be almost worth while to wipe away the black surface of the +canvas, since the original picture can hardly be so formidable as those +which fancy paints instead of it.” + +“But would it be possible,” inquired her cousin, “to restore this dark +picture to its pristine hues?” + +“Such arts are known in Italy,” said Alice. + +The Lieutenant-Governor had roused himself from his abstracted mood, and +listened with a smile to the conversation of his young relatives. Yet +his voice had something peculiar in its tones, when he undertook the +explanation of the mystery. + +“I am sorry, Alice, to destroy your faith in the legends of which you +are so fond,” remarked he; “but my antiquarian researches have long +since made me acquainted with the subject of this picture,—if picture it +can be called,—which is no more visible, nor ever will be, than the face +of the long-buried man whom it once represented. It was the portrait of +Edward Randolph, the founder of this house, a person famous in the +history of New England.” + +[Illustration: + + “Some of these fables are really awful” +] + +“Of that Edward Randolph,” exclaimed Captain Lincoln, “who obtained the +repeal of the first provincial charter, under which our forefathers had +enjoyed almost democratic privileges! He that was styled the arch-enemy +of New England, and whose memory is still held in detestation, as the +destroyer of our liberties!” + +“It was the same Randolph,” answered Hutchinson, moving uneasily in his +chair. “It was his lot to taste the bitterness of popular odium.” + +“Our annals tell us,” continued the Captain of Castle William, “that the +curse of the people followed this Randolph where he went, and wrought +evil in all the subsequent events of his life, and that its effect was +seen likewise in the manner of his death. They say, too, that the inward +misery of that curse worked itself outward, and was visible on the +wretched man’s countenance, making it too horrible to be looked upon. If +so, and if this picture truly represented his aspect, it was in mercy +that the cloud of blackness has gathered over it.” + +“These traditions are folly to one who has proved, as I have, how little +of historic truth lies at the bottom,” said the Lieutenant-Governor. “As +regards the life and character of Edward Randolph, too implicit credence +has been given to Dr. Cotton Mather, who—I must say it, though some of +his blood runs in my veins—has filled our early history with old women’s +tales, as fanciful and extravagant as those of Greece or Rome.” + +“And yet,” whispered Alice Vane, “may not such fables have a moral? And, +methinks, if the visage of this portrait be so dreadful, it is not +without a cause that it has hung so long in a chamber of the Province +House. When the rulers feel themselves irresponsible, it were well that +they should be reminded of the awful weight of a people’s curse.” + +The Lieutenant-Governor started, and gazed for a moment at his niece, as +if her girlish fantasies had struck upon some feeling in his own breast, +which all his policy or principles could not entirely subdue. He knew, +indeed, that Alice, in spite of her foreign education, retained the +native sympathies of a New England girl. + +“Peace, silly child,” cried he, at last, more harshly than he had ever +before addressed the gentle Alice. “The rebuke of a king is more to be +dreaded than the clamor of a wild, misguided multitude. Captain Lincoln, +it is decided. The fortress of Castle William must be occupied by the +royal troops. The two remaining regiments shall be billeted in the town, +or encamped upon the Common. It is time, after years of tumult, and +almost rebellion, that his Majesty’s government should have a wall of +strength about it.” + +“Trust, sir,—trust yet awhile to the loyalty of the people,” said +Captain Lincoln; “nor teach them that they can ever be on other terms +with British soldiers than those of brotherhood, as when they fought +side by side through the French war. Do not convert the streets of your +native town into a camp. Think twice before you give up old Castle +William, the key of the province, into other keeping than that of +true-born New-Englanders.” + +“Young man, it is decided,” repeated Hutchinson, rising from his chair. +“A British officer will be in attendance this evening to receive the +necessary instructions for the disposal of the troops. Your presence +also will be required. Till then, farewell.” + +[Illustration: + + Alice beckoned to the picture. +] + +With these words the Lieutenant-Governor hastily left the room, while +Alice and her cousin more slowly followed, whispering together, and once +pausing to glance back at the mysterious picture. The Captain of Castle +William fancied that the girl’s air and mien were such as might have +belonged to one of those spirits of fable—fairies, or creatures of a +more antique mythology—who sometimes mingled their agency with mortal +affairs, half in caprice, yet with a sensibility to human weal or woe. +As he held the door for her to pass, Alice beckoned to the picture and +smiled. + +“Come forth, dark and evil shape!” cried she. “It is thine hour!” + +In the evening, Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson sat in the same chamber +where the foregoing scene had occurred, surrounded by several persons +whose various interests had summoned them together. There were the +Selectmen of Boston, plain, patriarchal fathers of the people, excellent +representatives of the old puritanical founders, whose sombre strength +had stamped so deep an impress upon the New England character. +Contrasting with these were one or two members of Council, richly +dressed in the white wigs, the embroidered waistcoats, and other +magnificence of the time, and making a somewhat ostentatious display of +courtier-like ceremonial. In attendance, likewise, was a major of the +British army, awaiting the Lieutenant-Governor’s orders for the landing +of the troops, which still remained on board the transports. The Captain +of Castle William stood beside Hutchinson’s chair, with folded arms, +glancing rather haughtily at the British officer, by whom he was soon to +be superseded in his command. On a table, in the centre of the chamber, +stood a branched silver candlestick, throwing down the glow of half a +dozen wax lights upon a paper, apparently ready for the +Lieutenant-Governor’s signature. + +Partly shrouded in the voluminous folds of one of the window-curtains, +which fell from the ceiling to the floor, was seen the white drapery of +a lady’s robe. It may appear strange that Alice Vane should have been +there, at such a time; but there was something so childlike, so wayward, +in her singular character, so apart from ordinary rules, that her +presence did not surprise the few who noticed it. Meantime, the chairman +of the Selectmen was addressing to the Lieutenant-Governor a long and +solemn protest against the reception of the British troops into the +town. + +“And if your Honor,” concluded this excellent but somewhat prosy +gentleman, “shall see fit to persist in bringing these mercenary +sworders and musketeers into our quiet streets, not on our heads be the +responsibility. Think, sir, while there is yet time, that if one drop of +blood be shed, that blood shall be an eternal stain upon your Honor’s +memory. You, sir, have written, with an able pen, the deeds of our +forefathers. The more to be desired is it, therefore, that yourself +should deserve honorable mention, as a true patriot and upright ruler, +when your own doings shall be written down in history.” + +[Illustration: + + “The Chairman of the Selectmen was addressing to the + Lieutenant-Governor a Long and Solemn Protest” +] + +“I am not insensible, my good sir, to the natural desire to stand well +in the annals of my country,” replied Hutchinson, controlling his +impatience into courtesy, “nor know I any better method of attaining +that end than by withstanding the merely temporary spirit of mischief, +which, with your pardon, seems to have infected elder men than myself. +Would you have me wait till the mob shall sack the Province House, as +they did my private mansion? Trust me, sir, the time may come when you +will be glad to flee for protection to the king’s banner, the raising of +which is now so distasteful to you.” + +“Yes,” said the British major, who was impatiently expecting the +Lieutenant-Governor’s orders. “The demagogues of this province have +raised the devil, and cannot lay him again. We will exorcise him, in +God’s name and the king’s.” + +“If you meddle with the devil, take care of his claws!” answered the +Captain of Castle William, stirred by the taunt against his countrymen. + +“Craving your pardon, young sir,” said the venerable Selectman, “let not +an evil spirit enter into your words. We will strive against the +oppressor with prayer and fasting, as our forefathers would have done. +Like them, moreover, we will submit to whatever lot a wise Providence +may send us,—always, after our own best exertions to amend it.” + +“And there peep forth the devil’s claws!” muttered Hutchinson, who well +understood the nature of Puritan submission. “This matter shall be +expedited forthwith. When there shall be a sentinel at every corner, and +a court of guard before the town-house, a loyal gentleman may venture to +walk abroad. What to me is the outcry of a mob, in this remote province +of the realm? The King is my master, and England is my country! Upheld +by their armed strength, I set my foot upon the rabble, and defy them!” + +He snatched a pen, and was about to affix his signature to the paper +that lay on the table, when the Captain of Castle William placed his +hand upon his shoulder. The freedom of the action, so contrary to the +ceremonious respect which was then considered due to rank and dignity, +awakened general surprise, and in none more than in the +Lieutenant-Governor himself. Looking angrily up, he perceived that his +young relative was pointing his finger to the opposite wall. +Hutchinson’s eye followed the signal; and he saw, what had hitherto been +unobserved, that a black silk curtain was suspended before the +mysterious picture, so as completely to conceal it. His thoughts +immediately recurred to the scene of the preceding afternoon; and, in +his surprise, confused by indistinct emotions, yet sensible that his +niece must have had an agency in this phenomenon, he called loudly upon +her. + +“Alice!—come hither, Alice!” + +No sooner had he spoken than Alice Vane glided from her station, and, +pressing one hand across her eyes, with the other snatched away the +sable curtain that concealed the portrait. An exclamation of surprise +burst from every beholder; but the Lieutenant-Governor’s voice had a +tone of horror. + +“By Heaven,” said he, in a low, inward murmur, speaking rather to +himself than to those around him, “if the spirit of Edward Randolph were +to appear among us from the place of torment, he could not wear more of +the terrors of hell upon his face!” + +[Illustration: + + She snatched away the sable curtain. +] + +“For some wise end,” said the aged Selectman solemnly, “hath Providence +scattered away the mist of years that had so long hid this dreadful +effigy. Until this hour no living man hath seen what we behold!” + +Within the antique frame, which so recently had enclosed a sable waste +of canvas, now appeared a visible picture, still dark, indeed, in its +hues and shadings, but thrown forward in strong relief. It was a +half-length figure of a gentleman in a rich but very old-fashioned dress +of embroidered velvet, with a broad ruff and a beard, and wearing a hat, +the brim of which overshadowed his forehead. Beneath this cloud the eyes +had a peculiar glare which was almost life-like. The whole portrait +started so distinctly out of the background that it had the effect of a +person looking down from the wall at the astonished and awestricken +spectators. The expression of the face, if any words can convey an idea +of it, was that of a wretch detected in some hideous guilt, and exposed +to the bitter hatred and laughter and withering scorn of a vast +surrounding multitude. There was the struggle of defiance, beaten down +and overwhelmed by the crushing weight of ignominy. The torture of the +soul had come forth upon the countenance. It seemed as if the picture, +while hidden behind the cloud of immemorial years, had been all the time +acquiring an intenser depth and darkness of expression, till now it +gloomed forth again, and threw its evil omen over the present hour. +Such, if the wild legend may be credited, was the portrait of Edward +Randolph, as he appeared when a people’s curse had wrought its influence +upon his nature. + +“’Twould drive me mad,—that awful face!” said Hutchinson, who seemed +fascinated by the contemplation of it. + +“Be warned, then!” whispered Alice. “He trampled on a people’s rights. +Behold his punishment,—and avoid a crime like his!” + +The Lieutenant-Governor actually trembled for an instant; but, exerting +his energy,—which was not, however, his most characteristic feature,—he +strove to shake off the spell of Randolph’s countenance. + +“Girl!” cried he, laughing bitterly, as he turned to Alice, “have you +brought hither your painter’s art,—your Italian spirit of intrigue,—your +tricks of stage effect,—and think to influence the councils of rulers +and the affairs of nations by such shallow contrivances? See here!” + +“Stay yet awhile,” said the Selectman, as Hutchinson again snatched the +pen; “for if ever mortal man received a warning from a tormented soul, +your Honor is that man!” + +“Away!” answered Hutchinson fiercely. “Though yonder senseless picture +cried, ‘Forbear!’ it should not move me!” + +Casting a scowl of defiance at the pictured face (which seemed, at that +moment, to intensify the horror of its miserable and wicked look), he +scrawled on the paper, in characters that betokened it a deed of +desperation, the name of Thomas Hutchinson. Then, it is said, he +shuddered, as if that signature had granted away his salvation. + +[Illustration] + +“It is done,” said he; and placed his hand upon his brow. + +“May Heaven forgive the deed,” said the soft, sad accents of Alice Vane, +like the voice of a good spirit flitting away. + +When morning came there was a stifled whisper through the household, and +spreading thence about the town, that the dark, mysterious picture had +started from the wall, and spoken face to face with Lieutenant-Governor +Hutchinson. If such a miracle had been wrought, however, no traces of it +remained behind; for within the antique frame nothing could be +discerned, save the impenetrable cloud which had covered the canvas +since the memory of man. If the figure had, indeed, stepped forth, it +had fled back, spirit-like, at the day-dawn, and hidden itself behind a +century’s obscurity. The truth probably was that Alice Vane’s secret for +restoring the hues of the picture had merely effected a temporary +renovation. But those who, in that brief interval, had beheld the awful +visage of Edward Randolph, desired no second glance, and ever afterwards +trembled at the recollection of the scene, as if an evil spirit had +appeared visibly among them. And as for Hutchinson, when, far over the +ocean, his dying hour drew on, he gasped for breath, and complained that +he was choking with the blood of the Boston massacre; and Francis +Lincoln, the former Captain of Castle William, who was standing at his +bedside, perceived a likeness in his frenzied look to that of Edward +Randolph. Did his broken spirit feel, at that dread hour, the tremendous +burden of a people’s curse? + + +At the conclusion of this miraculous legend, I inquired of mine host +whether the picture still remained in the chamber over our heads; but +Mr. Tiffany informed me that it had long since been removed, and was +supposed to be hidden in some out-of-the-way corner of the New England +Museum. Perchance some curious antiquary may light upon it there, and, +with the assistance of Mr. Howorth, the picture-cleaner, may supply a +not unnecessary proof of the authenticity of the facts here set down. +During the progress of the story a storm had been gathering abroad, and +raging and rattling so loudly in the upper regions of the Province +House, that it seemed as if all the old governors and great men were +running riot above stairs, while Mr. Bela Tiffany babbled of them below. +In the course of generations, when many people have lived and died in an +ancient house, the whistling of the wind through its crannies, and the +creaking of its beams and rafters, become strangely like the tones of +the human voice, or thundering laughter, or heavy footsteps treading the +deserted chambers. It is as if the echoes of half a century were +revived. Such were the ghostly sounds that roared and murmured in our +ears, when I took leave of the circle round the fireside of the Province +House, and, plunging down the doorsteps, fought my way homeward against +a drifting snow-storm. + +[Illustration: LADYE ELEANORES MANTLE] + + + + + III. + LADY ELEANORE’S MANTLE. + + +Mine excellent friend, the landlord of the Province House, was pleased, +the other evening, to invite Mr. Tiffany and myself to an oyster-supper. +This slight mark of respect and gratitude, as he handsomely observed, +was far less than the ingenious tale-teller, and I, the humble +note-taker of his narratives, had fairly earned, by the public notice +which our joint lucubrations had attracted to his establishment. Many a +cigar had been smoked within his premises,—many a glass of wine, or more +potent aqua vitæ, had been quaffed,—many a dinner had been eaten by +curious strangers, who, save for the fortunate conjunction of Mr. +Tiffany and me, would never have ventured through that darksome avenue +which gives access to the historic precincts of the Province House. In +short, if any credit be due to the courteous assurances of Mr. Thomas +Waite, we had brought his forgotten mansion almost as effectually into +public view as if we had thrown down the vulgar range of shoeshops and +dry-goods stores which hides its aristocratic front from Washington +Street. It may be unadvisable, however, to speak too loudly of the +increased custom of the house, lest Mr. Waite should find it difficult +to renew the lease on so favorable terms as heretofore. + +Being thus welcomed as benefactors, neither Mr. Tiffany nor myself felt +any scruple in doing full justice to the good things that were set +before us. If the feast were less magnificent than those same panelled +walls had witnessed in a bygone century,—if mine host presided with +somewhat less of state than might have befitted a successor of the royal +governors,—if the guests made a less imposing show than the bewigged and +powdered and embroidered dignitaries who erst banqueted at the +gubernatorial table, and now sleep within their armorial tombs on Copp’s +Hill or round King’s Chapel,—yet never, I may boldly say, did a more +comfortable little party assemble in the Province House, from Queen +Anne’s days to the Revolution. The occasion was rendered more +interesting by the presence of a venerable personage, whose own actual +reminiscences went back to the epoch of Gage and Howe, and even supplied +him with a doubtful anecdote or two of Hutchinson. He was one of that +small, and now all but extinguished class, whose attachment to royalty, +and to the colonial institutions and customs that were connected with +it, had never yielded to the democratic heresies of after times. The +young queen of Britain has not a more loyal subject in her realm—perhaps +not one who would kneel before her throne with such reverential +love—than this old grandsire, whose head has whitened beneath the mild +sway of the Republic, which still, in his mellower moments, he terms a +usurpation. Yet prejudices so obstinate have not made him an ungentle or +impracticable companion. If the truth must be told, the life of the aged +loyalist has been of such a scrambling and unsettled character,—he has +had so little choice of friends, and been so often destitute of +any,—that I doubt whether he would refuse a cup of kindness with either +Oliver Cromwell or John Hancock; to say nothing of any democrat now upon +the stage. In another paper of this series, I may, perhaps, give the +reader a closer glimpse of his portrait. + +Our host, in due season, uncorked a bottle of Madeira of such exquisite +perfume and desirable flavor that he surely must have discovered it in +an ancient bin, down deep beneath the deepest cellar, where some jolly +old butler stored away the Governor’s choicest wine, and forgot to +reveal the secret on his death-bed. Peace to his red-nosed ghost, and a +libation to his memory! This precious liquor was imbibed by Mr. Tiffany +with peculiar zest; and, after sipping the third glass, it was his +pleasure to give us one of the oddest legends which he had yet raked +from the storehouse where he keeps such matters. With some suitable +adornments from my own fancy, it ran pretty much as follows. + + +Not long after Colonel Shute had assumed the government of Massachusetts +Bay, now nearly a hundred and twenty years ago, a young lady of rank and +fortune arrived from England, to claim his protection as her guardian. +He was her distant relative, but the nearest who had survived the +gradual extinction of her family; so that no more eligible shelter could +be found for the rich and high-born Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe than within +the Province House of a transatlantic colony. The consort of Governor +Shute, moreover, had been as a mother to her childhood, and was now +anxious to receive her, in the hope that a beautiful young woman would +be exposed to infinitely less peril from the primitive society of New +England than amid the artifices and corruptions of a court. If either +the Governor or his lady had especially consulted their own comfort, +they would probably have sought to devolve the responsibility on other +hands; since, with some noble and splendid traits of character, Lady +Eleanore was remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty +consciousness of her hereditary and personal advantages, which made her +almost incapable of control. Judging from many traditionary anecdotes, +this peculiar temper was hardly less than a monomania; or, if the acts +which it inspired were those of a sane person, it seemed due from +Providence that pride so sinful should be followed by as severe a +retribution. That tinge of the marvellous which is thrown over so many +of these half-forgotten legends has probably imparted an additional +wildness to the strange story of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. + +The ship in which she came passenger had arrived at Newport, whence Lady +Eleanore was conveyed to Boston in the Governor’s coach, attended by a +small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The ponderous equipage, with its +four black horses, attracted much notice as it rumbled through Cornhill, +surrounded by the prancing steeds of half a dozen cavaliers, with swords +dangling to their stirrups and pistols at their holsters. Through the +large glass windows of the coach, as it rolled along, the people could +discern the figure of Lady Eleanore, strangely combining an almost +queenly stateliness with the grace and beauty of a maiden in her teens. +A singular tale had gone abroad among the ladies of the province, that +their fair rival was indebted for much of the irresistible charm of her +appearance to a certain article of dress,—an embroidered mantle,—which +had been wrought by the most skilful artist in London, and possessed +even magical properties of adornment. On the present occasion, however, +she owed nothing to the witchery of dress, being clad in a riding-habit +of velvet, which would have appeared stiff and ungraceful on any other +form. + +[Illustration: + + Y^e beauteous Ladye Eleanore cometh to Boston— +] + +[Illustration: + + “A Pale Young Man ... prostrated himself beside the Coach” +] + +The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcade +came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fenced +the Province House from the public street. It was an awkward coincidence +that the bell of the Old South was just then tolling for a funeral; so +that, instead of a gladsome peal, with which it was customary to +announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, Lady Eleanore +Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if calamity had come +embodied in her beautiful person. + +“A very great disrespect!” exclaimed Captain Langford, an English +officer, who had recently brought despatches to Governor Shute. “The +funeral should have been deferred, lest Lady Eleanore’s spirits be +affected by such a dismal welcome.” + +“With your pardon, sir,” replied Dr. Clarke, a physician, and a famous +champion of the popular party, “whatever the heralds may pretend, a dead +beggar must have precedence of a living queen. King Death confers high +privileges.” + +These remarks were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage +through the crowd, which had gathered on each side of the gateway, +leaving an open avenue to the portal of the Province House. A black +slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach, and threw open the +door; while at the same moment Governor Shute descended the flight of +steps from his mansion, to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. But the +Governor’s stately approach was anticipated in a manner that excited +general astonishment. A pale young man, with his black hair all in +disorder, rushed from the throng, and prostrated himself beside the +coach, thus offering his person as a footstool for Lady Eleanore +Rochcliffe to tread upon. She held back an instant; yet with an +expression as if doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear the +weight of her footstep, rather than dissatisfied to receive such awful +reverence from a fellow-mortal. + +[Illustration: + + Governor Shute descended the flight of steps. +] + +“Up, sir,” said the Governor sternly, at the same time lifting his cane +over the intruder. “What means the Bedlamite by this freak?” + +“Nay,” answered Lady Eleanore playfully, but with more scorn than pity +in her tone, “your Excellency shall not strike him. When men seek only +to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily +granted—and so well deserved.” + +Then, though as lightly as a sunbeam on a cloud, she placed her foot +upon the cowering form, and extended her hand to meet that of the +Governor. There was a brief interval, during which Lady Eleanore +retained this attitude; and never, surely, was there an apter emblem of +aristocracy and hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies and the +kindred of nature than these two figures presented at that moment. Yet +the spectators were so smitten with her beauty, and so essential did +pride seem to the existence of such a creature, that they gave a +simultaneous acclamation of applause. + +“Who is this insolent young fellow?” inquired Captain Langford, who +still remained beside Dr. Clarke. “If he be in his senses, his +impertinence demands the bastinado. If mad, Lady Eleanore should be +secured from further inconvenience, by his confinement.” + +“His name is Jervase Helwyse,” answered the Doctor; “a youth of no birth +or fortune, or other advantages, save the mind and soul that nature gave +him; and, being secretary to our colonial agent in London, it was his +misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe. He loved her,—and her +scorn has driven him mad.” + +“He was mad so to aspire,” observed the English officer. + +“It may be so,” said Dr. Clarke, frowning as he spoke. “But I tell you, +sir, I could well-nigh doubt the justice of the heaven above us, if no +signal humiliation overtake this lady, who now treads so haughtily into +yonder mansion. She seeks to place herself above the sympathies of our +common nature, which envelops all human souls. See, if that nature do +not assert its claim over her in some mode that shall bring her level +with the lowest!” + +“Never!” cried Captain Langford indignantly; “neither in life, nor when +they lay her with her ancestors.” + +Not many days afterwards the Governor gave a ball in honor of Lady +Eleanore Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the colony received +invitations, which were distributed to their residences, far and near, +by messengers on horseback, bearing missives sealed with all the +formality of official despatches. In obedience to the summons, there was +a general gathering of rank, wealth, and beauty; and the wide door of +the Province House had seldom given admittance to more numerous and +honorable guests than on the evening of Lady Eleanore’s ball. Without +much extravagance of eulogy, the spectacle might even be termed +splendid; for, according to the fashion of the times, the ladies shone +in rich silks and satins, outspread over wide-projecting hoops; and the +gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery, laid unsparingly upon the +purple, or scarlet, or sky-blue velvet, which was the material of their +coats and waistcoats. The latter article of dress was of great +importance, since it enveloped the wearer’s body nearly to the knees, +and was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole year’s income, in +golden flowers and foliage. The altered taste of the present day—a taste +symbolic of a deep change in the whole system of society—would look upon +almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous; although that +evening the guests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses, and +rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd. What a +pity that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved a picture of the +scene, which, by the very traits that were so transitory, might have +taught us much that would be worth knowing and remembering. + +Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us some +faint idea of a garment, already noticed in this legend,—the Lady +Eleanore’s embroidered mantle,—which the gossips whispered was invested +with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace to her +figure each time that she put it on! Idle fancy as it is, this +mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her, partly from +its fabled virtues, and partly because it was the handiwork of a dying +woman, and, perchance, owed the fantastic grace of its conception to the +delirium of approaching death. + +[Illustration: + + A gathering of rank, wealth and beauty +] + +After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe +stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a small +and distinguished circle, to whom she accorded a more cordial favor than +to the general throng. The waxen torches threw their radiance vividly +over the scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strong relief; but +she gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expression of weariness +or scorn, tempered with such feminine grace that her auditors scarcely +perceived the moral deformity of which it was the utterance. She beheld +the spectacle, not with vulgar ridicule, as disdaining to be pleased +with the provincial mockery of a court festival, but with the deeper +scorn of one whose spirit held itself too high to participate in the +enjoyment of other human souls. Whether or no the recollections of those +who saw her that evening were influenced by the strange events with +which she was subsequently connected, so it was that her figure ever +after recurred to them as marked by something wild and unnatural; +although, at the time, the general whisper was of her exceeding beauty, +and of the indescribable charm which her mantle threw around her. Some +close observers, indeed, detected a feverish flush and alternate +paleness of countenance, with a corresponding flow and revulsion of +spirits, and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of lassitude, +as if she were on the point of sinking to the ground. Then, with a +nervous shudder, she seemed to arouse her energies, and threw some +bright and playful, yet half-wicked sarcasm into the conversation. There +was so strange a characteristic in her manners and sentiments that it +astonished every right-minded listener; till, looking in her face, a +lurking and incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts +both as to her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanore +Rochcliffe’s circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained in +it. These were Captain Langford, the English officer before mentioned; a +Virginian planter, who had come to Massachusetts on some political +errand; a young Episcopal clergyman, the grandson of a British Earl; +and, lastly, the private secretary of Governor Shute, whose +obsequiousness had won a sort of tolerance from Lady Eleanore. + +At different periods of the evening the liveried servants of the +Province House passed among the guests, bearing huge trays of +refreshments, and French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, +who refused to wet her beautiful lips even with a bubble of champagne, +had sunk back into a large damask chair, apparently overwearied either +with the excitement of the scene or its tedium; and while, for an +instant, she was unconscious of voices, laughter, and music, a young man +stole forward, and knelt down at her feet. He bore a salver in his hand, +on which was a chased silver goblet, filled to the brim with wine, which +he offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen, or rather with the +awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol. Conscious that +some one touched her robe, Lady Eleanore started, and unclosed her eyes +upon the pale, wild features and dishevelled hair of Jervase Helwyse. + +“Why do you haunt me thus?” said she, in a languid tone, but with a +kindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to express. “They +tell me that I have done you harm.” + +[Illustration: + + “I pray you take one sip of this holy wine.” +] + +“Heaven knows if that be so,” replied the young man solemnly. “But, Lady +Eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be, and for your own +earthly and heavenly welfare, I pray you to take one sip of this holy +wine, and then to pass the goblet round among the guests. And this shall +be a symbol that you have not sought to withdraw yourself from the chain +of human sympathies,—which whoso would shake off must keep company with +fallen angels.” + +“Where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?” exclaimed +the Episcopal clergyman. + +This question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup, which was +recognized as appertaining to the communion plate of the Old South +Church; and, for aught that could be known, it was brimming over with +the consecrated wine. + +“Perhaps it is poisoned,” half whispered the Governor’s secretary. + +“Pour it down the villain’s throat!” cried the Virginian fiercely. + +“Turn him out of the house!” cried Captain Langford, seizing Jervase +Helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental cup was +overturned, and its contents sprinkled upon Lady Eleanore’s mantle. +“Whether knave, fool, or Bedlamite, it is intolerable that the fellow +should go at large.” + +“Pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm,” said Lady Eleanore, with +a faint and weary smile. “Take him out of my sight, if such be your +pleasure; for I can find in my heart to do nothing but laugh at him; +whereas, in all decency and conscience, it would become me to weep for +the mischief I have wrought!” + +But while the bystanders were attempting to lead away the unfortunate +young man, he broke from them, and, with a wild, impassioned +earnestness, offered a new and equally strange petition to Lady +Eleanore. It was no other than that she should throw off the mantle, +which, while he pressed the silver cup of wine upon her, she had drawn +more closely around her form, so as almost to shroud herself within it. + +“Cast it from you!” exclaimed Jervase Helwyse, clasping his hands in an +agony of entreaty. “It may not yet be too late! Give the accursed +garment to the flames!” + +But Lady Eleanore, with a laugh of scorn, drew the rich folds of the +embroidered mantle over her head, in such a fashion as to give a +completely new aspect to her beautiful face, which—half hidden, half +revealed—seemed to belong to some being of mysterious character and +purposes. + +“Farewell, Jervase Helwyse!” said she. “Keep my image in your +remembrance, as you behold it now.” + +“Alas, lady!” he replied, in a tone no longer wild, but sad as a funeral +bell. “We must meet shortly, when your face may wear another aspect, and +that shall be the image that must abide within me.” + +He made no more resistance to the violent efforts of the gentlemen and +servants, who almost dragged him out of the apartment, and dismissed him +roughly from the iron gate of the Province House. Captain Langford, who +had been very active in this affair, was returning to the presence of +Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe, when he encountered the physician, Dr. Clarke, +with whom he had held some casual talk on the day of her arrival. The +Doctor stood apart, separated from Lady Eleanore by the width of the +room, but eying her with such keen sagacity that Captain Langford +involuntarily gave him credit for the discovery of some deep secret. + +[Illustration: + + Keep my image in your remembrance +] + +“You appear to be smitten, after all, with the charms of this queenly +maiden,” said he, hoping thus to draw forth the physician’s hidden +knowledge. + +[Illustration: + + The communication could be of no agreeable import. +] + +“God forbid!” answered Dr. Clarke, with a grave smile; “and if you be +wise, you will put up the same prayer for yourself. Woe to those who +shall be smitten by this beautiful Lady Eleanore! But yonder stands the +Governor, and I have a word or two for his private ear. Good night!” + +He accordingly advanced to Governor Shute, and addressed him in so low a +tone that none of the bystanders could catch a word of what he said; +although the sudden change of his Excellency’s hitherto cheerful visage +betokened that the communication could be of no agreeable import. A very +few moments afterwards, it was announced to the guests that an +unforeseen circumstance rendered it necessary to put a premature close +to the festival. + +The ball at the Province House supplied a topic of conversation for the +colonial metropolis for some days after its occurrence, and might still +longer have been the general theme, only that a subject of +all-engrossing interest thrust it, for a time, from the public +recollection. This was the appearance of a dreadful epidemic, which in +that age, and long before and afterwards, was wont to slay its hundreds +and thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. On the occasion of which we +speak, it was distinguished by a peculiar virulence, insomuch that it +has left its traces—its pit-marks, to use an appropriate figure—on the +history of the country, the affairs of which were thrown into confusion +by its ravages. At first, unlike its ordinary course, the disease seemed +to confine itself to the higher circles of society, selecting its +victims from among the proud, the well-born, and the wealthy; entering +unabashed into stately chambers, and lying down with the slumberers in +silken beds. Some of the most distinguished guests of the Province +House—even those whom the haughty Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe had deemed +not unworthy of her favor—were stricken by this fatal scourge. It was +noticed, with an ungenerous bitterness of feeling, that the four +gentlemen—the Virginian, the British officer, the young clergyman, and +the Governor’s secretary—who had been her most devoted attendants on the +evening of the ball, were the foremost on whom the plague-stroke fell. +But the disease, pursuing its onward progress, soon ceased to be +exclusively a prerogative of aristocracy. Its red brand was no longer +conferred like a noble’s star, or an order of knighthood. It threaded +its way through the narrow and crooked streets, and entered the low, +mean, darksome dwellings, and laid its hand of death upon the artisans +and laboring classes of the town. It compelled rich and poor to feel +themselves brethren, then; and stalking to and fro across the Three +Hills, with a fierceness which made it almost a new pestilence, there +was that mighty conqueror—that scourge and horror of our forefathers—the +Small-Pox! + +We cannot estimate the affright which this plague inspired of yore, by +contemplating it as the fangless monster of the present day. We must +remember, rather, with what awe we watched the gigantic footsteps of the +Asiatic cholera, striding from shore to shore of the Atlantic, and +marching like destiny upon cities far remote, which flight had already +half depopulated. There is no other fear so horrible and unhumanizing as +that which makes man dread to breathe Heaven’s vital air, lest it be +poison, or to grasp the hand of a brother or friend, lest the gripe of +the pestilence should clutch him. Such was the dismay that now followed +in the track of the disease, or ran before it throughout the town. +Graves were hastily dug, and the pestilential relics as hastily covered, +because the dead were enemies of the living, and strove to draw them +headlong, as it were, into their own dismal pit. The public councils +were suspended, as if mortal wisdom might relinquish its devices, now +that an unearthly usurper had found his way into the ruler’s mansion. +Had an enemy’s fleet been hovering on the coast, or his armies trampling +on our soil, the people would probably have committed their defence to +that same direful conqueror who had wrought their own calamity, and +would permit no interference with his sway. This conqueror had a symbol +of his triumphs. It was a bloodred flag, that fluttered in the tainted +air over the door of every dwelling into which the Small-Pox had +entered. + +Such a banner was long since waving over the portal of the Province +House; for thence, as was proved by tracking its footsteps back, had all +this dreadful mischief issued. It had been traced back to a lady’s +luxurious chamber,—to the proudest of the proud,—to her that was so +delicate, and hardly owned herself of earthly mould,—to the haughty one, +who took her stand above human sympathies,—to Lady Eleanore! There +remained no room for doubt that the contagion had lurked in that +gorgeous mantle, which threw so strange a grace around her at the +festival. Its fantastic splendor had been conceived in the delirious +brain of a woman on her death-bed, and was the last toil of her +stiffening fingers, which had interwoven fate and misery with its golden +threads. This dark tale, whispered at first, was now bruited far and +wide. The people raved against the Lady Eleanore, and cried out that her +pride and scorn had evoked a fiend, and that, between them both, this +monstrous evil had been born. At times, their rage and despair took the +semblance of grinning mirth; and whenever the red flag of the pestilence +was hoisted over another and yet another door, they clapped their hands +and shouted through the streets in bitter mockery, “Behold a new triumph +for the Lady Eleanore!” + +One day, in the midst of these dismal times, a wild figure approached +the portal of the Province House, and, folding his arms, stood +contemplating the scarlet banner, which a passing breeze shook fitfully, +as if to fling abroad the contagion that it typified. At length, +climbing one of the pillars by means of the iron balustrade, he took +down the flag, and entered the mansion, waving it above his head. At the +foot of the staircase he met the Governor, booted and spurred, with his +cloak drawn around him, evidently on the point of setting forth upon a +journey. + +“Wretched lunatic, what do you seek here?” exclaimed Shute, extending +his cane to guard himself from contact. “There is nothing here but +Death. Back,—or you will meet him!” + +“Death will not touch me, the banner-bearer of the pestilence!” cried +Jervase Helwyse, shaking the red flag aloft. “Death and the Pestilence, +who wears the aspect of the Lady Eleanore, will walk through the streets +to-night, and I must march before them with this banner!” + +[Illustration: + + “Young man, what is your purpose?” +] + +“Why do I waste words on the fellow?” muttered the Governor, drawing his +cloak across his mouth. “What matters his miserable life, when none of +us are sure of twelve hours’ breath? On, fool, to your own destruction!” + +He made way for Jervase Helwyse, who immediately ascended the staircase, +but, on the first landing-place, was arrested by the firm grasp of a +hand upon his shoulder. Looking fiercely up, with a madman’s impulse to +struggle with and rend asunder his opponent, he found himself powerless +beneath a calm, stern eye, which possessed the mysterious property of +quelling frenzy at its height. The person whom he had now encountered +was the physician, Dr. Clarke, the duties of whose sad profession had +led him to the Province House, where he was an infrequent guest in more +prosperous times. + +“Young man, what is your purpose?” demanded he. + +“I seek the Lady Eleanore,” answered Jervase Helwyse submissively. + +“All have fled from her,” said the physician. “Why do you seek her now? +I tell you, youth, her nurse fell death-stricken on the threshold of +that fatal chamber. Know ye not that never came such a curse to our +shores as this lovely Lady Eleanore?—that her breath has filled the air +with poison?—that she has shaken pestilence and death upon the land, +from the folds of her accursed mantle?” + +“Let me look upon her!” rejoined the mad youth more wildly. “Let me +behold her, in her awful beauty, clad in the regal garments of the +pestilence! She and Death sit on a throne together. Let me kneel down +before them!” + +“Poor youth!” said Dr. Clarke; and, moved by a deep sense of human +weakness, a smile of caustic humor curled his lip even then. “Wilt thou +still worship the destroyer, and surround her image with fantasies the +more magnificent, the more evil she has wrought? Thus man doth ever to +his tyrants! Approach, then! Madness, as I have noted, has that good +efficacy that it will guard you from contagion; and perchance its own +cure may be found in yonder chamber.” + +Ascending another flight of stairs, he threw open a door, and signed to +Jervase Helwyse that he should enter. The poor lunatic, it seems +probable, had cherished a delusion that his haughty mistress sat in +state, unharmed herself by the pestilential influence, which, as by +enchantment, she scattered round about her. He dreamed, no doubt, that +her beauty was not dimmed, but brightened into superhuman splendor. With +such anticipations, he stole reverentially to the door at which the +physician stood, but paused upon the threshold, gazing fearfully into +the gloom of the darkened chamber. + +“Where is the Lady Eleanore?” whispered he. + +“Call her,” replied the physician. + +“Lady Eleanore!—Princess!—Queen of Death!” cried Jervase Helwyse, +advancing three steps into the chamber. “She is not here! There, on +yonder table, I behold the sparkle of a diamond which once she wore upon +her bosom. There,”—and he shuddered,—“there hangs her mantle, on which a +dead woman embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. But where is the +Lady Eleanore?” + +Something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed; and a +low moan was uttered, which, listening intently, Jervase Helwyse began +to distinguish as a woman’s voice, complaining dolefully of thirst. He +fancied, even, that he recognized its tones. + +“My throat!—my throat is scorched,” murmured the voice. “A drop of +water!” + +“What thing art thou?” said the brain-stricken youth, drawing near the +bed and tearing asunder its curtains. “Whose voice hast thou stolen for +thy murmurs and miserable petitions, as if Lady Eleanore could be +conscious of mortal infirmity? Fie! Heap of diseased mortality, why +lurkest thou in my lady’s chamber?” + +“O Jervase Helwyse,” said the voice,—and, as it spoke, the figure +contorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face,—“look not now on +the woman you once loved! The curse of Heaven hath stricken me, because +I would not call man my brother, nor woman sister. I wrapped myself in +PRIDE as in a MANTLE, and scorned the sympathies of nature; and +therefore has nature made this wretched body the medium of a dreadful +sympathy. You are avenged,—they are all avenged,—nature is avenged,—for +I am Eleanore Rochcliffe!” + +The malice of his mental disease, the bitterness lurking at the bottom +of his heart, mad as he was, for a blighted and ruined life, and love +that had been paid with cruel scorn, awoke within the breast of Jervase +Helwyse. He shook his finger at the wretched girl, and the chamber +echoed, the curtains of the bed were shaken, with his outburst of insane +merriment. + +[Illustration: + + “What thing art thou?” +] + +“Another triumph for the Lady Eleanore!” he cried. “All have been her +victims! Who so worthy to be the final victim as herself?” + +[Illustration: + + “That Night a Procession passed by Torchlight” +] + +Impelled by some new fantasy of his crazed intellect, he snatched the +fatal mantle and rushed from the chamber and the house. That night, a +procession passed, by torchlight, through the streets, bearing in the +midst the figure of a woman, enveloped with a richly embroidered mantle; +while in advance stalked Jervase Helwyse, waving the red flag of the +pestilence. Arriving opposite the Province House, the mob burned the +effigy, and a strong wind came and swept away the ashes. It was said +that, from that very hour, the pestilence abated, as if its sway had +some mysterious connection, from the first plague-stroke to the last, +with Lady Eleanore’s Mantle. A remarkable uncertainty broods over that +unhappy lady’s fate. There is a belief, however, that, in a certain +chamber of this mansion, a female form may sometimes be duskily +discerned, shrinking into the darkest corner, and muffling her face +within an embroidered mantle. Supposing the legend true, can this be +other than the once proud Lady Eleanore? + + +Mine host, and the old loyalist, and I bestowed no little warmth of +applause upon this narrative, in which we had all been deeply +interested; for the reader can scarcely conceive how unspeakably the +effect of such a tale is heightened when, as in the present case, we may +repose perfect confidence in the veracity of him who tells it. For my +own part, knowing how scrupulous is Mr. Tiffany to settle the foundation +of his facts, I could not have believed him one whit the more faithfully +had he professed himself an eye-witness of the doings and sufferings of +poor Lady Eleanore. Some sceptics, it is true, might demand documentary +evidence, or even require him to produce the embroidered mantle, +forgetting that—Heaven be praised—it was consumed to ashes. But now the +old loyalist, whose blood was warmed by the good cheer, began to talk, +in his turn, about the traditions of the Province House, and hinted that +he, if it were agreeable, might add a few reminiscences to our legendary +stock. Mr. Tiffany, having no cause to dread a rival, immediately +besought him to favor us with a specimen; my own entreaties, of course, +were urged to the same effect; and our venerable guest, well pleased to +find willing auditors, awaited only the return of Mr. Thomas Waite, who +had been summoned forth to provide accommodations for several new +arrivals. Perchance the public—but be this as its own caprice and ours +shall settle the matter—may read the result in another Tale of the +Province House. + +[Illustration: Old Esther Dudley.] + + + + + IV. + OLD ESTHER DUDLEY. + + +Our host having resumed the chair, he, as well as Mr. Tiffany and +myself, expressed much eagerness to be made acquainted with the story to +which the loyalist had alluded. That venerable man first of all saw fit +to moisten his throat with another glass of wine, and then, turning his +face towards our coal fire, looked steadfastly for a few moments into +the depths of its cheerful glow. Finally, he poured forth a great +fluency of speech. The generous liquid that he had imbibed, while it +warmed his age-chilled blood, likewise took off the chill from his heart +and mind, and gave him an energy to think and feel, which we could +hardly have expected to find beneath the snows of fourscore winters. His +feelings, indeed, appeared to me more excitable than those of a younger +man; or, at least, the same degree of feeling manifested itself by more +visible effects than if his judgment and will had possessed the potency +of meridian life. At the pathetic passages of his narrative, he readily +melted into tears. When a breath of indignation swept across his spirit, +the blood flushed his withered visage even to the roots of his white +hair; and he shook his clinched fist at the trio of peaceful auditors, +seeming to fancy enemies in those who felt very kindly towards the +desolate old soul. But ever and anon, sometimes in the midst of his most +earnest talk, this ancient person’s intellect would wander vaguely, +losing its hold of the matter in hand, and groping for it amid misty +shadows. Then would he cackle forth a feeble laugh, and express a doubt +whether his wits—for by that phrase it pleased our ancient friend to +signify his mental powers—were not getting a little the worse for wear. + +Under these disadvantages, the old loyalist’s story required more +revision to render it fit for the public eye than those of the series +which have preceded it; nor should it be concealed that the sentiment +and tone of the affair may have undergone some slight, or perchance more +than slight metamorphosis, in its transmission to the reader through the +medium of a thoroughgoing democrat. The tale itself is a mere sketch, +with no involution of plot, nor any great interest of events, yet +possessing, if I have rehearsed it aright, that pensive influence over +the mind, which the shadow of the old Province House flings upon the +loiterer in its courtyard. + + +The hour had come—the hour of defeat and humiliation—when Sir William +Howe was to pass over the threshold of the Province House, and embark, +with no such triumphal ceremonies as he once promised himself, on board +the British fleet. He bade his servants and military attendants go +before him, and lingered a moment in the loneliness of the mansion, to +quell the fierce emotions that struggled in his bosom as with a +death-throb. Preferable, then, would he have deemed his fate had a +warrior’s death left him a claim to the narrow territory of a grave, +within the soil which the king had given him to defend. With an ominous +perception that, as his departing footsteps echoed adown the staircase, +the sway of Britain was passing forever from New England, he smote his +clinched hand on his brow, and cursed the destiny that had flung the +shame of a dismembered empire upon him. + +“Would to God,” cried he, hardly repressing his tears of rage, “that the +rebels were even now at the doorstep! A blood-stain upon the floor +should then bear testimony that the last British ruler was faithful to +his trust.” + +The tremulous voice of a woman replied to his exclamation. + +“Heaven’s cause and the King’s are one,” it said. “Go forth, Sir William +Howe, and trust in Heaven to bring back a royal governor in triumph.” + +Subduing at once the passion to which he had yielded only in the faith +that it was unwitnessed, Sir William Howe became conscious that an aged +woman, leaning on a gold-headed staff, was standing betwixt him and the +door. It was old Esther Dudley, who had dwelt almost immemorial years in +this mansion, until her presence seemed as inseparable from it as the +recollections of its history. She was the daughter of an ancient and +once eminent family, which had fallen into poverty and decay, and left +its last descendant no resource save the bounty of the king, nor any +shelter except within the walls of the Province House. An office in the +household, with merely nominal duties, had been assigned to her as a +pretext for the payment of a small pension, the greater part of which +she expended in adorning herself with an antique magnificence of attire. +The claims of Esther Dudley’s gentle blood were acknowledged by all the +successive governors; and they treated her with the punctilious courtesy +which it was her foible to demand, not always with success, from a +neglectful world. The only actual share which she assumed in the +business of the mansion was to glide through its passages and public +chambers, late at night, to see that the servants had dropped no fire +from their flaring torches, nor left embers crackling and blazing on the +hearths. Perhaps it was this invariable custom of walking her rounds in +the hush of midnight that caused the superstition of the times to invest +the old woman with attributes of awe and mystery; fabling that she had +entered the portal of the Province House, none knew whence, in the train +of the first royal governor, and that it was her fate to dwell there +till the last should have departed. But Sir William Howe, if he ever +heard this legend, had forgotten it. + +“Mistress Dudley, why are you loitering here?” asked he, with some +severity of tone. “It is my pleasure to be the last in this mansion of +the king.” + +“Not so, if it please your Excellency,” answered the time-stricken +woman. “This roof has sheltered me long. I will not pass from it until +they bear me to the tomb of my forefathers. What other shelter is there +for old Esther Dudley, save the Province House or the grave?” + +“Now Heaven forgive me!” said Sir William Howe to himself. “I was about +to leave this wretched old creature to starve or beg. Take this, good +Mistress Dudley,” he added, putting a purse into her hands. “King +George’s head on these golden guineas is sterling yet, and will continue +so, I warrant you, even should the rebels crown John Hancock their king. +That purse will buy a better shelter than the Province House can now +afford.” + +“While the burden of life remains upon me, I will have no other shelter +than this roof,” persisted Esther Dudley, striking her staff upon the +floor, with a gesture that expressed immovable resolve. “And when your +Excellency returns in triumph, I will totter into the porch to welcome +you.” + +[Illustration: + + “Heaven’s cause and the King’s are one” +] + +“My poor old friend!” answered the British General; and all his manly +and martial pride could no longer restrain a gush of bitter tears. “This +is an evil hour for you and me. The province which the king intrusted to +my charge is lost. I go hence in misfortune—perchance in disgrace—to +return no more. And you, whose present being is incorporated with the +past,—who have seen governor after governor, in stately pageantry, +ascend these steps,—whose whole life has been an observance of majestic +ceremonies, and a worship of the king,—how will you endure the change? +Come with us! Bid farewell to a land that has shaken off its allegiance, +and live still under a royal government, at Halifax.” + +“Never, never!” said the pertinacious old dame. “Here will I abide; and +King George shall still have one true subject in his disloyal province.” + +“Beshrew the old fool!” muttered Sir William Howe, growing impatient of +her obstinacy, and ashamed of the emotion into which he had been +betrayed. “She is the very moral of old-fashioned prejudice, and could +exist nowhere but in this musty edifice. Well, then, Mistress Dudley, +since you will needs tarry, I give the Province House in charge to you. +Take this key, and keep it safe until myself, or some other royal +governor, shall demand it of you.” + +Smiling bitterly at himself and her, he took the heavy key of the +Province House, and, delivering it into the old lady’s hands, drew his +cloak around him for departure. As the General glanced back at Esther +Dudley’s antique figure, he deemed her well fitted for such a charge, as +being so perfect a representative of the decayed past,—of an age gone +by, with its manners, opinions, faith, and feelings, all fallen into +oblivion or scorn,—of what had once been a reality, but was now merely a +vision of faded magnificence. Then Sir William Howe strode forth, +smiting his clinched hands together, in the fierce anguish of his +spirit; and old Esther Dudley was left to keep watch in the lonely +Province House, dwelling there with memory; and if Hope ever seemed to +flit around her, still it was Memory in disguise. + +[Illustration: + + Take this key and keep it safe— +] + +The total change of affairs that ensued on the departure of the British +troops did not drive the venerable lady from her stronghold. There was +not, for many years afterwards, a governor of Massachusetts; and the +magistrates, who had charge of such matters, saw no objection to Esther +Dudley’s residence in the Province House, especially as they must +otherwise have paid a hireling for taking care of the premises, which +with her was a labor of love. And so they left her, the undisturbed +mistress of the old historic edifice. Many and strange were the fables +which the gossips whispered about her, in all the chimney-corners of the +town. Among the time-worn articles of furniture that had been left in +the mansion, there was a tall, antique mirror, which was well worthy of +a tale by itself, and perhaps may hereafter be the theme of one. The +gold of its heavily wrought frame was tarnished, and its surface so +blurred that the old woman’s figure, whenever she paused before it, +looked indistinct and ghost-like. But it was the general belief that +Esther could cause the governors of the overthrown dynasty, with the +beautiful ladies who had once adorned their festivals, the Indian chiefs +who had come up to the Province House to hold council or swear +allegiance, the grim provincial warriors, the severe clergymen,—in +short, all the pageantry of gone days,—all the figures that ever swept +across the broad plate of glass in former times,—she could cause the +whole to re-appear, and people the inner world of the mirror with +shadows of old life. Such legends as these, together with the +singularity of her isolated existence, her age, and the infirmity that +each added winter flung upon her, made Mistress Dudley the object both +of fear and pity; and it was partly the result of either sentiment that, +amid all the angry license of the times, neither wrong nor insult ever +fell upon her unprotected head. Indeed, there was so much haughtiness in +her demeanor towards intruders, among whom she reckoned all persons +acting under the new authorities, that it was really an affair of no +small nerve to look her in the face. And to do the people justice, stern +republicans as they had now become, they were well content that the old +gentlewoman, in her hoop petticoat and faded embroidery, should still +haunt the palace of ruined pride and overthrown power, the symbol of a +departed system, embodying a history in her person. So Esther Dudley +dwelt, year after year, in the Province House, still reverencing all +that others had flung aside, still faithful to her king, who, so long as +the venerable dame yet held her post, might be said to retain one true +subject in New England, and one spot of the empire that had been wrested +from him. + +And did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Rumor said, not so. +Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she was wont to +summon a black slave of Governor Shirley’s from the blurred mirror, and +send him in search of guests who had long ago been familiar in those +deserted chambers. Forth went the sable messenger, with the starlight or +the moonshine gleaming through him, and did his errand in the +burial-ground, knocking at the iron doors of tombs, or upon the marble +slabs that covered them, and whispering to those within, “My mistress, +old Esther Dudley, bids you to the Province House at midnight.” And +punctually as the clock of the Old South told twelve came the shadows of +the Olivers, the Hutchinsons, the Dudleys, all the grandees of a bygone +generation, gliding beneath the portal into the well-known mansion, +where Esther mingled with them as if she likewise were a shade. Without +vouching for the truth of such traditions, it is certain that Mistress +Dudley sometimes assembled a few of the stanch, though crestfallen old +Tories who had lingered in the rebel town during those days of wrath and +tribulation. Out of a cobwebbed bottle, containing liquor that a royal +governor might have smacked his lips over, they quaffed healths to the +king, and babbled treason to the Republic, feeling as if the protecting +shadow of the throne were still flung around them. But, draining the +last drops of their liquor, they stole timorously homeward, and answered +not again if the rude mob reviled them in the street. + +[Illustration: + + A few of the stanch, though crestfallen, old Tories +] + +Yet Esther Dudley’s most frequent and favored guests were the children +of the town. Towards them she was never stern. A kindly and loving +nature, hindered elsewhere from its free course by a thousand rocky +prejudices, lavished itself upon these little ones. By bribes of +gingerbread of her own making, stamped with a royal crown, she tempted +their sunny sportiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the Province +House, and would often beguile them to spend a whole play-day there, +sitting in a circle round the verge of her hoop petticoat, greedily +attentive to her stories of a dead world. And when these little boys and +girls stole forth again from the dark, mysterious mansion, they went +bewildered, full of old feelings that graver people had long ago +forgotten, rubbing their eyes at the world around them as if they had +gone astray into ancient times, and become children of the past. At +home, when their parents asked where they had loitered such a weary +while, and with whom they had been at play, the children would talk of +all the departed worthies of the province, as far back as Governor +Belcher, and the haughty dame of Sir William Phipps. It would seem as +though they had been sitting on the knees of these famous personages, +whom the grave had hidden for half a century, and had toyed with the +embroidery of their rich waistcoats, or roguishly pulled the long curls +of their flowing wigs. “But Governor Belcher has been dead this many a +year,” would the mother say to her little boy. “And did you really see +him at the Province House?” “Oh, yes, dear mother! yes!” the +half-dreaming child would answer. “But when old Esther had done speaking +about him he faded away out of his chair.” Thus, without affrighting her +little guests, she led them by the hand into the chambers of her own +desolate heart, and made childhood’s fancy discern the ghosts that +haunted there. + +Living so continually in her own circle of ideas, and never regulating +her mind by a proper reference to present things, Esther Dudley appears +to have grown partially crazed. It was found that she had no right sense +of the progress and true state of the Revolutionary War, but held a +constant faith that the armies of Britain were victorious on every +field, and destined to be ultimately triumphant. Whenever the town +rejoiced for a battle won by Washington, or Gates, or Morgan, or Greene, +the news, in passing through the door of the Province House, as through +the ivory gate of dreams, became metamorphosed into a strange tale of +the prowess of Howe, Clinton, or Cornwallis. Sooner or later, it was her +invincible belief, the colonies would be prostrate at the footstool of +the king. Sometimes she seemed to take for granted that such was already +the case. On one occasion she startled the townspeople by a brilliant +illumination of the Province House, with candles at every pane of glass, +and a transparency of the king’s initials and a crown of light in the +great balcony window. The figure of the aged woman, in the most gorgeous +of her mildewed velvets and brocades, was seen passing from casement to +casement, until she paused before the balcony, and flourished a huge key +above her head. Her wrinkled visage actually gleamed with triumph, as if +the soul within her were a festal lamp. + +“What means this blaze of light? What does old Esther’s joy portend?” +whispered a spectator. “It is frightful to see her gliding about the +chambers, and rejoicing there without a soul to bear her company.” + +“It is as if she were making merry in a tomb,” said another. + +[Illustration: + + The King of England’s birthday— +] + +“Pshaw! It is no such mystery,” observed an old man, after some brief +exercise of memory. “Mistress Dudley is keeping jubilee for the King of +England’s birthday.” Then the people laughed aloud, and would have +thrown mud against the blazing transparency of the king’s crown and +initials, only that they pitied the poor old dame, who was so dismally +triumphant amid the wreck and ruin of the system to which she +appertained. + +Oftentimes it was her custom to climb the weary staircase that wound +upward to the cupola, and thence strain her dimmed eyesight seaward and +countryward, watching for a British fleet, or for the march of a grand +procession, with the king’s banner floating over it. The passengers in +the street below would discern her anxious visage, and send up a shout, +“When the golden Indian on the Province House shall shoot his arrow, and +when the cock on the Old South spire shall crow, then look for a royal +governor again!”—for this had grown a byword through the town. And at +last, after long, long years, old Esther Dudley knew, or perchance she +only dreamed, that a royal governor was on the eve of returning to the +Province House, to receive the heavy key which Sir William Howe had +committed to her charge. Now it was the fact that intelligence bearing +some faint analogy to Esther’s version of it was current among the +townspeople. She set the mansion in the best order that her means +allowed, and, arraying herself in silks and tarnished gold, stood long +before the blurred mirror to admire her own magnificence. As she gazed, +the gray and withered lady moved her ashen lips, murmuring half aloud, +talking to shapes that she saw within the mirror, to shadows of her own +fantasies, to the household friends of memory, and bidding them rejoice +with her, and come forth to meet the governor. And, while absorbed in +this communion, Mistress Dudley heard the tramp of many footsteps in the +street, and, looking out at the window, beheld what she construed as the +royal governor’s arrival. + +“O happy day! O blessed, blessed hour!” she exclaimed. “Let me but bid +him welcome within the portal, and my task in the Province House, and on +earth, is done!” + +[Illustration: + + “Receive my Trust.” +] + +Then with tottering feet, which age and tremulous joy caused to tread +amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her silks sweeping and +rustling as she went, so that the sound was as if a train of spectral +courtiers were thronging from the dim mirror. And Esther Dudley fancied +that, as soon as the wide door should be flung open, all the pomp and +splendor of bygone times would pace majestically into the Province +House, and the gilded tapestry of the past would be brightened by the +sunshine of the present. She turned the key,—withdrew it from the +lock,—unclosed the door,—and stepped across the threshold. Advancing up +the courtyard appeared a person of most dignified mien, with tokens, as +Esther interpreted them, of gentle blood, high rank, and long-accustomed +authority, even in his walk and every gesture. He was richly dressed, +but wore a gouty shoe, which, however, did not lessen the stateliness of +his gait. Around and behind him were people in plain civic dresses, and +two or three war-worn veterans, evidently officers of rank, arrayed in a +uniform of blue and buff. But Esther Dudley, firm in the belief that had +fastened its roots about her heart, beheld only the principal personage, +and never doubted that this was the long-looked-for governor, to whom +she was to surrender up her charge. As he approached, she involuntarily +sank down on her knees, and tremblingly held forth the heavy key. + +“Receive my trust! take it quickly!” cried she; “for methinks Death is +striving to snatch away my triumph. But he comes too late. Thank Heaven +for this blessed hour! God save King George!” + +“That, madam, is a strange prayer to be offered up at such a moment,” +replied the unknown guest of the Province House, and, courteously +removing his hat, he offered his arm to raise the aged woman. “Yet, in +reverence for your gray hairs and long-kept faith, Heaven forbid that +any here should say you nay. Over the realms which still acknowledge his +sceptre, God save King George!” + +Esther Dudley started to her feet, and, hastily clutching back the key, +gazed with fearful earnestness at the stranger; and dimly and +doubtfully, as if suddenly awakened from a dream, her bewildered eyes +half recognized his face. Years ago, she had known him among the gentry +of the province. But the ban of the king had fallen upon him! How, then, +came the doomed victim here? Proscribed, excluded from mercy, the +monarch’s most dreaded and hated foe, this New England merchant had +stood triumphantly against a kingdom’s strength; and his foot now trod +upon humbled royalty, as he ascended the steps of the Province House, +the people’s chosen governor of Massachusetts. + +“Wretch, wretch that I am!” muttered the old woman, with such a +heart-broken expression that the tears gushed from the stranger’s eyes. +“Have I bidden a traitor welcome? Come, Death! come quickly!” + +“Alas, venerable lady!” said Governor Hancock, lending her his support +with all the reverence that a courtier would have shown to a queen. +“Your life has been prolonged until the world has changed around you. +You have treasured up all that time has rendered worthless,—the +principles, feelings, manners, modes of being and acting, which another +generation has flung aside,—and you are a symbol of the past. And I, and +these around me,—we represent a new race of men,—living no longer in the +past, scarcely in the present,—but projecting our lives forward into the +future. Ceasing to model ourselves on ancestral superstitions, it is our +faith and principle to press onward, onward! Yet,” continued he, turning +to his attendants, “let us reverence, for the last time, the stately and +gorgeous prejudices of the tottering Past!” + +While the republican governor spoke, he had continued to support the +helpless form of Esther Dudley; her weight grew heavier against his arm; +but at last, with a sudden effort to free herself, the ancient woman +sank down beside one of the pillars of the portal. The key of the +Province House fell from her grasp, and clanked against the stone. + +“I have been faithful unto death,” murmured she. “God save the king!” + +“She hath done her office!” said Hancock solemnly. “We will follow her +reverently to the tomb of her ancestors; and then, my fellow-citizens, +onward,—onward! We are no longer children of the Past!” + + +As the old loyalist concluded his narrative, the enthusiasm which had +been fitfully flashing within his sunken eyes, and quivering across his +wrinkled visage, faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soul +were extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp upon the mantel-piece threw +out a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward, +compelling our eyes to grope for one another’s features by the dim glow +of the hearth. With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying +gleam, had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the Province +House, when the spirit of old Esther Dudley took its flight. And now, +again, the clock of the Old South threw its voice of ages on the breeze, +knolling the hourly knell of the Past, crying out far and wide through +the multitudinous city, and filling our ears, as we sat in the dusky +chamber, with its reverberating depth of tone. In that same mansion,—in +that very chamber,—what a volume of history had been told off into +hours, by the same voice that was now trembling in the air. Many a +governor had heard those midnight accents, and longed to exchange his +stately cares for slumber. And as for mine host, and Mr. Bela Tiffany, +and the old loyalist, and me, we had babbled about dreams of the past, +until we almost fancied that the clock was still striking in a bygone +century. Neither of us would have wondered had a hoop-petticoated +phantom of Esther Dudley tottered into the chamber, walking her rounds +in the hush of midnight, as of yore, and motioned us to quench the +fading embers of the fire, and leave the historic precincts to herself +and her kindred shades. But, as no such vision was vouchsafed, I retired +unbidden, and would advise Mr. Tiffany to lay hold of another auditor, +being resolved not to show my face in the Province House for a good +while hence,—if ever. + +[Illustration: + + Faithful unto death +] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. + 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. + 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + 4. 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