Latest / Idols / In Colonial Days-Nathaniel Hawthorne

Transcript

In Colonial Days-Nathaniel Hawthorne · Idols

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter one of Incolonial Days by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This is
0:05
Speaker 1: a LibriVox. According all LibriVox accordings are in the public domain.
0:09
Speaker 1: For more information, ought to volunteer, please visit libovox dot org.
0:15
Speaker 1: Hal's Masquerade. One afternoon last summer or walking along Washington Street,
0:20
Speaker 1: my eye was attracted by a sign board protruding over
0:23
Speaker 1: a narrow archway nearly opposite the Old South Church. The
0:27
Speaker 1: sign represented the front of a stately edifice which was
0:30
Speaker 1: designated as the Old Province House, kept by Thomas Waite.
0:34
Speaker 1: I was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose
0:36
Speaker 1: long entertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion of
0:40
Speaker 1: the old royal Governors of Massachusetts, and entering the arched
0:43
Speaker 1: passage which penetrated to the middle of a brick row
0:46
Speaker 1: of shops. A few steps transported me from the busy
0:49
Speaker 1: heart of modern Boston into a small and secluded court yard.
0:53
Speaker 1: One side of this space was occupied by the square
0:56
Speaker 1: front of the Province House, three stories high and surmounted
0:59
Speaker 1: by a couple on the top of which a gilded
1:02
Speaker 1: Indian was discernible, with his bow bent and his arrow
1:05
Speaker 1: on the string, as if aiming at the weather cock
1:07
Speaker 1: on the spire of the Old South. The figure was
1:10
Speaker 1: kept this attitude for seventy years or more, ever since
1:13
Speaker 1: good deaconed Drown, cunning carver of wood pursed stationed him
1:17
Speaker 1: on his long sentinel's watch over the city. The Province
1:21
Speaker 1: House is constructed of brick, which seems recently to have
1:24
Speaker 1: been overlaid with a coat of light colored paint. A
1:28
Speaker 1: flight of red freestone steps, penced in by a balustrade
1:31
Speaker 1: of curiously wrought iron, ascends from the courtyard to the
1:35
Speaker 1: spacious porch, over which is a balcony with an iron
1:38
Speaker 1: balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to that beneath. These
1:42
Speaker 1: letters and figures sixteen p. S. Seventy nine are wrought
1:46
Speaker 1: into the iron work of the balcony, and probably express
1:49
Speaker 1: the date of the edifice the initials of its founder's name.
1:53
Speaker 2: A wide door with double leaves.
1:55
Speaker 1: Admitted me into the hall or entry, and the right
1:57
Speaker 1: of which is the entrance to the bar room. It
2:01
Speaker 1: was in this apartment I presume that the ancient governors.
2:04
Speaker 2: Held their levees with vice regal.
2:06
Speaker 1: Pomp, surrounded by the military men, the councilors, the judges,
2:10
Speaker 1: and other officers of the crown, while all the loyalty
2:12
Speaker 1: of the province thronged to do the manor. But the Roman,
2:16
Speaker 1: his present condition, cannot boast even of faded magnificence. The
2:20
Speaker 1: paneled wainscot is covered with dingy paint and acquires a
2:24
Speaker 1: duskier hue from the deep shadow into which the Province
2:27
Speaker 1: House is thrown by the brick block that shuts it
2:29
Speaker 1: in from Washington Street. A ray of sunshine ever visits
2:33
Speaker 1: this apartment, any more than the glare of the festal torches,
2:36
Speaker 1: which have been extinguished from the era of the Revolution.
2:39
Speaker 1: The most venerable and ornamental object is a chimney piece
2:42
Speaker 1: set round with Dutch tiles of blue figured china, representing
2:46
Speaker 1: scenes from scripture. And for aught I know the lady
2:49
Speaker 1: of panel Or Bernard may have sat beside the fireplace
2:52
Speaker 1: and told her children the story of each blue tie.
2:56
Speaker 1: A bar in modern style, well replenished with decanters, bottles, garboxes,
3:00
Speaker 1: and network bags of lemon, and provided with a beer
3:03
Speaker 1: pump and a soda fount, extends along one side of
3:06
Speaker 1: the room. At my entrance, an elderly person was smacking
3:10
Speaker 1: his lips with a zest which satisfied me that the
3:12
Speaker 1: sellers of the province house still hold good liquor, though
3:16
Speaker 1: doubtless of other vintages than were coughed by the old governor.
3:20
Speaker 1: After sipping a glass of port Sangaree prepared by the
3:23
Speaker 1: skillful hands of mister Thomas Waite, I besought that worthy
3:26
Speaker 1: successor and representative of so many historic personages, to conduct
3:30
Speaker 1: me over their time honored mansion. He readily complied, But
3:34
Speaker 1: to confess the truth, I was forced to draw strenuously
3:37
Speaker 1: upon my imagination in order to find art that was
3:40
Speaker 1: interesting in a house which, without its historic associations, would
3:44
Speaker 1: have seemed merely such a tavern, as is usually favored
3:47
Speaker 1: by the custom of decent city boarders an old fashioned
3:50
Speaker 1: country gentlemen. The chambers, which were probably spacious in former times,
3:54
Speaker 1: are now cut up by partitions and subdivided into little knooks,
3:58
Speaker 1: each affording scanty room for the narrow bed and chair
4:02
Speaker 1: and dressing table of a single lodger. The great staircase, however,
4:05
Speaker 1: may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur
4:09
Speaker 1: and magnificence, and winds through the midst of the house
4:12
Speaker 1: by flights of broad steps. Each flight terminating in a
4:15
Speaker 1: square landing place, whence the ascent is continued towards the copula.
4:20
Speaker 1: A carved balustrade, preshly painted in the lower stories, but
4:23
Speaker 1: growing dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase, with its
4:27
Speaker 1: quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars from top to bottom. Up
4:31
Speaker 1: these stairs, the military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes
4:34
Speaker 1: of many a governor, have trodden as the wearers mounted
4:37
Speaker 1: to the copular, which afforded them so wide a view
4:40
Speaker 1: of them mertropolis and the surrounding country. The coppolar is
4:44
Speaker 1: an octagon with several windows and a door opening upon
4:47
Speaker 1: the roof. From the station, as I pleased myself with imagining,
4:51
Speaker 1: Gage may have beheld its disastrous victory on Bunker Hill
4:54
Speaker 1: unless one of the tri mountains intervened, and how have
4:57
Speaker 1: marked the approaches of Washington's besieging army, Although the buildings
5:01
Speaker 1: since erected in the vicinity, if shot out, almost every
5:04
Speaker 1: object save the steeple of the Old South, which seems
5:08
Speaker 1: almost within arm's length. Descending from the Coppoler, I paused
5:12
Speaker 1: in the garret to observe the ponderous white oak framework
5:16
Speaker 1: so much more massive than the frames of modern houses,
5:19
Speaker 1: now by resembling an antique skeleton. The brick walls, the
5:23
Speaker 1: materials of which were imparted from Holland, and the timbers
5:26
Speaker 1: of the mansion are still as sound as ever, but
5:29
Speaker 1: the floors and other interior parts being greatly decayed. It
5:32
Speaker 1: is contemplated to gut the whole and build a new
5:35
Speaker 1: house within the ancient frame and brickwork. Among other inconveniences
5:38
Speaker 1: of the present edifice. My host mentioned that any jar
5:42
Speaker 1: or motion was apt to shake down the dust of
5:44
Speaker 1: ages out of the ceiling of one chamber upon the
5:47
Speaker 1: floor of that beneath it we stepped forth from the
5:50
Speaker 1: great front window into the balcony, where in old times
5:53
Speaker 1: it was doubtless the custom of the King's representative to
5:55
Speaker 1: show himself to a loyal populace, requiting their huzzahs and
5:59
Speaker 1: tossed up hats with stately bendings of his dignified person.
6:03
Speaker 1: In those days, the front of the Province House looked
6:06
Speaker 1: upon the street, and the whole site now occupied by
6:08
Speaker 1: the brick range of stores, as well as the present courtyard,
6:12
Speaker 1: was laid out in grass plats, overshadowed by trees and
6:15
Speaker 1: bordered by wrought iron fence. Now the old aristocratic edifice
6:19
Speaker 1: hides its time warm visage behind an upstart modern building.
6:25
Speaker 1: At one of the back windows, I observed some pretty
6:27
Speaker 1: tailoresses sewing and chatting and laughing with now and then
6:31
Speaker 1: a careless glance towards the balcony descending. Thence we again
6:35
Speaker 1: entered the bar room, where the elderly gentleman above mentioned,
6:38
Speaker 1: the smack of whose lips had spoken so favorably mister
6:41
Speaker 1: Waite's good liquor, was still lounging in his chair. He
6:45
Speaker 1: seemed to be, if not a lodger, at least a
6:47
Speaker 1: familiar visitor of the house, who might be supposed to
6:50
Speaker 1: have his regular score at the bar, his summary seat
6:53
Speaker 1: at the open window, and his prescriptive corner at the
6:56
Speaker 1: winter's fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, an event to
7:00
Speaker 1: address him with a remark calculated to draw forth his
7:03
Speaker 1: historic or reminiscences, if any such were in his mind,
7:07
Speaker 1: And it gratified me to discover that, between memory and tradition,
7:10
Speaker 1: the old gentleman was really possessed of some very pleasant
7:13
Speaker 1: gossip about the province house. The portion of his talk
7:17
Speaker 1: which chiefly interested me was the outline of the following legend.
7:21
Speaker 1: He professed to have received it but one or two
7:23
Speaker 1: removes from an eye witness. But this derivation, together with
7:27
Speaker 1: a lapse of time, must have afforded opportunities for many
7:30
Speaker 1: variations of the narrative, so that, despairing of literal and
7:33
Speaker 1: absolute truth, I have not scrupled to make such further
7:37
Speaker 1: changes as seemed conducive to the reader's profit and delight.
7:41
Speaker 1: And one of the entertainments given of the Province House
7:44
Speaker 1: during the latter part of the Siege of Boston the past,
7:47
Speaker 1: a scene which has never yet been satisfactorily explained. The
7:50
Speaker 1: officers of the British Army and the loyal gentry of
7:53
Speaker 1: the Province, most of whom were collected within the beleagued town,
7:56
Speaker 1: have been invited to a masked ball, where it was
7:59
Speaker 1: the policy of so W. William Howe to hide the
8:01
Speaker 1: distress and danger of the period and the desperate aspect
8:04
Speaker 1: of the siege, under any ostentation of festivity.
8:07
Speaker 2: The spectacle of.
8:08
Speaker 1: This evening, if the oldest members of the Provincial Court
8:11
Speaker 1: circle might be believed, was the most gay and gorgeous affair
8:14
Speaker 1: that had occurred in the annals of the Government. The
8:16
Speaker 1: brilliantly lighted apartments were thronged with figures that seemed to
8:19
Speaker 1: have stepped from the dark canvas of historic portraits, or
8:23
Speaker 1: to have flitted forth from the magic pages of Romance,
8:27
Speaker 1: or at least to have flown hither from one of
8:29
Speaker 1: the London theaters without a change of garments. Steeled knights
8:32
Speaker 1: of the Conquest, beararded statesmen of Queen Elizabeth, and high
8:36
Speaker 1: ruffled ladies of her court were mingled with characters of comedy,
8:40
Speaker 1: such as a party colored merry, Andrew jingling his cap
8:44
Speaker 1: and bells, a falsta almost as provocative of laughter as
8:47
Speaker 1: his prototype, and Don Quixote with a bean pole for
8:50
Speaker 1: a lance and a potlet for a shill. But the
8:53
Speaker 1: bordest merriment was excited by a group of figures ridiculously
8:57
Speaker 1: dressed in old regimentals which seemed to have been purchased at
9:00
Speaker 1: a military ragfare, a Pilford and some receptacle that cast
9:04
Speaker 1: off clothes of both the French and British armies, portions
9:07
Speaker 1: of their attire had probably been worn at the Siege
9:10
Speaker 1: of Louisbourg, and that coats of the most recent cut
9:13
Speaker 1: might have been rent and tattered by sword ball of
9:15
Speaker 1: bayonet as long ago as Wolfe's victory. One of these
9:19
Speaker 1: worthies a tall, lank figure brandishing a rusty sword of
9:22
Speaker 1: immense longitude, purporting to be no less a personage than
9:26
Speaker 1: General George Washington, and the other principal officers of the
9:29
Speaker 1: American army, such as Gates, Lee, Putnam, Schouler, Ward, and Heath,
9:35
Speaker 1: were represented by similar scarecrow. An interview in a mock
9:39
Speaker 1: heroic style between the rebel warriors and the British commander
9:42
Speaker 1: in chief was received with immense applause, which came loudest
9:46
Speaker 1: of all the loyalists of the colony. There was one
9:48
Speaker 1: of the guests, however, who stood apart, eyeing these antics
9:52
Speaker 1: sternly and scornfully at once with a frown and a
9:54
Speaker 1: bitter smile. It was an old man formulaly, of high
9:58
Speaker 1: station and great repute in the province, and who had
10:01
Speaker 1: been a very famous soldier in his day. Some surprise
10:04
Speaker 1: had been expressed that a person of Colonel Joliffe's known
10:08
Speaker 1: Whig principle, though now too old to take an active
10:11
Speaker 1: part in the contest, should have remained in Boston during
10:13
Speaker 1: a siege, and especially that he should consent to show
10:16
Speaker 1: himself in the mansion of Sir William Howe. But thither
10:19
Speaker 1: he had come with a fair granddaughter under his arm,
10:22
Speaker 1: and there, amid all the mirth and buffoonery stood this
10:24
Speaker 1: stern old figure, the best sustained character in the masquerade,
10:28
Speaker 1: because so well representing the antique spirit of his native land.
10:32
Speaker 1: The other guests affirmed that Colonel Jolyph's black puritanical scowl
10:37
Speaker 1: who were shadow round about him, although in spite of
10:40
Speaker 1: his somber influence, their gaiety continued to blaze higher. Like
10:44
Speaker 1: an ominous comparison the flickering brilliancy of a lamp, which
10:48
Speaker 1: has but a little while to burn, eleven strokes full
10:52
Speaker 1: half an hour ago had pealed from the clock of
10:54
Speaker 1: the Old South. Eleven strokes all half an hour ago
10:58
Speaker 1: pealed from the clock of the Old South. When a
11:00
Speaker 1: rumor was circulated among the company that some new spectacle
11:04
Speaker 1: or pageant was about to be exhibited, which had put
11:06
Speaker 1: a fitting close to the splendid festivity of the night.
11:10
Speaker 1: What new just has your excellency in hand? Asked the
11:14
Speaker 1: Reverend Mayor Biles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him
11:17
Speaker 1: from the entertainment. Trust me, Sir, I have already laughed
11:21
Speaker 1: more than beseems my cloth at your Homeric confabulation with
11:26
Speaker 1: Yonder Ragamuffin general of the rebels, one other such fit
11:30
Speaker 1: of merriment, and I must or my clerical wig and band.
11:34
Speaker 1: Not so good, doctor Bill, answered Sir William Howe, if
11:38
Speaker 1: mirth were a crime, you had never gained your doctorate
11:41
Speaker 1: in divinity. As to this new foolery, I know no
11:45
Speaker 1: more about it than yourself. Perhaps not so much, honestly, now, Doctor,
11:49
Speaker 1: have you not stirred up the sober brains of some
11:52
Speaker 1: of your countrymen to enact a scene in our masquerade?
11:56
Speaker 1: Perhaps slyly, remarked the granddaughter of current Jolliffe, whose high
12:01
Speaker 1: spirit had been stung by many taunts against New England.
12:05
Speaker 1: Perhaps we ought to have a mask of ellegoical figures, victory,
12:09
Speaker 1: with trophies from Lexington and bunker Hill plenty, with her
12:13
Speaker 1: overflowing horn to typify the present abundance in this good town,
12:18
Speaker 1: and glory with a wreath for his Excellency's brow. Sir
12:22
Speaker 1: William Howe smiled at words with which he would have
12:24
Speaker 1: answered with one of his darkest frowns, had they been
12:27
Speaker 1: uttered by lips at wore a beer. It was spared
12:30
Speaker 1: the necessity of a retort by a singular interruption. The
12:34
Speaker 1: sound of music was heard without the house, as proceeding
12:38
Speaker 1: from the full bound of military instruments stationed in the street,
12:41
Speaker 1: playing not such a festal strain as was suited to
12:45
Speaker 1: the occasion, but a slow funeral march. The drums appeared
12:50
Speaker 1: to be muffled, and the trumpets poured forth a wailing breath,
12:54
Speaker 1: which at once hushed the merriment of the auditors, filling
12:57
Speaker 1: all with wonder and some with apprehension. The idea occurred
13:02
Speaker 1: to many that either the funeral possession of some great
13:05
Speaker 1: personage had halted in front of the Province's house, or
13:08
Speaker 1: that a corpse in a velvet covered and gorgeously decorated
13:12
Speaker 1: coffin was about to be borne from the portal. After
13:16
Speaker 1: listening a moment, Sir William Howell called in a stern
13:19
Speaker 1: voice to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto
13:22
Speaker 1: enliven the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies. The man
13:27
Speaker 1: was drum major to one of the British regiments, Dighton
13:30
Speaker 1: demanded the journal, what means this foolery? Bid your band
13:33
Speaker 1: silence that dead march, or by my word they shall
13:37
Speaker 1: have sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains. Silence, it said,
13:42
Speaker 1: our please, Your honor, answered the drum major, whose rubicontisage
13:47
Speaker 1: had lost all its color. The fault is none of mine.
13:50
Speaker 1: I and my band all here together, and I question
13:52
Speaker 1: whether there be a man of us that could play
13:54
Speaker 1: that march without book. I never heard it but once before,
13:58
Speaker 1: and that was at the funeral of his late Majesty,
14:01
Speaker 1: King George the second well Well, said William Howe, recovering
14:05
Speaker 1: his composure. It is the prelude to some masquerading antic
14:10
Speaker 1: Let it pass. A figure now presented itself. But among
14:14
Speaker 1: the many fantastic masks that were dispersed through the apartments,
14:18
Speaker 1: none could tell precisely from whence it came. It was
14:21
Speaker 1: a man in an old fashioned dress of black surge,
14:25
Speaker 1: and having the aspect of a steward, a principal domestic
14:28
Speaker 1: in the household of a nobleman or a great English landholder.
14:32
Speaker 1: His figure advanced to the outer door of the mansion, and,
14:35
Speaker 1: throwing both its leaves wide open, withdrew a little to
14:38
Speaker 1: one side, and looked back towards the grand staircase, as
14:42
Speaker 1: if expecting some person to descend. At the same time,
14:46
Speaker 1: the music in the street sounded a loud and doleful summons,
14:50
Speaker 1: the eyes of Sir William Howe and his guests being
14:53
Speaker 1: directed to the staircase. There appeared on the uppermost landing
14:56
Speaker 1: place that was discernible from the bottom several personages to sending.
15:00
Speaker 2: Towards the door.
15:01
Speaker 1: The foremost was a man of stern visage wearing a
15:04
Speaker 1: steeple crowned hat and a skull cap. Beneath it a
15:07
Speaker 1: dark cloak with huge, wrinkled boots that came half way
15:11
Speaker 1: up his legs. Under his arm was a rolled up
15:14
Speaker 1: banner which seemed to be the banner of England, but
15:17
Speaker 1: strangely rent and torn. He had a sword in his
15:20
Speaker 1: right hand and grasped a bible in his left. The
15:24
Speaker 1: next figure was a milder aspect, yet full of dignity,
15:28
Speaker 1: wearing a broad ruff, over which descended a beard, a
15:32
Speaker 1: gown of wrought velvet, and a very striking countenance and demeanor,
15:36
Speaker 1: with deep thought and contemplation on his brow, and perhaps
15:39
Speaker 1: a flash of enthusiasm in his eye. His garb, like
15:43
Speaker 1: that of his predecessors, was of an antique fashion, and
15:46
Speaker 1: there was a stain of blood upon his ruff. In
15:49
Speaker 1: the same group with these who three or four others,
15:51
Speaker 1: while men of dignity and evident command, and bearing themselves
15:55
Speaker 1: like personages who were accustomed to the gaze of the multitude.
16:00
Speaker 1: It was the idea of the beholders that his figures
16:02
Speaker 1: wanted to join the mysterious funeral that had halted in
16:05
Speaker 1: front of the Province's house. Yet that supposition seemed to
16:09
Speaker 1: be contradicted by the air of triumph with which they
16:11
Speaker 1: waved their hands as they crushed the threshold and vanished.
16:15
Speaker 2: Through the portal.
16:17
Speaker 1: In the Devil's name, what is this, muttered Sir William
16:20
Speaker 1: Howe to a gentleman beside him. A possession of the
16:23
Speaker 1: regicided judges of King Charles the Martyr. These said Colonel Jolliffe,
16:28
Speaker 1: breaking silence, almost for the first time, that evening. These,
16:32
Speaker 1: if I interpret them, arride, are the Puritan governors, the
16:36
Speaker 1: rulers of the old original democracy of Massachusetts. Endicott with
16:40
Speaker 1: the banner from which he had torn the symbol of subjection,
16:43
Speaker 1: and Winthrop and Sir Henry, Vane and Dudley, Hens, Bellingham
16:48
Speaker 1: and Leverett. Why had that young man a stain of
16:51
Speaker 1: blood upon his ruff, asked Miss Jolliffe, Because in after years,
16:57
Speaker 1: answered her grandfather.
16:58
Speaker 3: He lay down the.
16:59
Speaker 1: Wisest head in England upon the block for the principles
17:03
Speaker 1: of liberty. Will not your excellency order out the god?
17:08
Speaker 1: Whispered Lord Percy, who with other British officers had now
17:10
Speaker 1: assembled round the General. They may be a plot under
17:13
Speaker 1: this mummery tush. We have nothing to fear, carelessly replied
17:18
Speaker 1: Sir William Howe. There can be no worse treason in
17:20
Speaker 1: the matter than a jest, And that somewhat of the
17:23
Speaker 1: dullest even were at a sharp and bitter one, our
17:27
Speaker 1: best policy would be to laugh it off. See here
17:30
Speaker 1: come more of these gentry. Another group of characters had
17:34
Speaker 1: now partly descended the staircase. The first was a venerable
17:37
Speaker 1: and white.
17:37
Speaker 2: Bearded patriarch, who cautiously felt his.
17:40
Speaker 1: Way downward with a staff, treading hastily behind him and
17:44
Speaker 1: stretching forth his gauntlet at hand as if to grasp
17:47
Speaker 1: the old man's shoulder. Came a tall soldier like figure
17:51
Speaker 1: equipped with a plumed cap of steel, a bright breastplate,
17:55
Speaker 1: and a long sword which rattled against the stairs. Next
17:58
Speaker 1: was seen a stout man, dressed in rich and courtly attire,
18:01
Speaker 1: but not of courtly demean His gait had the swinging
18:05
Speaker 1: motion of a seaman's walk, and chancing to stumble on
18:08
Speaker 1: the staircase, he suddenly grew wrathful and was heard to
18:12
Speaker 1: mutter an oath. He was followed by a noble looking
18:15
Speaker 1: personage in a curled wig, such as are represented in
18:18
Speaker 1: the portraits of Queen Anne's time and earlier. When the
18:21
Speaker 1: breast of his coat was decorated with an embroidered star.
18:25
Speaker 1: While advancing to the door, he bowed to the right
18:27
Speaker 1: hand and to the left, If it please your excellency,
18:30
Speaker 1: They lived somewhat before my day, answered the doctor. But
18:34
Speaker 1: doubtless our friend, the Colonel, has been hand in glove
18:37
Speaker 1: with them their living faces I never looked upon, said
18:42
Speaker 1: Colonel Jolliffe gravely, although I have spoken face to face
18:46
Speaker 1: with many rulers of this land, and shall greet yet
18:49
Speaker 1: another with an old man's blessing. Ed I die, But
18:53
Speaker 1: we talk of these figures. They take the venerable Patriarch
18:56
Speaker 1: to be bread Street The last of the Puritans, who
18:59
Speaker 1: was ninety or thereabouts. The next is Sir Edmund andros
19:04
Speaker 1: a tyrant, as any New England schoolboy will tell you,
19:08
Speaker 1: And therefore the people cast him down from his high
19:11
Speaker 1: seat into a dungeon. Then comes Sir William Phipps, Shepherd Cooper,
19:16
Speaker 1: Sea Captain and Governor, may many of his countrymen rise
19:19
Speaker 1: as high from as low an oligin. Lastly you see
19:23
Speaker 1: the gracious Earl of Bellamont, who ruled our sunder, King William.
19:27
Speaker 1: But what is the meaning of it all, asked Lord Percy.
19:31
Speaker 1: Now why a rebel, said Miss Jaliff half Aloud. I
19:35
Speaker 1: might fancy that the ghosts of these ancient governors had
19:38
Speaker 1: been summoned to form the funeral possession of royal authority
19:41
Speaker 1: in New England. Several other figures were now seen at
19:44
Speaker 1: the turn of the staircase. The one in advance at
19:47
Speaker 1: a thoughtful, anxious, and somewhat crafty expression of face. And
19:51
Speaker 1: in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was evidently
19:54
Speaker 1: the result of both an ambitious spirit and of long
19:57
Speaker 1: continuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing
20:01
Speaker 1: to a greater than himself. A few steps behind came
20:05
Speaker 1: an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform, cut in
20:08
Speaker 1: a fashion old enough to have been worn by the
20:10
Speaker 1: Duke of Marlborough. His nose had a rubicund tinge, which,
20:14
Speaker 1: together with a trinkle of his eye, might have marked
20:16
Speaker 1: him as a lover of the wine cup and good fellowship.
20:19
Speaker 1: Notwithstanding which tokens, he appeared ill at ease, and often
20:23
Speaker 1: glanced around him, as if apprehensive of some secret mischief.
20:27
Speaker 1: Next came a portly gentleman wearing a coat of shaggy
20:30
Speaker 1: cloth lined with silken velvet. He had sense shrewdness and
20:34
Speaker 1: humor in his face, and a folio volume under his arm,
20:37
Speaker 1: but his aspect was that of a man vexed and
20:40
Speaker 1: tormented beyond all patience, and harassed almost to death. He
20:45
Speaker 1: went hastily down, and was followed by a dignified person
20:49
Speaker 1: dressed in a purple velvet suit with very rich embroidery.
20:52
Speaker 1: His demeanor, who had possessed much stateliness, only that a
20:56
Speaker 1: grievous fit of the gout compelled him to hobble from
20:59
Speaker 1: stair to stare with contortions face and body. When Doctor
21:03
Speaker 1: Biles beheld this figure on the staircase. He shivered as
21:06
Speaker 1: with an agew but continued to watch him steadfastly until
21:10
Speaker 1: the gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, made a gesture
21:13
Speaker 1: of anguish and despair, and vanished into the outer gloom.
21:17
Speaker 1: Whither the funeral music summoned him. Governor Belcher, my old patron,
21:23
Speaker 1: in his very shape and dress, gasped Doctor Biles. This
21:27
Speaker 1: is an awful mockery, a tedious foolery, rather, said Sir
21:31
Speaker 1: William Howe, with an air of indifference. But who were
21:34
Speaker 1: the three that preceded him? Governor Dudley a cunning politician,
21:39
Speaker 1: yet his craft once brought him to a prison, replied
21:43
Speaker 1: Colonel Jolliffe, Governor Shoot, formerly a colonel under Marlborough, and
21:48
Speaker 1: whom the people frightened out of the province, and learned
21:51
Speaker 1: Governor Burnet, whom the legislature tormented into a mortal fever.
21:56
Speaker 1: Methinks they were miserable men, these royal governors of Massage. Echusetts,
22:00
Speaker 1: observed Miss Jolliffe. Heavens, how dim the light grows. It
22:05
Speaker 1: was certainly a fact that the large lamp which illuminated
22:08
Speaker 1: the staircase now burned dim and dusky, so that several
22:11
Speaker 1: figures which passed hastily down the stairs, and when forth
22:14
Speaker 1: from the porch, appeared rather like shadows than persons of
22:18
Speaker 1: fleshly substance. Sir William Howe and his guests stood at
22:21
Speaker 1: the doors of the contiguous apartments, watching the progress of
22:24
Speaker 1: this singular pageant, with various emotions of anger, contempt, or
22:28
Speaker 1: half acknowledged fear, but still with an anxious curiosity. The
22:32
Speaker 1: shapes which now seemed hastening to join the mysterious procession,
22:36
Speaker 1: were recognized rather by striking peculiarities of dress or broad
22:40
Speaker 1: characteristics of manner, than by any perceptible resemblance of features
22:43
Speaker 1: to their prototypes. Their faces, indeed were invariably kept in
22:47
Speaker 1: deep shadow. But Doctor Byles, another gentlemen who had long
22:51
Speaker 1: been familiar with the successive rulers of the province, were
22:54
Speaker 1: heard to whisper the names of Shirley, of Powell, of
22:58
Speaker 1: Sir Francis Bernard, and of the remembered Hutchinson, thereby confessing
23:02
Speaker 1: that the actors, whoever they might be, in the spectral
23:05
Speaker 1: march of governors, had succeeded in putting on some distant
23:08
Speaker 1: portraiture of the real personages as they vanished from the door.
23:12
Speaker 1: Still did these shadows toss their arms into the gloom
23:15
Speaker 1: of night with a dread expression of woe. Following the
23:19
Speaker 1: mimic representative of Hutchinson came a military figure, holding before
23:23
Speaker 1: his face the cocked hat which he had taken from
23:25
Speaker 1: his powdered head. But his epaulets and other insignia of
23:28
Speaker 1: rank were those of a general officer, and something in
23:31
Speaker 1: his mien reminded the beholders of one who had recently
23:35
Speaker 1: been Master of the Province's house and chief of all
23:38
Speaker 1: the land. The shape of Gage, as true as in
23:41
Speaker 1: any looking glass, exclaimed Lord Percy, turning pale. No, surely,
23:46
Speaker 1: cried Miss Jolliffe, laughing hysterically. It could not be Gage,
23:50
Speaker 1: or Sir William would have greeted his old comrade in arms.
23:53
Speaker 1: Perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass unchallenged.
23:57
Speaker 1: Oh of that to be assured, young lady, And said
24:00
Speaker 1: Sir William Howe, fixing his eyes with a very marked
24:02
Speaker 1: expression upon the immovable visage of her grandfather, I have
24:06
Speaker 1: long enough delayed to pay the ceremonies of a host
24:09
Speaker 1: to these departing guests. The next that takes his leave,
24:12
Speaker 1: shall receive due courtesy. A wild and dreary burst of
24:16
Speaker 1: music came through the open door. It seemed as if
24:19
Speaker 1: the procession, which had been gradually filling up its ranks,
24:22
Speaker 1: were now about to move, and that this loud peal
24:25
Speaker 1: of the wailing trumpets and roll of the muffled drums
24:28
Speaker 1: was a call to some lighter to make haste. Many eyes,
24:32
Speaker 1: by an irresistible impulse, were turned upon Sir William Howe,
24:36
Speaker 1: as if it were he whom the dreary music summoned
24:38
Speaker 1: to the funeral of the departed power. See here comes
24:42
Speaker 1: the last, whispered Miss Jolliff, pointing her tremulous finger to
24:46
Speaker 1: the staircase. A figure had come into view, as if
24:49
Speaker 1: descending the stair, Although so dusky was the regent whence
24:52
Speaker 1: it emerged, Some of the spectators fancied that they had
24:55
Speaker 1: seen this human shape suddenly molding itself amid the gloom.
24:59
Speaker 1: Down toward the figure came with a stately and martial tread,
25:03
Speaker 1: and reaching the lowest stair, was observed to be a
25:05
Speaker 1: tall man, booted and wrapped in a military cloak, which
25:08
Speaker 1: was drawn up around the face. The flapped brim of
25:11
Speaker 1: a laced hat. The features therefore were completely hidden, but
25:15
Speaker 1: the British officers deemed that they had seen that military
25:18
Speaker 1: cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the collar,
25:22
Speaker 1: as well as he gilded scabbard of a sword, which
25:25
Speaker 1: protruded from the folds of the cloak and glittered in
25:28
Speaker 1: the vivid gleam of light. Apart from these trifling particulars,
25:32
Speaker 1: there were characteristics of gait and bearing which impelled the
25:36
Speaker 1: wondering guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir
25:39
Speaker 1: William Howe, as if to satisfy themselves that their host
25:43
Speaker 1: had not suddenly vanished from the midst of them with
25:46
Speaker 1: a dark flush of wrath upon his brow. They saw
25:49
Speaker 1: the general drawer his sword and advanced to meet the
25:51
Speaker 1: figure and the cloak before the latter had stepped one
25:53
Speaker 1: pace upon the floor. Villain, unmuffle yourself, cried he you
25:59
Speaker 1: pass no further the figure without blenching a hair's breadth,
26:03
Speaker 1: and the sword, which was pointed at his breast, made
26:05
Speaker 1: a solemn pause and lowered the cape with the cloak
26:08
Speaker 1: from about his face, yet not sufficiently for the spectators
26:11
Speaker 1: to catch a glimpse at it, but Sir William Howe
26:14
Speaker 1: had evidently seen enough. The sternness of his countenance gave
26:18
Speaker 1: place to a look of wild amazement, if not horror,
26:21
Speaker 1: while he recoiled several steps from the figure and let
26:24
Speaker 1: fall his sword upon the floor. The martial shape again
26:28
Speaker 1: drew the cloak about his features, and passed on, but
26:30
Speaker 1: reaching the threshold with his back towards the spectatus, who
26:34
Speaker 1: was seen to stamp his foot and shake his clinched
26:36
Speaker 1: hands in the air. It was afterwards affirmed that Sir
26:40
Speaker 1: William Howard repeated that self same gesture of rage and sorrow, when,
26:44
Speaker 1: for the last time, and as the last Royal Governor,
26:47
Speaker 1: he passed through the portal of the Province House Park.
26:51
Speaker 1: The procession moves.
26:52
Speaker 2: Said Miss Jolly.
26:53
Speaker 1: The music was dying away along the street, and his
26:56
Speaker 1: dismal strains were mingled with the knell of midnight from
26:59
Speaker 1: the steeple of the Old South, and with the roar
27:01
Speaker 1: of artillery, which announced that the beleaguering Army of Washington
27:05
Speaker 1: had entrenched itself upon a nearer height than before. As
27:08
Speaker 1: the deep bloom of the cannon smote upon his ear,
27:12
Speaker 1: Colonel Jarleife raised himself to the full height of his
27:14
Speaker 1: aged form, and smiled sternly on the British general. Wild
27:18
Speaker 1: Your excellency inquire further into the mystery of the pageant,
27:22
Speaker 1: said he take care of your gray head, cried Sir William,
27:26
Speaker 1: how fiercely, though with a quivering lip. It has stood
27:28
Speaker 1: too long on a traitor's shoulders. You must make haste
27:32
Speaker 1: to chop it off, then, calmly, replied the Colonel, for
27:36
Speaker 1: a few hours longer. Are not all the people of
27:39
Speaker 1: Sir William, Howe, nor of his master, shall cause one
27:42
Speaker 1: of these gray hairs to fall. The Empire of Britain
27:46
Speaker 1: in this ancient province is at its last gasp to night.
27:50
Speaker 1: Almost while I speak. It is a dead corpse, and
27:53
Speaker 1: methinks the shadows of the old governors are fit mourners
27:57
Speaker 1: at its funeral.
27:58
Speaker 2: Would these words?
27:59
Speaker 1: Colonel Jolliffe drew on his cloak, and, drawing his granddaughter's
28:03
Speaker 1: arm within his own, retired from the last festival that
28:06
Speaker 1: a British ruler ever held in the old province of
28:08
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Bay.
28:10
Speaker 2: It was supposed that.
28:11
Speaker 1: The Colonel and the young lady possessed some secret intelligence
28:15
Speaker 1: in regard to the mysterious pageant of that night. However
28:18
Speaker 1: this might be, such knowledge has never become general. The
28:22
Speaker 1: actors and the scene have vanished into a deeper obscurity
28:25
Speaker 1: than even that wild Indian band who scattered the cargoes
28:29
Speaker 1: of the tea ships on the waves and gained a
28:31
Speaker 1: place in history, yet left no name but superstition. Among
28:35
Speaker 1: other legends of this mansion repeats the wondrous tale that
28:38
Speaker 1: on the anniversary night of Britain's discomfiture, the ghosts of
28:42
Speaker 1: the ancient governors of Massachusetts still glide through the portal
28:45
Speaker 1: of the Province House. And last of all comes a
28:48
Speaker 1: figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his clenched hands
28:51
Speaker 1: into the air and stamping his iron shod boots upon
28:54
Speaker 1: the broad freestone steps with a semblance of feverish despair,
28:58
Speaker 1: but without the sound of a foot trap. When the
29:01
Speaker 1: truth telling accents of the elderly gentlemen were hushed, I
29:04
Speaker 1: drew a long breath and looked around the room, striving
29:07
Speaker 1: with the best energy of my imagination to throw a
29:09
Speaker 1: tinge of romance and histic grandeur over the realities of
29:13
Speaker 1: the scene. But my nostrils snuffed up a scent of
29:16
Speaker 1: cigar smoke, clouds of which the narrator had emitted by
29:19
Speaker 1: way of visible emblem, I suppose of the nebulous obscurity
29:22
Speaker 1: of his tale. Moreover, my gorgeous phantasies were woefully disturbed
29:27
Speaker 1: by the rattling of the spoon in a tumbler of
29:29
Speaker 1: whisky punch, which mister Thomas Waite was mingling for a customer.
29:33
Speaker 1: Nor did it add to the picturesque appearance of the
29:36
Speaker 1: paneled walls that the slate to the Brookline stage was
29:39
Speaker 1: suspended against them instead of the armorial escutcheon of some
29:42
Speaker 1: far descended governor. A stage driver sat at one of
29:46
Speaker 1: the windows, reading a penny paper of the day, the
29:48
Speaker 1: Boston Times, and presenting a figure which could no wise
29:52
Speaker 1: be brought into any picture or times in Boston seventy
29:56
Speaker 1: or hundred years ago. In the window seat they a
29:59
Speaker 1: bundle neatly done up in brown paper, the direction of
30:02
Speaker 1: which I had the idle curiosity to read Miss Susan
30:06
Speaker 1: Huggins at the Province House, a pretty chambermaid. No doubt
30:11
Speaker 1: in truth it is desperately hard work. When we attempted
30:14
Speaker 1: to throw the spell of horror antiquity over localities with
30:17
Speaker 1: which the living world in the day that is passing
30:20
Speaker 1: over us have an art to do. Yet, as I
30:23
Speaker 1: glanced at the stately staircase, danguished the procession of the
30:26
Speaker 1: old governors that descended, And as I merged through the
30:29
Speaker 1: venerable portal, whence their figures had preceded me, it gladdened
30:33
Speaker 1: me to be conscious of a thrill of awe. Then,
30:36
Speaker 1: diving through the narrow archway, a few strides transported me
30:39
Speaker 1: into the densest throng of Washington Street and of Chapter one,
30:51
Speaker 1: Chapter two of Incolonial Days by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This libovox
30:56
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Edward ran Andolf's portrait
31:02
Speaker 1: The old legendary guests of the Province House abode in
31:05
Speaker 1: my remembrance from Midsummer till January. One idle evening last winter.
31:10
Speaker 1: Confident that he would be found in the snuggist corner
31:13
Speaker 1: of the bar room, I resolved to pay him another visit,
31:17
Speaker 1: hoping to deserve well of my country for snatching from
31:20
Speaker 1: oblivion some else unheard of.
31:22
Speaker 2: Fact of history.
31:23
Speaker 1: The night was chill and roar, and rendered boisterous by
31:27
Speaker 1: almost a gale of wind, which whistled along Washington Street,
31:31
Speaker 1: causing the gas lights to flare and flicker within the lamps.
31:35
Speaker 1: As I hurried onward, my fancy was busy with the
31:38
Speaker 1: comparison between the present aspect of the street and that
31:42
Speaker 1: which it probably wore when the British governess inhabited the
31:45
Speaker 1: mansion where I was now going. Brick edifices in those
31:49
Speaker 1: times were few till a succession of destructive fires had
31:53
Speaker 1: swept and swept again the wooden dwellings and warehouses in
31:57
Speaker 1: the most populous quarters of the town. The buildings stood
32:01
Speaker 1: insulated and independent, not as now merging their separate existences
32:06
Speaker 1: into connected ranges with a front of tiresome identity, but
32:11
Speaker 1: each possessing features of its own, as if the owner's
32:14
Speaker 1: individual taste had shaped it in the whole, presenting a
32:17
Speaker 1: picturesque irregularity, the absence of which is hardly compensated by
32:22
Speaker 1: any beauties of our modern architecture. Such a scene, dimly
32:26
Speaker 1: vanishing from the eye by the ray of here and
32:28
Speaker 1: there a tallow candle glimmering through the small panes of
32:32
Speaker 1: scattered windows, would form a somber contrast to the street
32:36
Speaker 1: as I beheld it with the gas lights blazing from
32:39
Speaker 1: corner to corner, flaming within the shops and throwing a noonday.
32:43
Speaker 2: Brightness through the huge plates of glass.
32:46
Speaker 1: But the black lowering sky as I turned my eyes upward,
32:49
Speaker 1: were doubtless the same visage as when frowned upon the
32:52
Speaker 1: anti revolutionary New Englanders, the wintry blast at the same
32:57
Speaker 1: shriek that was familiar to their ears. The old South Church, too,
33:02
Speaker 1: still pointed its antique spire into the darkness, and was
33:06
Speaker 1: lost between earth and heaven. And as I passed its clock,
33:11
Speaker 1: which had warned so many generations how transitory was their lifetime,
33:16
Speaker 1: spoke heavily and slow the same unregarded moral. To myself
33:21
Speaker 1: only seven o'clock, thought I. My old friend's legends will
33:26
Speaker 1: scarcely kill the hours TwixT this and bedtime. Passing through
33:31
Speaker 1: the narrow arch, I crossed the court yard, the confined
33:34
Speaker 1: precincts of which were made visible by a lantern of
33:37
Speaker 1: the portal of the Province House. On entering the bar room,
33:40
Speaker 1: I found, as I expected, the old tradition monger, seated
33:44
Speaker 1: by a special good fire of anphasite, compelling clouds of
33:48
Speaker 1: smoke from a corpulent cigar he recognized me with evident
33:53
Speaker 1: pleasure for my rare properties as a patient listener invariably
33:57
Speaker 1: made me a favorite with elderly gentlemen ladies of narrative propensity.
34:03
Speaker 1: Drawing a chair to the fire, I desired mine host
34:06
Speaker 1: to favor us with a glass, a piece of whisky punch,
34:09
Speaker 1: which was speedily prepared steaming hot, with a slice of
34:13
Speaker 1: lemon at the bottom, a dark red stratum of port
34:16
Speaker 1: wine upon the surface, and a sprinkling of knotmeg s
34:19
Speaker 1: drewn over all. As we touched our glasses together, my
34:23
Speaker 1: legendary friend made himself known to me as mister Bella Tiffany,
34:27
Speaker 1: and I rejoiced at the oddity of the name, because
34:30
Speaker 1: it gave his image and character a sort of individuality.
34:33
Speaker 1: In my conception, the old gentleman's draft acted as a
34:37
Speaker 1: solvent upon his memory, so that it overflowed with tales, traditions,
34:41
Speaker 1: anecdotes of famous dead people, and traits of ancient manners,
34:46
Speaker 1: some of which were childish as the Nurse's lullaby, while
34:50
Speaker 1: others might have been worth the notice of the grave history.
34:53
Speaker 1: Nothing impressed me more than a story of a black
34:56
Speaker 1: mysterious picture which used to hang in one of the
34:59
Speaker 1: chambers of the Province House, directly about the room where
35:02
Speaker 1: we are now sitting. The following is as correct a
35:05
Speaker 1: version of the fact as the reader would be likely
35:07
Speaker 1: to obtain from any other source, though assuredly it has
35:12
Speaker 1: a tinge of romance approaching to the marvelists. In one
35:16
Speaker 1: of the apartments of the Province House, there was long
35:18
Speaker 1: preserved an ancient picture, the frame of which was as
35:22
Speaker 1: black as ebony, and the canvas itself so dark with age,
35:26
Speaker 1: damp and smoke, that not a touch of the painter's
35:29
Speaker 1: art could be discerned. Time had thrown an impenetrable veil
35:33
Speaker 1: over it, and left to tradition, unfable and conjecture to
35:37
Speaker 1: say what had once been there portrayed. During the rule
35:41
Speaker 1: of many successive governors, it had hung by a prescriptive
35:44
Speaker 1: and undisputed right over the mantelpiece of the same chamber,
35:48
Speaker 1: and it still kept its place when Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson
35:51
Speaker 1: assumed the administration of the province from the departure of
35:55
Speaker 1: Sir Francis Bernard. The Lieutenant Governors sat one afternoon resting
35:59
Speaker 1: his head against the carved back of his stately arm
36:02
Speaker 1: chair and gazing up thoughtfully at the void blackness of
36:06
Speaker 1: the picture. It was scarcely a time for such inactive music,
36:10
Speaker 1: when affairs of the deepest moment required the ruler's decision,
36:14
Speaker 1: For within that very hour Hutchinson had received intelligence of
36:18
Speaker 1: the arrival of a British fleet bringing three regiments from
36:22
Speaker 1: Halifax to over awe the insubordination of the people. These
36:25
Speaker 1: troops awaited his permission to occupy the fortress of Castle
36:29
Speaker 1: William and the town itself. Yet instead of affixing his
36:32
Speaker 1: signature to an official order, there sat the Lieutenant Governor
36:36
Speaker 1: so carefully scrutinizing the black waiste of canvas that his
36:40
Speaker 1: demeanor attracted the notice of two young persons who attended him. One,
36:44
Speaker 1: wearing a military dress of buff, was his kinsman, Francis Lincoln,
36:48
Speaker 1: the provincial Captain of Castle William. The other, who sat
36:52
Speaker 1: on a low stool beside his chair, was Alice Vane,
36:55
Speaker 1: his favorite niece. She was clad entirely in white, a pale,
36:59
Speaker 1: ethereal creature who, though a native of New England, had
37:02
Speaker 1: been educated abroad and seemed not merely a stranger from
37:06
Speaker 1: another clime, but almost a being from another world. For
37:10
Speaker 1: several years until left an orphan. She had dwelt with
37:14
Speaker 1: her father and Sonny Italy, and there had acquired a
37:17
Speaker 1: taste and enthusiasm for sculpture and painting, which she found
37:21
Speaker 1: few opportunities of gratifying in the undecorated dwellings of the
37:25
Speaker 1: colonial gentry. It was said that the early productions of
37:29
Speaker 1: her own pencil exhibited no inferior genies, though perhaps the
37:34
Speaker 1: rude atmosphere of New England had cramped her hand and
37:38
Speaker 1: dimmed the glowing colors of her fancy. But observing her
37:41
Speaker 1: uncle's steadfast gaze, which appeared to search through the mist
37:45
Speaker 1: of years to discover the subject of the picture, her
37:48
Speaker 1: curiosity was excited. Is it known, my dear uncle, inquired
37:53
Speaker 1: she what this old picture once represented? Possibly? Could it
37:58
Speaker 1: be made visible? It might prove a masterpiece of some
38:02
Speaker 1: great artist. Else, why has it so long held such
38:06
Speaker 1: a conspicuous place? As her uncle, contrary to his usual custom,
38:11
Speaker 1: for he was attentive to all humors and caprices of Alice,
38:14
Speaker 1: as if she had been his own best beloved child,
38:17
Speaker 1: did not immediately reply. The young captain of Castle William
38:21
Speaker 1: took that office upon himself. His dark old square of canvas.
38:25
Speaker 1: My fair cousin said, he has been an heirloom in
38:28
Speaker 1: the province house from time immemorial. As to the painter,
38:32
Speaker 1: I can tell you nothing, but if half the story
38:34
Speaker 1: is told of it be true. Not one of the
38:36
Speaker 1: great Italian masters has ever produced so marvelous a piece
38:40
Speaker 1: of work as that before you. Captain Lincoln proceeded to
38:43
Speaker 1: relate to some of the strange fables and fantasies, which,
38:46
Speaker 1: as it was impossible to refute them by arcular demonstration,
38:50
Speaker 1: and grown to be articles of popular belief in reference
38:53
Speaker 1: to this old picture, one of the wildest, and at
38:57
Speaker 1: the same the best accredited accounts stated it to be
39:00
Speaker 1: an original and authentic portrait of the evil one taken
39:05
Speaker 1: at a witch meeting near Salem, and that its strong
39:08
Speaker 1: and terrible resemblance had been confirmed by several of the
39:11
Speaker 1: confessing wizards and witches at their trial in open court.
39:16
Speaker 1: It was likewise affirmed that a familiar spirit or demon
39:20
Speaker 1: abode behind the blackness of the picture, and had shown
39:23
Speaker 1: himself at seasons of public calamity to more than one
39:26
Speaker 1: of the royal governors. Surely, for instance, had beheld this
39:30
Speaker 1: ominous apparition on the eve of General Abercrombie's shameful and
39:34
Speaker 1: bloody defeat under the walls of Ticunderoga, many of the
39:38
Speaker 1: servants of the province house had caught glimpses of a
39:41
Speaker 1: visage frowning down upon them at morning or evening twilight,
39:44
Speaker 1: or in the depths of night, while raking up the
39:47
Speaker 1: fire that glimmered on the hearth beneath, although if any
39:51
Speaker 1: were bold enough to hold a torch before the picture,
39:53
Speaker 1: it would appear as black and undistinguishable as ever. The
39:58
Speaker 1: oldest inhabitant of Basques recalled that his father, in whose
40:02
Speaker 1: days the portrait had not wholly faded out of sight,
40:04
Speaker 1: had once looked upon it, but would never suffer himself
40:07
Speaker 1: to be questioned as to the face which was there represented.
40:11
Speaker 1: In connection with such stories, it was remarkable that over
40:14
Speaker 1: the top of the frame there were some ragged remnants
40:17
Speaker 1: of black silk, indicating that a veil had formerly hung
40:21
Speaker 1: down before the picture, until the duskiness of time had
40:24
Speaker 1: so effectually concealed it. But after all, it was the
40:27
Speaker 1: most singular part of the affair that so many of
40:30
Speaker 1: the pompous governors of Massachusetts had allowed the obliterated picture
40:34
Speaker 1: to remain in the state chamber of the Province House.
40:38
Speaker 1: Some of these fables are really awful, observed Alice Vain,
40:42
Speaker 1: who had occasionally shuddered as well as smiled while her
40:45
Speaker 1: cousin spoke. It would be almost worth while to wipe
40:48
Speaker 1: away the black surface of the canvas, since the original
40:51
Speaker 1: picture can hardly be so formidable as those which Fancy
40:54
Speaker 1: paints instead of it. But would it be possible, inquired
40:58
Speaker 1: her cousin to restore this dark picture to its pristine use.
41:01
Speaker 1: Such arts are known in Italy, said Alice. Lieutenant governor
41:06
Speaker 1: had roused himself from his abstracted mood and listened with
41:10
Speaker 1: a smile to the conversation of his young relatives. Yet
41:13
Speaker 1: his voice had something peculiar in its tones when he
41:16
Speaker 1: undertook the explanation of the mystery. I am sorry, Alice,
41:20
Speaker 1: to destroy your faith in the legends of which you
41:23
Speaker 1: are so fond, remarked he. But my antiquarian researches have
41:27
Speaker 1: long since made me acquainted with the subject of this picture,
41:31
Speaker 1: if picture it can be called, which is no more visible,
41:35
Speaker 1: nor ever will be, than the face of the long
41:37
Speaker 1: buried man whom it once represented. It was the portrait
41:41
Speaker 1: of Edward Randolph, the founder of this house, a person
41:44
Speaker 1: famous in the history of New England. Of that Edward Randolph,
41:49
Speaker 1: exclaimed Captain Lincoln, who obtained the repeal of the First
41:52
Speaker 1: Provincial Charter, under which our forefathers had enjoyed almost democratic privileges.
41:58
Speaker 1: He was that styled the arch enemy of New England,
42:02
Speaker 1: and whose memory still held in detestation as the destroyer
42:05
Speaker 1: of our liberties. It was the same, Randolph, answered Hutchinson,
42:11
Speaker 1: moving uneasily in his chair. It was his lot to
42:15
Speaker 1: taste the bitterness of popular odium our annals. Tell Us
42:19
Speaker 1: continued the Captain of Castlewilliam, that the curse of the
42:22
Speaker 1: people followed this Randolph where he went, and wrought evil
42:25
Speaker 1: in all the subsequent events of his life, and that
42:28
Speaker 1: its effect was seen likewise in a manner of his death.
42:32
Speaker 1: They say, too, that the inward misery of that curse
42:35
Speaker 1: worked itself outward and was visible on the wretched man's countenance,
42:39
Speaker 1: making it too horrible to be looked upon. If so,
42:43
Speaker 1: and if this picture truly represented his aspect, it was
42:47
Speaker 1: in mercy that the cloud of blackness has gathered over it.
42:50
Speaker 1: These traditions are folly to one who has proved, as
42:54
Speaker 1: I have, how little of historic truth lies the bottom,
42:58
Speaker 1: said the lilutenate Governor, as regards the life and character
43:01
Speaker 1: of Edward Randolph, too implicit credence has been given to
43:05
Speaker 1: doctor Cotton Mather, who, I must say it, though some
43:08
Speaker 1: of his blood runs in my veins, has filled our
43:11
Speaker 1: early history with all women's tales as fanciful and extravagant
43:15
Speaker 1: as those of Greece or Rome. And yet whispered Alice
43:19
Speaker 1: Vain may not such fables have a moral And methinks,
43:23
Speaker 1: if the visage of this portrait be so dreadful, it
43:26
Speaker 1: is not without a cause that it has hung so
43:29
Speaker 1: long in a chamber of the Province House. When the
43:31
Speaker 1: rulers feel themselves irresponsible, it were well that they should
43:35
Speaker 1: be reminded of the awful weight of a people's curse.
43:38
Speaker 1: The Lieutenant Governor started and gazed for a moment at
43:42
Speaker 1: his niece, as if her girlish phantasies had struck upon
43:46
Speaker 1: some frieling in his own breast which all his policy
43:49
Speaker 1: or principles could not entirely subdue. He knew, indeed, that Alice,
43:53
Speaker 1: in spite of her foreign education, retained the native sympathies
43:56
Speaker 1: of a New England girl. Peace, silly child, cried he
44:01
Speaker 1: less more harshly than he had ever before addressed the
44:03
Speaker 1: gentle Alice. The rebuke of a king is more to
44:06
Speaker 1: be dreaded than the clamor of a wild, misguided multitude.
44:11
Speaker 1: Captain Lincoln, it is decided the fortress of Castle William
44:15
Speaker 1: must be occupied by the Royal troops. The two remaining
44:18
Speaker 1: regiments should be billeted in the town or encamped upon
44:21
Speaker 1: the common. It is time, after years of tumult and
44:24
Speaker 1: almost rebellion, that His Majesty's government should have a wall
44:27
Speaker 1: of strength about it. Trust, Sir, trust, Yet awhile to
44:31
Speaker 1: the loyalty of the people, said Captain Lincoln. Nor teach
44:35
Speaker 1: them that they can ever be on other terms with
44:37
Speaker 1: British soldiers than those of brotherhood, as when they fought
44:40
Speaker 1: side by side through the French War. Do not convert
44:43
Speaker 1: the streets of your native town into a camp. Think
44:46
Speaker 1: twice before you give up old Castle William, the key
44:49
Speaker 1: of the province into other keeping the g that of
44:51
Speaker 1: a true born New England young man, it is decided,
44:55
Speaker 1: repeated Hutchinson, rising from his chair. A British officer will
44:59
Speaker 1: be in attendance the sea evening to receive the necessary
45:01
Speaker 1: instructions for the disposal of the troops. Your presence also
45:04
Speaker 1: will be required. Till then farewell. With these words, the
45:09
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor hastily left the room, while Alice and her
45:12
Speaker 1: cousin are slowly followed, whispering together, and once pausing to
45:16
Speaker 1: glance back at the mysterious picture. The captain of Carstle,
45:19
Speaker 1: William fancied that the girl's heir and mien with such
45:23
Speaker 1: as might have belonged to one of those spirits of
45:25
Speaker 1: fable fairies or creatures of a more antique mythology, who
45:30
Speaker 1: sometimes mingled their agency with mortal affairs, half in caprice,
45:34
Speaker 1: yet with a sensibility to human weal or woe. As
45:37
Speaker 1: he held the door for her to pass, Alice beckoned
45:40
Speaker 1: to the picture and smiled, Come forth dark in evil shape,
45:44
Speaker 1: cried she, It is thine hour. In the evening, Lieutenant
45:49
Speaker 1: Governor Hutchison sat in the same chamber where the foregoing
45:52
Speaker 1: scene had occurred, surrounded by several persons whose various interests
45:56
Speaker 1: had summoned them together. They were the select men of
45:59
Speaker 1: bass Plain, patriarchal fathers of the people, excellent representatives of
46:04
Speaker 1: the old Puritanical founders, whose somber strength had stamped so
46:08
Speaker 1: deep an impress upon the New England character. Contrasting with
46:12
Speaker 1: these were one or two members of Council, richly dressed
46:15
Speaker 1: in the white wigs, the embroidered waistcoats and other magnificence
46:19
Speaker 1: of the time, and making a somewhat ostentatious display of
46:22
Speaker 1: courtier like ceremonial In attendance.
46:25
Speaker 2: Likewise was a.
46:26
Speaker 1: Major of the British Army, awaiting the Lieutenant Governor's orders
46:29
Speaker 1: for the landing of the troops which still remained on
46:32
Speaker 1: board the transports. The Captain of Cartle, William stood beside
46:36
Speaker 1: Hutchinson's chair with folded arms, glancing rather haughtily at the
46:40
Speaker 1: British officer by whom he was soon to be superseded
46:43
Speaker 1: in his command. On a table in the center of
46:46
Speaker 1: the chamber stood a branched silver candlestick, throwing down the
46:50
Speaker 1: glow of half a dozen wax lights upon a paper
46:53
Speaker 1: apparently ready for the Lieutenant Governor's signature, partly shrouded in
46:57
Speaker 1: the voluminous folds of one of the window curt which
47:00
Speaker 1: fell from the ceiling to the floor was seen the
47:02
Speaker 1: white drapery of a lady's robe. It may appear strange
47:06
Speaker 1: that Alice Vain should have been there at such a time,
47:09
Speaker 1: but there was something so childlike, so wayward in her
47:12
Speaker 1: singular character, so apart from ordinary rules, that her presence
47:16
Speaker 1: did not surprise the few who noticed it. Meantime, the
47:20
Speaker 1: Chairman of the Selectmen was addressing to the Lieutenant Governor a
47:23
Speaker 1: lang and solemn protest against the reception of the British
47:26
Speaker 1: troops into the town. And if your Honor concluded this
47:30
Speaker 1: excellent but somewhat prosy gentleman, shall see if it to
47:33
Speaker 1: persist in bringing these mercenary sworders and musketeers into our
47:38
Speaker 1: quiet streets. Not on our heads be the responsibility, think sir,
47:43
Speaker 1: While there is yet time that if one drop of
47:45
Speaker 1: blood be shed, that blood shall be in eternal stain
47:49
Speaker 1: upon your Honor's memory. You, sir, have written with an
47:52
Speaker 1: able pen the deeds of our forefathers. The more to
47:56
Speaker 1: be desired. Is it, therefore, that yourself should deserve honorable
47:59
Speaker 1: mention as a true patriot and upright ruler when your
48:02
Speaker 1: own doings shall be written down in history. I am
48:06
Speaker 1: not insensible, My good sir, to the natural desire to
48:09
Speaker 1: stand well in the annals of my country, replied Hutchinson,
48:13
Speaker 1: controlling his impatience into courtesy. Nor know I any better
48:18
Speaker 1: method of attaining that end than bywithstanding the merely temporary
48:22
Speaker 1: spirit of mischief, which, with your pardon seems to have
48:27
Speaker 1: infected Alderman than myself. Would you have me wait till
48:31
Speaker 1: the mob shall sack the province's house as they did
48:34
Speaker 1: my private mansion. Trust me, sir, The time may come
48:38
Speaker 1: when you will be glad to flee for protection to
48:41
Speaker 1: the King's banner, the raising of which is now so
48:45
Speaker 1: distasteful to you. Yes, said the British major, who was
48:49
Speaker 1: impatiently expecting the Lieutenant Governor's orders. The demagogues of this
48:53
Speaker 1: province have raised the devil and cannot lay him again.
48:57
Speaker 1: We will exorcize him in God's name and the King's
49:01
Speaker 1: If you meddle with the devil, take care of his clause,
49:05
Speaker 1: answered the Captain of countil William, stirred by the taunt
49:08
Speaker 1: against his countrymen. Craving your pardon, young sir, said the
49:12
Speaker 1: venerable select Man. Let not an evil spirit enter into
49:16
Speaker 1: your words. We will strive against the oppressor with prayer
49:20
Speaker 1: and fasting, as our forefathers would have done. Like them. Moreover,
49:26
Speaker 1: we will submit to whatever lot a wise providence may
49:30
Speaker 1: send us, always after our own best exertions to amend it,
49:35
Speaker 1: and there prep forth the devil's clause, muttered Hutchinson, who
49:40
Speaker 1: well understood the nature of Puritan submission. This matter shall
49:43
Speaker 1: be expedited forthwith, when there shall be a sentinel at
49:47
Speaker 1: every corner, and a court of guard before the town house.
49:51
Speaker 1: A loyal gentleman may venture.
49:52
Speaker 2: To walk abroad.
49:54
Speaker 1: What to me is the outcry of a mob in
49:56
Speaker 1: this remote province of the realm. The King is my master,
50:00
Speaker 1: and England is my country. Upheld by the armed strength,
50:05
Speaker 1: I set my foot upon the rabble and defy them.
50:09
Speaker 1: He snatched a pen and was about to affix his
50:11
Speaker 1: signature to the paper that lay on the table, when
50:14
Speaker 1: the Captain of Castle William placed his hand upon his shoulder.
50:18
Speaker 1: The freedom of the action, so contrary to the ceremonious
50:21
Speaker 1: respect which was then considered due to rank and dignity,
50:25
Speaker 1: awakened general surprise, and none more than a new lieutenant
50:28
Speaker 1: governor himself. Looking angrily up, he perceived that his young
50:32
Speaker 1: relative was pointing his finger to the opposite wall. Hutchinson's
50:36
Speaker 1: eye followed the signal, and he saw what had hitherto
50:39
Speaker 1: been unobserved, that a black silk curtain was suspended before
50:43
Speaker 1: their mysterious picture, so as completely to conceal it. His
50:47
Speaker 1: thoughts immediately recurred to the scene of the preceding afternoon, and,
50:51
Speaker 1: in his surprise, confused by indistinct emotions, yet sensible that
50:56
Speaker 1: his niece must have had an agency in his phenomenon,
50:59
Speaker 1: he called loudly upon.
51:00
Speaker 2: Her, Alice, come hither, Alice.
51:03
Speaker 1: No sooner had he spoken, than Alice vain glided from
51:06
Speaker 1: her station, and, pressing one hand across her eyes, with
51:09
Speaker 1: the other, snatched away the sabled curtain that concealed the portrait.
51:13
Speaker 1: An exclamation of surprise burst from every beholder. But the
51:17
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor's voice had a tone of horror. By heaven,
51:22
Speaker 1: said he in a low, inward murmur, speaking rather to
51:25
Speaker 1: himself than to those around him. If the spirit of
51:29
Speaker 1: Edward Randolph were to appear among us from the place
51:32
Speaker 1: of torment, he could not wear more of the terrors
51:35
Speaker 1: of hell upon his face. For some wise end, said
51:39
Speaker 1: the aged select man, solemnly, hath providence scattered away the
51:43
Speaker 1: mist of years that had so long hid this dreadful effigy.
51:48
Speaker 1: Until this hour, no living man hath seen what we behold.
51:52
Speaker 1: Within the antique frame, which so recently had enclosed a
51:55
Speaker 1: sable waste of canvas, now appeared a visible picture, still
51:59
Speaker 1: dark indeed in its hues and shadings, but thrown forward
52:03
Speaker 1: in strong relief. It was a half length figure of
52:06
Speaker 1: a gentleman in a rich but very old fashioned dress
52:09
Speaker 1: of embroidered velvet, with a broad ruff and a beard,
52:12
Speaker 1: and wearing a hat, the brim of which overshadowed his forehead.
52:16
Speaker 1: Beneath this cloud, the eyes had a peculiar glare which
52:20
Speaker 1: was almost lifelike. The whole portrait started so distinctly out
52:24
Speaker 1: of the background that it had the effect of a
52:26
Speaker 1: person looking down from the wall at the astonished and
52:29
Speaker 1: awe stricken spectatus. The expression of the face, if any
52:34
Speaker 1: words can convey an idea of it, was that of
52:36
Speaker 1: a wretch detected in some hideous guilt, and exposed to
52:40
Speaker 1: the bitter hatred and laughter and withering scorn of a
52:43
Speaker 1: vast surrounding multitude. There was the struggle of defiance, beaten
52:48
Speaker 1: down and overwhelmed by the crushing weight of ignominy, the
52:52
Speaker 1: torture of the soul had come forth upon the countenance.
52:56
Speaker 1: It seemed as if the picture, while hidden behind the
52:58
Speaker 1: cloud of immemorial years, had been all the time acquiring
53:01
Speaker 1: an intenser depth and darkness of expression, till now it
53:05
Speaker 1: gloomed forth again and threw its evil omen over the
53:08
Speaker 1: present hour. Such of the wild legend may be credited
53:13
Speaker 1: was the portrait of Edward Randolph, as he appeared when
53:15
Speaker 1: a people's curse had wrought its influence upon his nature.
53:20
Speaker 1: Twould drive me mad, that awful face, said Hutchinson, who
53:24
Speaker 1: seemed fascinated by the contemplation of it. Be warned, then,
53:28
Speaker 1: whispered Alice. He trembled on a people's rights. Behold his
53:31
Speaker 1: punishment and avoid a crime like his. The Lieutenant Governor
53:35
Speaker 1: actually trembled for an instant, but exerting his energy, which
53:39
Speaker 1: was not, however, his most characteristic feature, he strove to
53:42
Speaker 1: shake off the spell of Randolph's countenance. Girl, cried he,
53:47
Speaker 1: laughing bitterly as he turned to Alice. Have you brought
53:49
Speaker 1: hither your painter's art, your Italian spirit of intrigue, your
53:53
Speaker 1: tricks of stage effect, and think to influence the councils
53:56
Speaker 1: of rulers and the affairs of nations by such shallow trivances.
54:00
Speaker 2: See here, stay yet, awhile.
54:03
Speaker 1: Said the select Man, as Hutchinson again snatched the pen.
54:06
Speaker 1: For if ever mortal man received a warning from a
54:08
Speaker 1: tormented soul, your honor is that man away, answered Hutchinson fiercely,
54:14
Speaker 1: Though yonder senseless picture cried forbear. It should not move me.
54:18
Speaker 1: Casting a scowl of defiance at the pictured face, which
54:21
Speaker 1: seemed at that moment to intensify the horror of its
54:24
Speaker 1: miserable and wicked look, he scrawled on the paper and
54:28
Speaker 1: characters that betokened it a deed of desperation, the name
54:31
Speaker 1: of Thomas Hutchinson, then, it is said. He shuddered, as
54:35
Speaker 1: if that signature had granted away his salvation. It is done,
54:39
Speaker 1: said he, and placed his hand upon his brow. I
54:43
Speaker 1: Heaven forgive the deed, said the soft, sad accents of
54:47
Speaker 1: Alice Vane, like the voice of a good spirit flitting away.
54:51
Speaker 1: When morning came, there was a stifled whisper through the household,
54:55
Speaker 1: and spreading thence about the town. But the dark, mysterious
54:59
Speaker 1: picture had started from the wall and spoken face to
55:02
Speaker 1: face with Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson. If such a miracle had
55:06
Speaker 1: been wrought, however, no traces of it remained behind. But
55:09
Speaker 1: within the antique frame nothing could be discerned save the
55:13
Speaker 1: impenetrable cloud which had covered the canvas since the memory
55:16
Speaker 1: of man. If the figure had indeed stepped forth, it
55:20
Speaker 1: had fled back, spirit like at the day dawn, and
55:23
Speaker 1: hidden itself behind a century's obscurity. The truth probably was
55:28
Speaker 1: that Alice Vane's secret for restoring the hues of the
55:31
Speaker 1: picture had merely effected a temporary renovation. But those who
55:35
Speaker 1: in that brief interval had beheld the awful visage of
55:38
Speaker 1: Edward Roundolf desired no second glance, and afterwards trembled at
55:43
Speaker 1: the recollection of the scene, as if an evil spirit
55:46
Speaker 1: had appeared visibly among them. And as for Hutchinson, when
55:50
Speaker 1: far over the ocean his dying hour drew on, he
55:53
Speaker 1: gasped for breath and complained that he was choking with
55:56
Speaker 1: the blood of the Boston massacre. And Francis Lincoln, former
56:00
Speaker 1: Captain of Cartle William, who was standing at his bedside,
56:03
Speaker 1: perceived a likeness in his frenzied look to that of
56:07
Speaker 1: Edward Randop, did his broken spirit feel, at that dread
56:11
Speaker 1: hour the tremendous burden of a people's curse. At the
56:16
Speaker 1: conclusion of this miraculous legend, I inquired of mine host
56:20
Speaker 1: whether the picture still remained in the chamber over our heads.
56:23
Speaker 1: But mister Tiffany informed me that it had long since
56:26
Speaker 1: been removed, and was supposed to be hidden as a
56:29
Speaker 1: out of the way corner of the New England Museum.
56:31
Speaker 1: Perchance some curious antiquary may light upon it there, and
56:36
Speaker 1: with the assistance of mister Howeth, the picture cliner, may
56:39
Speaker 1: supply a not unnecessary proof of the authenticity of the
56:42
Speaker 1: facts here set down. During the progress of the story,
56:46
Speaker 1: a storm had been gathering abroad, and raging and rattling
56:49
Speaker 1: so loudly in the upper regions of the Province House,
56:51
Speaker 1: that it seemed as if all the old governors and
56:54
Speaker 1: great men were running riot above stair, while mister Beller
56:58
Speaker 1: Tiffany babbled of them below. In the course of generations,
57:03
Speaker 1: when many people have lived and died in an ancient house,
57:06
Speaker 1: the whistling of the wind through its crannies, and the
57:09
Speaker 1: creaking of its beams and rafters become strangely like the
57:12
Speaker 1: tones of the human voice, of thundering laughter, or heavy
57:15
Speaker 1: footsteps treading the deserted chambers. It is as if the
57:19
Speaker 1: echoes of half a century were revived. Such were the
57:23
Speaker 1: ghostly sounds that roared and murmured in my ears when
57:26
Speaker 1: I took leave of the circle on the fireside of
57:28
Speaker 1: the Province House, and, plunging down the doorsteps, fought my
57:32
Speaker 1: way homeward against a drifting snowstorm. End of chapter two,
57:44
Speaker 1: Chapter three of Incolonial Days by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This LibriVox
57:49
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Lady Eleanor's mantle, my
57:55
Speaker 1: an excellent friend, the landlord of the Province House, was
57:58
Speaker 1: pleased the other evening to invite mister Tiffany and myself
58:01
Speaker 1: to an yster supper. This slight mark of respect and gratitude,
58:06
Speaker 1: as he handsomely observed, was far less than the ingenious
58:09
Speaker 1: tale teller, and I, the humble note taker of his narratives,
58:13
Speaker 1: had fairly earned by the public notice which our joint
58:15
Speaker 1: lucubrations had attracted his establishment. Wheny a cigar had been
58:20
Speaker 1: smoked within his premises, many a glass of wine or
58:23
Speaker 1: more potent aquifite had been quaffed, many a dinner had
58:28
Speaker 1: been eaten by curious strangers, who, save for the fortunate
58:31
Speaker 1: conjunction of mister Tiffany and me, would never have ventured
58:34
Speaker 1: through that darksome avenue which gives access to the historic
58:38
Speaker 1: precincts of the Province House. In short, if any credit
58:42
Speaker 1: be due to the courteous assurances of mister Thomas Waite,
58:46
Speaker 1: we had brought this forgotten mansion almost as effectually into
58:49
Speaker 1: public view as if we had thrown down the vulgar
58:52
Speaker 1: range of shoe shops and dry goods stores which hides
58:55
Speaker 1: its astocratic front from Washington Street. It may be unadvisable,
58:59
Speaker 1: how however, to speak too loudly of the increased custom
59:03
Speaker 1: of the house, lest mister Waite should find it difficult
59:05
Speaker 1: to renew the lease on so favorable terms as heretofore
59:09
Speaker 1: being thus welcomed as benefactors. Neither mister Tiffany nor myself
59:13
Speaker 1: felt any scruple in doing full justice to the good
59:16
Speaker 1: things that.
59:16
Speaker 2: Was s at before us. If the feast were.
59:18
Speaker 1: Less magnificent than those same paneled walls at witness in
59:22
Speaker 1: a by gone century, if mine host presided with somewhat
59:25
Speaker 1: less of a state than might have befitted a successor
59:27
Speaker 1: of the royal governors, if the guests made a less
59:30
Speaker 1: imposing show than a bewigged and powdered and embroidered dignitaries
59:34
Speaker 1: who erst banqueted at the gubernatorial table and now sleep
59:38
Speaker 1: within their armorial tombs on Copse Hill or round King's Chapel.
59:43
Speaker 1: Yet never, i may boldly say, did a more countable
59:45
Speaker 1: little party assemble in the Province House. From Queen Anne's
59:49
Speaker 1: days to the Revolution. The occasion was rendered more interesting
59:52
Speaker 1: by the presence of a venerable personage whose own actual
59:55
Speaker 1: reminiscences went back to the epoch of Gage and how
59:59
Speaker 1: and even supplied with a doubtful anecdote or two of Hutchinson.
1:00:03
Speaker 1: He was one of that small and now all but
1:00:05
Speaker 1: extinguished class whose attachment to royalty, into the colonial institutions
1:00:09
Speaker 1: and customs that will connect it with it, can never
1:00:11
Speaker 1: yielded to the democratic heresies of other times. The young
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Queen of Britain has not a more loyal subject in
1:00:18
Speaker 1: her realm, perhaps not one who would kneel before her
1:00:21
Speaker 1: throne with such reverential love than this old grandsire, whose
1:00:25
Speaker 1: head has whitened beneath the mild sway of the Republic,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: which still, in his melore moments, he terms a usurption.
1:00:33
Speaker 1: Yet prejudices so obstinate have not made him an ungentle
1:00:37
Speaker 1: or impracticable companion.
1:00:39
Speaker 2: If the truth must be.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: Told, the life of the aged Loyalist has been of
1:00:42
Speaker 1: such a scrambling and unsettled character. He haudso little choice
1:00:46
Speaker 1: of friends, and being so often destitute of any, that
1:00:49
Speaker 1: I doubt whether he would refuse a cup of kindness
1:00:51
Speaker 1: with either Oliver Cromwell or John Hancock, to say nothing
1:00:55
Speaker 1: of any democrat now upon the stage. In another paper
1:00:59
Speaker 1: of this series, I am perhaps give the reader a
1:01:01
Speaker 1: closer glimpse of his portrait. Our host, in due season
1:01:05
Speaker 1: uncorked a bottle of madeira, of such exquisite perfume and
1:01:09
Speaker 1: desirable flavor that he certainly must have discovered it in
1:01:12
Speaker 1: an ancient bin, down deep beneath the deepest cellar, where
1:01:16
Speaker 1: some jolly old butler starred away the governor's choicest wine,
1:01:19
Speaker 1: and forgot to reveal the secret. On his deathbed, peace
1:01:23
Speaker 1: to his red nosed ghost, and a libation to his memory.
1:01:27
Speaker 1: This precious liquor was imbibed by mister Tiffany with peculiar zest,
1:01:31
Speaker 1: and after sipping the third glass, it was his pleasure
1:01:34
Speaker 1: to give us one of the oddest legends we had
1:01:36
Speaker 1: yet raked from the storehouse where he keeps such matters,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: with some suitable adornments from my own fancy. It ran
1:01:44
Speaker 1: pretty much as follows. Not long after Colonel's Shoote had
1:01:47
Speaker 1: assumed the governor of Massachusetts Bay, now nearly one hundred
1:01:50
Speaker 1: and twenty years ago, a young lady of rank and
1:01:53
Speaker 1: fortune arrived from England to claim his protection as her guardian.
1:01:57
Speaker 1: He was her distant relative, but the nearest to it
1:02:00
Speaker 1: survived the gradual extinction of her family, so that no
1:02:03
Speaker 1: more eligible shelter could be found for the rich and
1:02:06
Speaker 1: high born lady Eleanor Rotchcliffe than within the province house
1:02:10
Speaker 1: of a transatlantic colony. The consort of Governor's shoot moreover,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: had been as a mother to her childhood, and was
1:02:16
Speaker 1: now anxious to receive her in the hope that a
1:02:19
Speaker 1: beautiful young woman would be exposed to infinately less peril
1:02:22
Speaker 1: from the primitive society of New England than amid the
1:02:25
Speaker 1: artifices and corruptions of a court. If either the governor
1:02:29
Speaker 1: or his lady had especially consulted their own comfort, they
1:02:32
Speaker 1: would probably have sought to devolve the responsibility on other hands,
1:02:36
Speaker 1: Since with some noble and splendid traits of character, Lady
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Eleanor was remarkable for harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness
1:02:44
Speaker 1: of her hereditary and personal advantages, which made her almost
1:02:47
Speaker 1: incapable of control. Judging for many traditionary anecdotes, this peculiar
1:02:52
Speaker 1: temper was hardly less than a monomania, or the acts
1:02:56
Speaker 1: which had inspired were those of a sane person. It
1:02:59
Speaker 1: seemed to due from providence that pride so sinful should
1:03:02
Speaker 1: be followed by a severe a retribution. The tinge of
1:03:05
Speaker 1: the marvelous which has thrown over so many of these
1:03:08
Speaker 1: half forgotten legends, had probably imparted an additional wildness to
1:03:11
Speaker 1: the strange story of Lady Eleanor Watchcliffe. The ship in
1:03:15
Speaker 1: which he came passenger had arrived in New part whence
1:03:18
Speaker 1: Lady Eleanor was conveyed to Boston in the governor's coach,
1:03:21
Speaker 1: attended by a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. The
1:03:24
Speaker 1: ponderous equipage with its four black horses, attracted much notice
1:03:28
Speaker 1: as it rumbled through Cornhill, surrounded by the prancing steeds
1:03:32
Speaker 1: of half a dozen cavaliers with swords dangling to their
1:03:35
Speaker 1: stirrups and pistols.
1:03:36
Speaker 2: At their hostess.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: Through the large glass windows of the coach as it
1:03:40
Speaker 1: rolled along, the people could discern the figure of Lady Eleanor,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: strangely combining an almost queenly stateliness where the grace and
1:03:47
Speaker 1: beauty of a maiden in her teens. A singular tale
1:03:52
Speaker 1: had gone abroad among the ladies of the province that
1:03:54
Speaker 1: their fair rival was indebted for much of the irresistible
1:03:56
Speaker 1: charm of her appearance to a certain article of dress
1:03:59
Speaker 1: and broidered mantle, which had been brought by the most
1:04:02
Speaker 1: skillful artist in London, and possessed even magical properties of adoinment.
1:04:07
Speaker 1: On the present occasion, however, she owed nothing to the
1:04:09
Speaker 1: witchery of dress, being clad in a riding habit of velvet,
1:04:13
Speaker 1: which would have appeared stiff and ungraceful on any other form.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and while
1:04:19
Speaker 1: the whole cavalcade came to a pause and found the
1:04:22
Speaker 1: contarted iron balustrade that fenced the Province House from the
1:04:25
Speaker 1: public street. It was an awkward coincidence that the bell
1:04:28
Speaker 1: of the Old South was just then tolling for a funeral,
1:04:31
Speaker 1: so that, instead of a gladsome peal with which it
1:04:33
Speaker 1: was customary to announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, Lady
1:04:37
Speaker 1: Eleanor Rothchcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if
1:04:41
Speaker 1: calamity had come embodied in a beautiful person.
1:04:44
Speaker 2: A very great disrespect.
1:04:47
Speaker 1: Exclaimed Captain Langford, an English officer who had recently bought
1:04:50
Speaker 1: dispatches to Governor's chute. The funeral should have been deferred
1:04:53
Speaker 1: lest Lady Eleanor's spirits be affected by such a dismal welcome,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: with your pardon, Sir, replied Doctor Clarke, a physician or
1:05:00
Speaker 1: famous champion.
1:05:01
Speaker 2: Of the popular party.
1:05:02
Speaker 1: Whatever the heralds might pretend, a dead beggar must have
1:05:05
Speaker 1: precedence of a living queen king. Death confers high privileges.
1:05:10
Speaker 1: These remarks were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage
1:05:13
Speaker 1: with the crowd, which had gathered on each side of
1:05:15
Speaker 1: the gateway, leaving an open avenue to the portal of
1:05:18
Speaker 1: the Province House. A black slave in livery now leaped
1:05:21
Speaker 1: from behind the coach and threw open the door, while
1:05:24
Speaker 1: at the same moment Governor's shoot descended the flight of
1:05:27
Speaker 1: steps from his mansion to assist Lady Eleanor in alighting.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: But the Governor's stately appearance was anticipated in a manner
1:05:34
Speaker 1: that excited general astonishment. A pale young man, with his
1:05:38
Speaker 1: black hair all in disorder, rushed from the throng and
1:05:41
Speaker 1: prostrated himself beside the coach, thus offering his person as
1:05:45
Speaker 1: a footstool for Lady Eleanor Rotchcliffe to tread upon. She
1:05:48
Speaker 1: held back an instant yet with an expression as if
1:05:51
Speaker 1: doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear the
1:05:54
Speaker 1: weight of her footstep. Rather than dissatisfied to receive such
1:05:57
Speaker 1: awful reverence or follow mortal up, Sir, said the Governor sternly,
1:06:02
Speaker 1: at the same time lifting his cane over the intruder.
1:06:04
Speaker 1: What means the bedler might by this freak? Nay, answered
1:06:08
Speaker 1: Lady Elinor playfully, but with more scorn than pity in
1:06:11
Speaker 1: her tone. He Excellency, shall not strike him when men
1:06:14
Speaker 1: seek only to be trampled upon, It were pity to
1:06:17
Speaker 1: deny them a favor. So easily granted and so well deserved. Then,
1:06:22
Speaker 1: though as likely as a sunbeam on a cloud, she
1:06:24
Speaker 1: placed her foot upon the cowering form and extended her
1:06:27
Speaker 1: hand to meet that of the governor. There was a
1:06:30
Speaker 1: brief interval during which Lady Elinor retained this attitude, And
1:06:33
Speaker 1: never surely was there an apt emblem of aristocracy and
1:06:36
Speaker 1: hereditary pride, trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of
1:06:40
Speaker 1: nature than these two figures presented at that moment. Yet
1:06:44
Speaker 1: the spectators were so smitten with her beauty, and so
1:06:46
Speaker 1: essential that pride seemed to the existence of such a creature,
1:06:49
Speaker 1: that they gave a simultaneous acclamation of applause. Who is
1:06:53
Speaker 1: this insolent young fellow, inquired Captain Langford, who still remained.
1:06:57
Speaker 2: Beside Doctor Clarke.
1:06:58
Speaker 1: If he be in his sense, says, his impertinence demands
1:07:02
Speaker 1: the best in our do. If mad Lady Eleanor should
1:07:05
Speaker 1: be secured from further inconvenience by his confinement, his name
1:07:09
Speaker 1: is Jervaise, her wife's answered the doctor, A youth of
1:07:12
Speaker 1: no birth or fortune or other advantages, save the mind
1:07:15
Speaker 1: and soul the nature gave him, and being secretary to
1:07:18
Speaker 1: our colonial agent in London. It was his misfortune to
1:07:21
Speaker 1: meet this lady Eleanor Watchcliffe. He loved her, and her
1:07:23
Speaker 1: scorn was driving him mad. He was mad so to aspire,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: observed the English officer. It may be so, said doctor Clarke,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: frowning as he spoke. But I tell you, sir, I
1:07:34
Speaker 1: could well nigh doubt that justice of the heaven above us,
1:07:37
Speaker 1: if no single humiliation overtake this lady, who now tread
1:07:40
Speaker 1: so heartily into yonder mansion. She seeks to place herself
1:07:44
Speaker 1: above the sympathies of her common nature, which envelops all
1:07:47
Speaker 1: human souls. See, if that nature do not assert its
1:07:50
Speaker 1: claim over her in some mold, that shall bring her
1:07:52
Speaker 1: level with the lowest, Never, cried doctor Landford, indignantly, neither
1:07:57
Speaker 1: in life, nor when they lay her with her ancestors.
1:07:59
Speaker 1: Not many days afterwards, the governor gave a ball in
1:08:02
Speaker 1: honor the lady Eleanor Rochcliffe. The principal gentry of the
1:08:05
Speaker 1: colony received invitations which were distributed to their residences far
1:08:09
Speaker 1: and near by messengers and horseback bearing missives sealed with
1:08:13
Speaker 1: all the formality of official despatches. In obedience to the summons,
1:08:17
Speaker 1: there was a general gathering of rank, wealth and beauty,
1:08:20
Speaker 1: and the wide door of the Province House had seldom
1:08:23
Speaker 1: given admittance to more numerous and honorable guests than on
1:08:26
Speaker 1: the evening of Lady Eleanor's ball. Without much extravagance of eulogy,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: the spectacle might even be termed splendid, for according to
1:08:34
Speaker 1: the fashion of the times, the ladies shone in rich
1:08:37
Speaker 1: silks and satins, outspread with wide projecting hoops, and the
1:08:40
Speaker 1: gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery, laid unsparingly upon the purple
1:08:45
Speaker 1: or scarlet or skybrew velvet, which was the material of
1:08:48
Speaker 1: their coats and waistcoats. The latter article of dress was
1:08:51
Speaker 1: of great importance, since it enveloped the wearer's body kneeling
1:08:55
Speaker 1: to the knees, and was perhaps bedizzened with the amount
1:08:58
Speaker 1: of his whole year's income in golden flowers and foliage.
1:09:01
Speaker 1: The altered taste of the present day, a taste symbolic
1:09:05
Speaker 1: of a deep change in the whole system of society,
1:09:07
Speaker 1: would look upon almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous.
1:09:11
Speaker 1: Although that evening the guests sort their reflections in the
1:09:14
Speaker 1: pure glasses and rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid
1:09:18
Speaker 1: the glittering crowd. What a pity that one of the
1:09:21
Speaker 1: stately mirrors has not preserved to picture the scene, which,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: by the very traits that were so transitory, might have
1:09:28
Speaker 1: taught as much there would be worth knowing and remembering.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: But at least that either painter or mirror could convey
1:09:34
Speaker 1: to us some faint idea of a garment already noticed
1:09:37
Speaker 1: in this legend. The Lady Elinor's embroidered mantle, which the
1:09:41
Speaker 1: gossips whispered, was invested with magic properties so as to
1:09:44
Speaker 1: lend a new and untried grace to her figure each
1:09:47
Speaker 1: time that she put it on. Idle fancy as it is,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: this mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image
1:09:53
Speaker 1: of her, partly from his fabled virtues, unpartly because it
1:09:56
Speaker 1: was the handiwork of a dying woman, and perchance owed
1:09:59
Speaker 1: the fin tastic grace of its conception to the delirium
1:10:02
Speaker 1: of approaching death. After the ceremony of greetings had been paid,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: Lady Elinor Rothchcliffe stood apart from the mob of guests,
1:10:09
Speaker 1: insulating herself with a small and distinguished circle to whom
1:10:13
Speaker 1: she accorded a more cordial favor than to the general throng.
1:10:17
Speaker 1: The wax and torches threw their radiance vividly over the scene,
1:10:21
Speaker 1: bringing out its brilliant points in strong relief. But she
1:10:24
Speaker 1: gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expression of
1:10:27
Speaker 1: weariness or scorn, tempered with such feminine grace that her
1:10:31
Speaker 1: auditors scarcely perceived the moral deformity of which it was
1:10:35
Speaker 1: the utterance. She beheld the spectacle not with vulgar ridicule,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: as disdaining to be pleased with the provincial mockery of
1:10:42
Speaker 1: a court festival, but with the deeper scorn of one
1:10:45
Speaker 1: whose spirit held itself too high to participate in the
1:10:48
Speaker 1: enjoyment of other human souls. Whether or no, the recollections
1:10:51
Speaker 1: of those who saw her that evening were influenced by
1:10:54
Speaker 1: the strange events with which she was subsequently connected. So
1:10:58
Speaker 1: it was that her figure ever after recurred to them
1:11:01
Speaker 1: as marked by something wild and unnatural. Although at the
1:11:03
Speaker 1: time the general whisper was of her exceeding beauty and
1:11:07
Speaker 1: of the indescribable charm which her mantle threw around her,
1:11:11
Speaker 1: some close observers indeed detected a feverish flush and alternate
1:11:15
Speaker 1: palness of countenance, with a corresponding flow and revoltion of spirits,
1:11:19
Speaker 1: and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of lassitude,
1:11:23
Speaker 1: as if she were on the point of sinking to
1:11:24
Speaker 1: the ground. Then with a nervous shudder, she seemed to
1:11:28
Speaker 1: arouse her energies and threw some bright and playful, yet
1:11:31
Speaker 1: half wicked sarcasm into the conversation. There was so strange
1:11:34
Speaker 1: a characteristic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished
1:11:37
Speaker 1: every right minded listener, till looking in her face, a
1:11:40
Speaker 1: lurking and incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts
1:11:44
Speaker 1: both as to her seriousness and sanity. Gradually, Lady Eleanor
1:11:49
Speaker 1: Rotcliffe's circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained in it.
1:11:53
Speaker 1: These of Captain Langford, the English officer before mentioned, a
1:11:57
Speaker 1: Virginian planter had come to Massachusetts, and some political errand
1:12:01
Speaker 1: a young episcopal clergyman, the grandson of a British earl,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: And lastly the private secretary of Governor Chute, whose obsequiousness
1:12:09
Speaker 1: at one sort of tolerance from Lady Elinor at different
1:12:13
Speaker 1: periods at the evening, the liveried servants of the province
1:12:16
Speaker 1: house passed among the guests, bearing huge trays of refreshments
1:12:19
Speaker 1: and French and Spanish wines. Lady Eleanor Ratcliffe, who refused
1:12:24
Speaker 1: to wet her beautiful lips even with the bubble of Champagne,
1:12:27
Speaker 1: had sunk back into a large damask chair, apparently overwearied
1:12:32
Speaker 1: either with the excitement of the scene or its teedy,
1:12:34
Speaker 1: And while for an instant she was unconscious of voices,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: laughter and music, a young man stole forward and knelt
1:12:41
Speaker 1: down at her feet. He bore a salver in his hand,
1:12:44
Speaker 1: on which was a chaste silver goblet filled to the
1:12:47
Speaker 1: brim with wine, which he offered as reverentially as to
1:12:50
Speaker 1: a crowned queen, or rather with the awful devotion of
1:12:54
Speaker 1: a priest doing sacrifice to his idol. Conscious that some
1:12:57
Speaker 1: one touched her robe, Lady Eleanor's unclosed her eyes upon
1:13:01
Speaker 1: the pale, wild features and disheveled hair of Jervais. Her vice,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: why do you haunt me? Thus said she in a
1:13:09
Speaker 1: languid tone, but with a kindlier feeling she ordinarily permitted
1:13:13
Speaker 1: herself to express, They tell me that I have done
1:13:16
Speaker 1: you harm, heaven't nods if that be so, replied the
1:13:20
Speaker 1: young man solemnly. But Lady Elinor, in requital of that harm,
1:13:25
Speaker 1: if such there be, and for your unearthly and heavenly velfare,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: I prayed you to take one's sip of this holy wine,
1:13:31
Speaker 1: and then to pass the goblet round among the guests.
1:13:34
Speaker 1: And this shall be a symbol that you have not
1:13:36
Speaker 1: sought to withdraw yourself from the chain of human sympathies.
1:13:39
Speaker 2: Which whoso would shake.
1:13:41
Speaker 1: Off must keep company with fallen angels. Where has that
1:13:44
Speaker 1: mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel? Exclaimed the episcopal clergyman.
1:13:50
Speaker 1: This question drew the notice of the guests to the
1:13:52
Speaker 1: silver cup, which was recognized as obertaining to the communion
1:13:55
Speaker 1: plate of the Old South Church. And for aught they
1:13:58
Speaker 1: could be known as brim with consecrated wine. Perhaps it
1:14:03
Speaker 1: is poisoned half, whispered the governor's secretary. Power down the
1:14:06
Speaker 1: villain's throat, cried the Virginian. Fiercely, turn him out of
1:14:10
Speaker 1: the house, cried Captain Langford, seizing to vase her voice
1:14:14
Speaker 1: so roughly by the shoulders that the sacramental cup was
1:14:17
Speaker 1: overturned and its contents sprinkled upon Lady Eleanor's mantle. Whatever knave,
1:14:23
Speaker 1: fool or bed might, it isn't tolerable that the fellow
1:14:26
Speaker 1: should go at large pay. Gentlemen, do my poor admirer
1:14:30
Speaker 1: no harm, said Lady Elinor, with a faint and weary smile.
1:14:34
Speaker 1: Take him out of my.
1:14:35
Speaker 2: Sight, if such be your pleasure.
1:14:37
Speaker 1: For I can find in my heart to do nothing
1:14:39
Speaker 1: but laugh at him, whereas in all decency and conscience
1:14:43
Speaker 1: it would become me to weep for the mischief I
1:14:45
Speaker 1: have wrought. But while the bystanders were attempting to lead
1:14:48
Speaker 1: away the unfortunate young man, he broke from them, and,
1:14:51
Speaker 1: with a wild and passioned earnestness, offered a new and
1:14:54
Speaker 1: equally strange petition to Lady Elinor. It was no other
1:14:57
Speaker 1: than that she could throw off the mantle, which, while
1:14:59
Speaker 1: he pressed the silver cup of wine upon her, she
1:15:02
Speaker 1: had drawn more closely round her form, so as almost
1:15:05
Speaker 1: to shroud.
1:15:05
Speaker 2: Herself within it.
1:15:07
Speaker 1: Cast it from you, exclaimed Jervas, how Vice, clasping his
1:15:11
Speaker 1: hands in an agony of entreaty. It may not yet
1:15:14
Speaker 1: be too late give the accursed garment to the flames.
1:15:17
Speaker 1: But Lady Eleanor, with a laugh of scorn, drew the
1:15:20
Speaker 1: rich folds of the embroidered mantle over her head in
1:15:22
Speaker 1: such a fashion as to give a completely new aspect
1:15:26
Speaker 1: of her beautiful face, which half hidden, half revealed, seemed
1:15:29
Speaker 1: to belong to some being of mysterious character and purposes. Farewell,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: Jervas hell Vice, said she keep my image in your
1:15:38
Speaker 1: remembrance as you behold it now. Alas lady, he replied,
1:15:44
Speaker 1: in a tone no longer wild, but sad as a
1:15:47
Speaker 1: funeral bell. We must meet shortly when your face may
1:15:52
Speaker 1: wear another aspect, and that shall be the image that
1:15:55
Speaker 1: must abide within me. He made no more resistance to
1:15:59
Speaker 1: the violent effort, so the gentleman and servants, who almost
1:16:02
Speaker 1: dragged him out of the apartment and dismissed him. Roughly
1:16:04
Speaker 1: from the eyeing gate of the province House. Captain Langford,
1:16:08
Speaker 1: who had been very active in this affair, was returning
1:16:10
Speaker 1: to the presence of Lady Eleanor Rotchcliffe, when he encountered
1:16:13
Speaker 1: the physician, doctor Clarke, with whom he had held some
1:16:15
Speaker 1: casual talk in the day of her arrival. The doctor
1:16:19
Speaker 1: stood apart, separated from Lady Elinor by the width of
1:16:22
Speaker 1: the room, but eyeing her with such keen sagacity, the
1:16:25
Speaker 1: Captain Langford involuntarily gave him credit for the discovery of
1:16:29
Speaker 1: some deep secret.
1:16:30
Speaker 2: You appear to be.
1:16:31
Speaker 1: Smitten after all with the qualms of this queenly maiden,
1:16:35
Speaker 1: said he, hoping thus to draw forth the physician's hidden knowledge.
1:16:39
Speaker 1: God forbid, answered Doctor Clarke, with a grave smile. But
1:16:43
Speaker 1: if you be wise, you will put up the same
1:16:45
Speaker 1: prayer for yourself well to those who shall be smitten
1:16:48
Speaker 1: by this beautiful lady Eleanor. But he understands the Governor
1:16:52
Speaker 1: and I have a word or two for his private ear.
1:16:55
Speaker 1: Good night. He accordingly advanced to Governor's shoote and addressed
1:16:58
Speaker 1: him in so low a tone that none of the
1:17:00
Speaker 1: bystanders could catch a word of what he said, although
1:17:04
Speaker 1: the sudden change of his excellencies hitherto cheerful visage betokened
1:17:08
Speaker 1: that the communication could be of no agreeable import.
1:17:11
Speaker 2: A very few.
1:17:12
Speaker 1: Moments afterwards, it was announced to the guests that an
1:17:15
Speaker 1: unforeseen circumstance rendered it necessary to put a permature.
1:17:18
Speaker 2: Close to the festival. The ball at the.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: Province House supplied a topic of conversation for the colonial metropolis.
1:17:24
Speaker 1: For some days after its occurrence, It might still longer
1:17:27
Speaker 1: have been the general theme, only that a subject of
1:17:30
Speaker 1: all engrossing interest thrust it for a time from the
1:17:33
Speaker 1: public recollection. This was the appearance of a dreadful epidemic, which,
1:17:39
Speaker 1: in that age, and long before and afterwards, was wont
1:17:42
Speaker 1: to slay its hundreds and thousands on both sides of
1:17:45
Speaker 1: the Atlantic. On the occasion of which we speak, it
1:17:49
Speaker 1: was distinguished by a peculiar virulence, insomuch that it has
1:17:53
Speaker 1: left its traces, its pit marks to use an appropriate
1:17:56
Speaker 1: figure on the history of the country, the affairs of
1:17:59
Speaker 1: which were thrown into confusion by ravages. At first, Unlike
1:18:03
Speaker 1: its ordinary course, the disease seemed to confine itself to
1:18:07
Speaker 1: the higher circles of society, selecting its victims from among
1:18:11
Speaker 1: the proud, the well born, and the wealthy, Entering unabashed
1:18:14
Speaker 1: into stately chambers and lying down with the slumbers and
1:18:17
Speaker 1: silken beds. Some of the most distinguished guests of the
1:18:21
Speaker 1: province House, even those whom the haughty Lady Elinor Rothcliffe
1:18:25
Speaker 1: had deemed not unworthy of her favor, were stricken by
1:18:29
Speaker 1: the fatal scourge. It was noticed with an ungenerous bitterness
1:18:33
Speaker 1: of feeling that the four gentlemen, the Virginian, the British officer,
1:18:37
Speaker 1: the young clergyman, and the governor's secretary, who had been
1:18:40
Speaker 1: her most devoted attendance on the evening on the ball,
1:18:42
Speaker 1: were the foremost on whom.
1:18:44
Speaker 2: The plague's stroke fell.
1:18:46
Speaker 1: But the disease, pursuing its onward progress, soon ceased to
1:18:49
Speaker 1: be exclusively a prerogative of aristocracy. Its red brand was
1:18:54
Speaker 1: no longer conferred like a noble's star or an order
1:18:57
Speaker 1: of knighted. Had threaded its way through the narrow, crooked streets,
1:19:01
Speaker 1: and entered the low, mean, darksome dwellings, and laid his
1:19:05
Speaker 1: hand of death upon the artisans and laboring classes of
1:19:08
Speaker 1: the town. It compelled rich and poorer to feel themselves brethren, then,
1:19:13
Speaker 1: and stalking to and fro across the three hills with
1:19:16
Speaker 1: a fierceness which made it almost a new pestilence. There
1:19:19
Speaker 1: was that mighty conqueror, that scourge and horror of our forefathers,
1:19:23
Speaker 1: the smallpox. We cannot estimate the affright which this plague
1:19:28
Speaker 1: inspired of yore. By contemplating it as the fangless monster
1:19:32
Speaker 1: of the present day. We must remember rather with what
1:19:36
Speaker 1: are We watched the gigantic footsteps of the Asiatic color,
1:19:39
Speaker 1: striding from shore to shore the Atlantic, and marching like
1:19:44
Speaker 1: destiny upon cities far remote which flight had already half depopulated.
1:19:49
Speaker 1: There was no other fear so horrible and unhumanizing as
1:19:52
Speaker 1: that which makes man dread to breathe Heaven's vital air
1:19:56
Speaker 1: lest it be poisoned. Are to grasp the hand of
1:19:59
Speaker 1: a brother friend, lest the gripe of the pestilence should
1:20:03
Speaker 1: clutch him. Such was the dismay that now followed in
1:20:06
Speaker 1: the track of the disease around before it through the town.
1:20:09
Speaker 1: Graves were hastily duck and the pestilential relics as hastily covered.
1:20:15
Speaker 1: Because the dead were enemies of the living, and strove
1:20:18
Speaker 1: draw them head long, as it were, into their own
1:20:21
Speaker 1: dismal pit. Public councils were suspended, as if mortal wisdom
1:20:25
Speaker 1: might relinquish its devices, now that an unearthly usurper had
1:20:29
Speaker 1: found his way into the ruler's mansion. Had an enemy's
1:20:33
Speaker 1: fleet been hovering on the coast, or his armies trampling
1:20:36
Speaker 1: on our soil, the people would probably have committed their
1:20:39
Speaker 1: defense to that same direful conqueror, who had wrought their
1:20:43
Speaker 1: own calamity, and would permit no interference with the sway.
1:20:48
Speaker 1: This conqueror had a symbol of his triumphs. It was
1:20:51
Speaker 1: a blood red flag that flooded in the tainted air
1:20:53
Speaker 1: over the door of every dwelling into which the smallpox
1:20:56
Speaker 1: had entered. Such a banner was long since waving over
1:20:59
Speaker 1: the portal of the province House. For thence, as was
1:21:01
Speaker 1: proved by tracking its footsteps back, had all this dreadful
1:21:05
Speaker 1: mischief issued. It had been traced back to a lady's
1:21:08
Speaker 1: luxurious chamber, to the proudest of the proud, to her
1:21:13
Speaker 1: that was so delicate and hardly owned herself of earthly mold,
1:21:17
Speaker 1: that the haughty one who tuck her stand above human sympathies.
1:21:21
Speaker 1: To Lady Eleanor, there remained no room for doubt that
1:21:25
Speaker 1: the contagion had lurked in that gorgeous mantle, which threw
1:21:28
Speaker 1: so strange a grace around her at the festival. Its
1:21:31
Speaker 1: fantastic splandor had been conceived in the delirious brain of
1:21:35
Speaker 1: a woman on her death bed, and with the last
1:21:38
Speaker 1: toil of her stiffening fingers, which had interwoven fate and
1:21:42
Speaker 1: misery with its golden threads. Its dark tail, whispered at first,
1:21:47
Speaker 1: was now bruted far and wide. The people raved against
1:21:50
Speaker 1: the Lady Eleanor, and cried out that her pride and
1:21:53
Speaker 1: scorn had evoked a fiend, and that between them both
1:21:57
Speaker 1: this monstrous evil had been born. At times their rage
1:22:02
Speaker 1: and despair took the semblance of grinning mirth. Whenever the
1:22:06
Speaker 1: red flag of the pestilence was hoisted over another and
1:22:08
Speaker 1: yet another door, they clapped their hands and shouted for
1:22:12
Speaker 1: the streets, in bitter mockery behold a new triumph of
1:22:16
Speaker 1: the Lady Eleanor. One day, in the midst of these
1:22:19
Speaker 1: dismal times, a wild figure approached the portal of the
1:22:22
Speaker 1: Province's house, and, folding his arms, stood contemplating the scarlet banner,
1:22:26
Speaker 1: which a passing breeze shook fitfully, as if to fling
1:22:29
Speaker 1: abroad the contagion that had typified at length. Climbing one
1:22:34
Speaker 1: of the pillars by means of the iron balustrade, he
1:22:36
Speaker 1: took down the flag and entered the mansion, waving.
1:22:39
Speaker 2: It above his head.
1:22:41
Speaker 1: At the fruit of the staircase, he met the Governor,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: booted and spurred, with his cloak drawn around him, evidently
1:22:47
Speaker 1: on the point of setting forth upon a journey, wretched lunatic,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: What do you seek here, exclaimed Shute, extending his cane
1:22:55
Speaker 1: to guard himself from contact. There is nothing here but death.
1:22:59
Speaker 1: Back or you will meet him. Death will not touch me,
1:23:04
Speaker 1: the banner bearer of the pestilence, cried Jervas Srvie, shaking
1:23:08
Speaker 1: the red flag aloft death in the pestilence. Wheer's aspect
1:23:11
Speaker 1: of the lady eleanor who will walk through the streets
1:23:14
Speaker 1: to night, And I must match before them with this banner?
1:23:19
Speaker 2: Why do I waste words on this flow?
1:23:22
Speaker 1: Muttered the Governor, drawing his cloak across his mouth. What
1:23:25
Speaker 1: matters his miserable life? When none of us ashore of
1:23:28
Speaker 1: twelve hours? Breath on full to your own destruction. He
1:23:32
Speaker 1: made way for Jervase al Weiss, who immediately ascended the staircase,
1:23:36
Speaker 1: but on the first landing place, was arrested by the
1:23:38
Speaker 1: firm grasp of a hand upon his shoulder. Looking fiercely
1:23:42
Speaker 1: up with the madman's impulse to struggle with and rend
1:23:45
Speaker 1: asunder his opponent, he found himself powerless beneath a calm
1:23:49
Speaker 1: stern eye, which possessed the mysterious property of quelling frenzy
1:23:53
Speaker 1: at its height. The person whom he had now encountered
1:23:57
Speaker 1: was a physician, doctor Clarke, the duties of whose sad
1:24:00
Speaker 1: profession had led him to the Province's house, where he
1:24:03
Speaker 1: was an infrequent guest in more prosperous times. Aw Man,
1:24:06
Speaker 1: what is your purpose? Demanded he, I seek lady Eleanor,
1:24:12
Speaker 1: answered javas a voice submissively. I'll have fled from her,
1:24:16
Speaker 1: said the physician. Why do you seek her? Now? I
1:24:19
Speaker 1: tell you, youth, her nurse fell death stricken on the
1:24:22
Speaker 1: threshold of that frightful chamber. Know ye not that never
1:24:26
Speaker 1: camest to curse to our shorers as his lovely lady Eleanor,
1:24:29
Speaker 1: that her breath has filled the air with poison, that
1:24:32
Speaker 1: she has shaken pestilence and death upon the land from
1:24:34
Speaker 1: the fold of her accursed mantle. Let me look upon her,
1:24:38
Speaker 1: rejoined the mad youth more wildly. Let me behold her
1:24:42
Speaker 1: in her awful beauty, clad in the regal garments of
1:24:45
Speaker 1: the pestilence. She and death sit on a throne together.
1:24:49
Speaker 1: Let me kneel down before them, poor youth, said doctor Clarke,
1:24:54
Speaker 1: and moved by a deep sense of human weakness, a
1:24:57
Speaker 1: smile of caustic humor curled his lip. Even then, wilt
1:25:01
Speaker 1: thou shalt worship the destriya and surround her image with fantasies.
1:25:05
Speaker 1: The more magnificent, the more evil she has wrought. Thus
1:25:08
Speaker 1: man doth, ever, to his tyrants approach. Then madness, as
1:25:12
Speaker 1: I have noted.
1:25:13
Speaker 2: Has that good efficacy that it will guard you.
1:25:16
Speaker 1: From contagion, and perchance its own cure may be found
1:25:19
Speaker 1: in yonder chamber. Sending another flight of stairs, he threw
1:25:23
Speaker 1: open a door and signed to jervase her vice that
1:25:25
Speaker 1: he should enter. The poor lunatic, it seems probable, had
1:25:29
Speaker 1: cherished a delusion that his haughty mistress sat in state,
1:25:32
Speaker 1: unharmed herself by the pestilential influence which, as by enchantment,
1:25:37
Speaker 1: she scattered round about her. He dreamed no doubt that
1:25:40
Speaker 1: her beauty was not dimmed, but brightened into superhuman splendor.
1:25:44
Speaker 1: With such anticipations, he stole reverentially to the door at
1:25:48
Speaker 1: which the physician stood, but paused upon the threshold, gazing
1:25:52
Speaker 1: fearfully into the gloom of the darkened chamber. Where is
1:25:55
Speaker 1: the Lady Elinor, whispered, He call her, replied the physician.
1:26:00
Speaker 1: Lady Elino, princess queen of death, cried Jervase, her voice,
1:26:06
Speaker 1: advancing three steps into the chamber. She is not here.
1:26:11
Speaker 1: There on yonder table, I behowled the sparkle of a diamond,
1:26:14
Speaker 1: which once she wore upon her bosom.
1:26:16
Speaker 2: There and he shuddered.
1:26:18
Speaker 1: There hangs a mantle on which a dead woman embroidered
1:26:21
Speaker 1: a spell of dreadful potency. But where is the lady Eleanor?
1:26:24
Speaker 1: Something stirred within the cirken curtains of a canopied bed,
1:26:28
Speaker 1: and a low moan was uttered, which, listening intently Jervas
1:26:32
Speaker 1: her vice, began to distinguish as a woman's voice, complaining
1:26:36
Speaker 1: dolefully of thirst. He fancied, even that he recognized its tones.
1:26:42
Speaker 2: My throat, My throat is scorched.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: Murmured the voice.
1:26:47
Speaker 4: A drop of water?
1:26:49
Speaker 1: What thing art thou said, the brain stricken youth, drawing
1:26:53
Speaker 1: near the bed and tearing as under its curtains, Whose
1:26:56
Speaker 1: voice hast thou stolen? For thy mammurs and miserable petitions?
1:26:59
Speaker 1: As if Lady Eleanor could be conscious of mortal infirmity
1:27:03
Speaker 1: by heap of diseased mortality. Why lurkest thou in my
1:27:06
Speaker 1: lady's chamber, Oh jvay ser vice, said the voice, And
1:27:11
Speaker 1: as it spoke, the figure contarted itself, struggling to hide
1:27:14
Speaker 1: its blasted face.
1:27:16
Speaker 4: Look not now on the women you once loved. The
1:27:21
Speaker 4: curse of heaven hath stricken me because I would not
1:27:24
Speaker 4: call man my brother, our woman's sister. I wrapped myself
1:27:29
Speaker 4: in pride as an a mantle, and scorned the sympathies
1:27:34
Speaker 4: of nature. And therefore has nature made this wretched body
1:27:39
Speaker 4: for the medium of a dreadful sympathy. You are avenged,
1:27:43
Speaker 4: They're all avenged. Nature is avenged.
1:27:47
Speaker 1: For I am eleanor rotchcliff, the malice of his mental disease,
1:27:52
Speaker 1: the brittonness lurking at the bottom of his heart, mad
1:27:55
Speaker 1: as he was, for a blighted and ruined life and
1:27:57
Speaker 1: love that had been paid with cruel scorn, a war
1:28:00
Speaker 1: within the breast of Jervers Salvis. He shook his finger
1:28:03
Speaker 1: at the wretched girl, and the chamber echoed. The curtains
1:28:05
Speaker 1: of the bed were shaken with its outburst of insane merriment.
1:28:08
Speaker 1: Another triumph to the lady Eleanor, He cried, all have
1:28:12
Speaker 1: been a victims, who's so worthy to be the final
1:28:14
Speaker 1: victim of herself? Impelled by some new fantasy of his
1:28:17
Speaker 1: crazed intellect, he snatched the fatal mantle and rushed from
1:28:20
Speaker 1: the chamber.
1:28:21
Speaker 2: In the house.
1:28:22
Speaker 1: That night, a procession passed by torchlight through the streets,
1:28:26
Speaker 1: bearing in the midst the figure of a woman enveloped
1:28:28
Speaker 1: with a richly embroidered mantle, which in advance stalked Jervas
1:28:32
Speaker 1: salviis waving the red flag. With the pestilence arriving opposite
1:28:37
Speaker 1: the province house. The mob burned the effigy, and a
1:28:39
Speaker 1: strong wind came and swept away the ashes. It was
1:28:43
Speaker 1: said that from that very hour the pestilence abated, as
1:28:46
Speaker 1: if its sway had some mysterious connection from the first
1:28:49
Speaker 1: plague stroke to the last Lady Eleanor's mantle. A remarkable
1:28:54
Speaker 1: uncertainty broods over that unhappy lady's fate. There is a belief, however,
1:28:58
Speaker 1: that in a certain chamber of this mansion, a female
1:29:02
Speaker 1: form may sometimes be duskily discerned, shrinking into the darkest
1:29:05
Speaker 1: corner and muffling her face with an embroidered mantle. Supposing
1:29:10
Speaker 1: the legend true, can this be other than the once
1:29:13
Speaker 1: proud lady eleanor mine host in the old Loyalist, And
1:29:17
Speaker 1: I bestowed no little warmth of applause upon this narrative,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: which had all been deeply interested, For the reader can
1:29:23
Speaker 1: scarcely conceive her unspeakably the effect of such a tale
1:29:25
Speaker 1: as heightened. Whereas in the present case we may repose
1:29:28
Speaker 1: perfect confidence in the veracity of him who tells it.
1:29:32
Speaker 1: My own part, knowing how scrupulous is mister Tiffany to
1:29:35
Speaker 1: settle the foundation of his facts, I could not have
1:29:37
Speaker 1: believed him one whit the more faithfully had he professed
1:29:40
Speaker 1: himself and I witnessed the doings and sufferings of poor
1:29:42
Speaker 1: lady eleanor some skeptics, it is true, might demand documentary evidence,
1:29:47
Speaker 1: or even require him to produce the embroidered mantle, forgetting that,
1:29:51
Speaker 1: having be praised, it was consumed to ashes. But now
1:29:54
Speaker 1: the old Loyalist, whose blood was warmed by the good chair,
1:29:57
Speaker 1: began to talk in his turn about the traditions the
1:30:00
Speaker 1: province house, and hinted that he, if it were agreeable,
1:30:03
Speaker 1: might add a few reminiscences to our legendary stock. Mister Tiffany,
1:30:07
Speaker 1: having no cause to dread arrival, immediately besought him to
1:30:10
Speaker 1: favor us with a specimen. My own entreaties, of course,
1:30:14
Speaker 1: were urged to the same effect, and our venerable guest,
1:30:17
Speaker 1: well pleased to find willing auditors, awaited only the return
1:30:20
Speaker 1: of mister Thomas Waite, who had been summoned forth to
1:30:23
Speaker 1: provide accommodations for several new arrivals.
1:30:26
Speaker 2: Perchance the public.
1:30:28
Speaker 1: But be this as its own caprice and ours, should
1:30:31
Speaker 1: settle the matter. May read the result in another tale
1:30:34
Speaker 1: of the Province House, end of chapter three, Chapter four
1:30:45
Speaker 1: of Incolonial Days by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This lib ofox, according
1:30:50
Speaker 1: was in the public domain. Old Esther Dudley, our host,
1:30:55
Speaker 1: having resumed the chair, he, as well as mister Tiffany
1:30:58
Speaker 1: and myself, expressed much eagerness to be made acquainted with
1:31:02
Speaker 1: the story to which the lawrelss had eluded. That a
1:31:05
Speaker 1: venerable man, first of all saw fit to moisten his
1:31:08
Speaker 1: throat with another glass of wine, and then, turning his
1:31:11
Speaker 1: face towards our coal fire, looked steadfastly for a few
1:31:15
Speaker 1: moments into the depths of its cheerful glow. Finally, he
1:31:19
Speaker 1: poured forth a great fluency of speech, the generous liquid
1:31:23
Speaker 1: that he had imbibed what had warmed his aged chilled blood,
1:31:26
Speaker 1: likewise to cough the chill from his heart and mind,
1:31:30
Speaker 1: and gave him an energy to think and feel which
1:31:32
Speaker 1: he could hardly have expected to find beneath the snows
1:31:35
Speaker 1: of fourscore winters. His feelings indeed appeared to me more
1:31:40
Speaker 1: excitable than those of a younger man, or at least
1:31:43
Speaker 1: the same degree of feeling manifested itself by more visible
1:31:46
Speaker 1: effects than if his judgment and will had possessed the
1:31:49
Speaker 1: potency of meridian life. At the pathetic passages of his narrative,
1:31:54
Speaker 1: he readily melted into tears when a breath of indignation
1:31:57
Speaker 1: swept across his spirit. The blood flushed his withered visage
1:32:01
Speaker 1: even to the roots of his white hair, and he
1:32:03
Speaker 1: shook his clenched fist at the trio of peaceful auditors,
1:32:07
Speaker 1: seeming to fancy enemies and those who felt very kindly
1:32:10
Speaker 1: towards the desolate old soul. But ever and anon Sometimes,
1:32:14
Speaker 1: in the midst of his most earnest talk, this ancient
1:32:18
Speaker 1: person's intellect would wander vaguely losing its hold of the
1:32:21
Speaker 1: matter in hand, ungroping for it amid misty shadow. Then
1:32:26
Speaker 1: would he cackle forth the feeble laugh, and express a
1:32:29
Speaker 1: doubt whether his wits. But by that phrase it pleased
1:32:32
Speaker 1: our ancient friend to signify his mental powers were not
1:32:35
Speaker 1: getting a little the worst for wear. Under these disadvantages,
1:32:40
Speaker 1: the old Loyalist's story required more revision to render it
1:32:43
Speaker 1: fit for the public eye than those of the series
1:32:46
Speaker 1: which have preceded it. Nor should it be concealed that
1:32:49
Speaker 1: the sentiment and tone of the affair may have undergone
1:32:52
Speaker 1: some slight properchance modern slight metamorphosis in its transmission to
1:32:56
Speaker 1: the reader through the medium of a thoroughgoing democrat. The
1:33:00
Speaker 1: tale itself is a mere sketch, with no involution of plot,
1:33:04
Speaker 1: nor any great interest of events, yet possessing if I
1:33:07
Speaker 1: have rehearsed it, aright that pensive influence over the mind
1:33:11
Speaker 1: which the shadow of the old Province House flings upon
1:33:14
Speaker 1: the lighter in its court yard. The hour had come,
1:33:19
Speaker 1: the hour of defeat and humiliation, when Sir William Howe
1:33:23
Speaker 1: was to pass over the threshold of the Province House
1:33:25
Speaker 1: and embark with no such triumphal ceremonies, as he once
1:33:29
Speaker 1: promised himself on board the British fleet. He bade his
1:33:33
Speaker 1: servants and military attendants go before him, and lingered a
1:33:36
Speaker 1: moment in the loneliness of the mansion to quell the
1:33:39
Speaker 1: fierce emotions that struggled in his bosom. As with the
1:33:42
Speaker 1: death throb preferable, then would he have deemed his fate
1:33:46
Speaker 1: had a warrior's death left him a claim to the
1:33:49
Speaker 1: narrow territory of a grave within the soil, which the
1:33:52
Speaker 1: king had given him to defend. With an ominous perception
1:33:56
Speaker 1: that as his departing footsteps echoed adown the staircase, the
1:34:00
Speaker 1: sway of Britain was passing for ever from New England.
1:34:03
Speaker 1: He smote his clenched hand on his brow and cursed,
1:34:07
Speaker 1: the destiny has flung the shame of a dismembered empire
1:34:11
Speaker 1: upon him. Would to God, cried he, hardly repressing his
1:34:15
Speaker 1: tears of rage, that the rebels were ever now the doorstep.
1:34:19
Speaker 1: A blood stain upon the floor should then bear testimony
1:34:23
Speaker 1: that the last British rue law was faithful.
1:34:25
Speaker 2: To his trust.
1:34:27
Speaker 1: The tremulous voice of a woman replied to his exclamation,
1:34:30
Speaker 1: Heaven's cause and the King's are one, it said, go forth,
1:34:34
Speaker 1: Sir William Howe, and trust in Heaven to bring back
1:34:37
Speaker 1: a royal governor in triumph. Subduing at once the passion
1:34:42
Speaker 1: to which he had yielded only in the faith that
1:34:44
Speaker 1: it was unwitnessed, Sir William Howe became conscious that an
1:34:47
Speaker 1: aged woman, leaning on a gold headed staff, was standing
1:34:51
Speaker 1: betwixt him and the door. It was old est Dudley,
1:34:54
Speaker 1: who dwelt almost immemorial years in this mansion, until her
1:34:58
Speaker 1: presence seemed as separable fomit as the recollections of its history.
1:35:03
Speaker 1: She was the daughter of an ancient and once eminent family,
1:35:06
Speaker 1: which would fall into poverty and decay, and left its
1:35:09
Speaker 1: last descendant no resource save the bounty of the king,
1:35:13
Speaker 1: nor any shelter except within the walls of the province house.
1:35:17
Speaker 1: An office in the household with merely nominal duties had
1:35:20
Speaker 1: been assigned to her as a pretext for the payment
1:35:23
Speaker 1: of a small pension, the greater part of which she
1:35:26
Speaker 1: expended in adorning herself with an antique magnificence of attie.
1:35:30
Speaker 1: The claims of Esther Dudley's gentle blood were acknowledged by
1:35:33
Speaker 1: all the successive governors, and they treated her with the
1:35:35
Speaker 1: punctilious courtesy which it was her foible to demand, not
1:35:40
Speaker 1: always with success from a neglectful world. The only actual
1:35:44
Speaker 1: share which she assumed in the business of the mansion
1:35:47
Speaker 1: was to glide through its passages and public chambers late
1:35:49
Speaker 1: at night, to see that the servants had dropped no
1:35:52
Speaker 1: fire from their flowering torches, nor left embers crackling and
1:35:56
Speaker 1: blazing on the hearths. Perhaps it was this invariable custom,
1:35:59
Speaker 1: walking her rounds in the hush of midnight that caused
1:36:02
Speaker 1: the superstition of the times to invest the old woman
1:36:05
Speaker 1: with attributes of awe and mystery, fabling that she had
1:36:08
Speaker 1: entered the portal of the Province House none knew whence
1:36:11
Speaker 1: in the train of the first royal governor, and that
1:36:14
Speaker 1: it was her fate to dwell there till the last
1:36:16
Speaker 1: should have departed. But Sir William Howe, if he ever
1:36:19
Speaker 1: heard this legend, had forgotten it.
1:36:22
Speaker 2: Mistress Studley, why are you loitering here?
1:36:25
Speaker 1: Asked he with some severity of tone. It is my
1:36:28
Speaker 1: pleasure to be the last in this mansion of the king.
1:36:31
Speaker 1: Not so, if it please your excellency, answered the time
1:36:35
Speaker 1: stricken woman. This roof has sheltered me long. I will
1:36:39
Speaker 1: not pass from it until they bear me to the
1:36:41
Speaker 1: tomb of my forefathers. What other shelter is there for,
1:36:44
Speaker 1: old Hester Dudley, save the province house or the grave? Now,
1:36:50
Speaker 1: Heaven forgive me, said William Howe to himself. I was
1:36:53
Speaker 1: about to leave this wretched old creature to starve or
1:36:56
Speaker 1: beg Take this good Mistress Dudley, he added, putting a
1:37:00
Speaker 1: purse into her hands. King George's head on these golden
1:37:04
Speaker 1: guineas is sterling yet and will continue. So I warrant you,
1:37:09
Speaker 1: even should the rebels crown John Hancock their king, that
1:37:13
Speaker 1: purse will buy a better shelter than the Province's house
1:37:15
Speaker 1: can now afford. While the burden of life remains upon me,
1:37:19
Speaker 1: I will have no other shelter than this roof, persisted
1:37:22
Speaker 1: Ester Dudley, striking her staff upon the floor with a
1:37:25
Speaker 1: gesture that expressed immovable resolves. And when your Excellency returns
1:37:30
Speaker 1: in triumph, I will totter into the porch to welcome you,
1:37:34
Speaker 1: My poor old friend, answered the British general, and all
1:37:37
Speaker 1: his manly and martial pride could no longer restrain a
1:37:40
Speaker 1: gush of bitter tears. This is an evil hour for
1:37:43
Speaker 1: you and me. The province which the King entrusted to
1:37:46
Speaker 1: my charge is lost. I go hence and misfortune, perchance
1:37:50
Speaker 1: and disgrace to return no more. And you, whose present
1:37:55
Speaker 1: being is incorporated with the past, who have seen governor
1:37:59
Speaker 1: after governor in stately pageantry ascends these steps, whose whole
1:38:03
Speaker 1: life has been an observance of majestic ceremonies and a
1:38:06
Speaker 1: worship of the king, how will you endure the change?
1:38:10
Speaker 1: Come with us, bid farewell to a land that has
1:38:13
Speaker 1: shaken off its allegiance and lives still under a royal
1:38:16
Speaker 1: government at Halifax. Never never said the pertinacious old dame. Here,
1:38:22
Speaker 1: I will abide, and King George shall still have one
1:38:25
Speaker 1: true subject in his disloyal province. Be shrewd, the old fool,
1:38:30
Speaker 1: muttered Sir William, how growing impatient of her obstinacy and
1:38:33
Speaker 1: ashamed of the emotion to which he had been betrayed.
1:38:36
Speaker 1: She is the very moral of old fashioned prejudice, and
1:38:39
Speaker 1: could exist nowhere but in this musty edifice. Well, then,
1:38:43
Speaker 1: Mistress Dudley, since you will needs tarry, I give the
1:38:47
Speaker 1: province house in charge to you take this key and
1:38:51
Speaker 1: keep it safe until myself or some other royal governor
1:38:55
Speaker 1: shall demand it of you. Smiling bitterly at himself and her,
1:39:00
Speaker 1: he took the heavy key of the Province House, and,
1:39:02
Speaker 1: delivering it to the old lady's hands, drew his cloak
1:39:05
Speaker 1: around him for departure. As the General glanced back at
1:39:08
Speaker 1: Esther Dudley's antique figure, he deemed her well fitted for
1:39:12
Speaker 1: such a charge, as being so perfect a representative of
1:39:15
Speaker 1: the decayed past, of an age gone by, with its manners, opinions,
1:39:20
Speaker 1: faith and feelings all fallen into oblivion or scorn of
1:39:25
Speaker 1: what had once been a reality but was now merely
1:39:27
Speaker 1: a vision of faded magnificence. Then Sir William house strode forth,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: smiting his clinched hands together in the fierce anguish of
1:39:36
Speaker 1: his spirit, and old Esther Dudley was left to keep
1:39:39
Speaker 1: watch in the lonely Province House, dwelling there with memory,
1:39:43
Speaker 1: and if hope ever seemed to flit around her, still
1:39:46
Speaker 1: it was memory in disguise. The total change of affairs
1:39:50
Speaker 1: that ensued on the departure of the British troops did
1:39:53
Speaker 1: not drive the venerable Lady from her stronghold. I was
1:39:56
Speaker 1: not for many years afterwards a governor of Massachusetts, and
1:40:00
Speaker 1: the magistrates who had charge of such matters saw no
1:40:03
Speaker 1: objection to Esther Dudley's residence in the Province House, especially
1:40:07
Speaker 1: as they must otherwise have paid a hireling for taking
1:40:09
Speaker 1: care of the premises with which hers was a labor
1:40:12
Speaker 1: of love. And so they left her the undisturbed mistress
1:40:15
Speaker 1: of the old historic edifice. Many and strange were the
1:40:19
Speaker 1: fables which the gossips whispered about her, and all the
1:40:22
Speaker 1: chimney corners of the town. Among the time worn articles
1:40:26
Speaker 1: of furniture that had been left in the mansion, there
1:40:29
Speaker 1: was a tall antique mirror, which was well worthy of
1:40:32
Speaker 1: a tale by itself, and perhaps may hereafter be the
1:40:35
Speaker 1: theme of one. The gold of its heavily wrought frame
1:40:39
Speaker 1: was tarnished in its surface, so blurred that the old
1:40:42
Speaker 1: woman's figure, whenever she poursed before it, looked indistinct and
1:40:47
Speaker 1: ghost like. But it was the general belief that Esther
1:40:50
Speaker 1: could cause the governors of the overthrown dynasty, with the
1:40:54
Speaker 1: beautiful ladies who had once adorned their festivals, the Indian
1:40:58
Speaker 1: chiefs who had come up to the province house to
1:41:01
Speaker 1: hold council or swear allegiance, the grim provincial warriors, the
1:41:05
Speaker 1: severe clergyman. In short, all the pageantry of gone days,
1:41:11
Speaker 1: all the figures that ever swept across the broad plate
1:41:13
Speaker 1: of glass and former times, she could cause the whole
1:41:16
Speaker 1: to repair, and people the inner world of the mirror
1:41:20
Speaker 1: were shadows of old life. Such legends as these, together
1:41:24
Speaker 1: with the singularity of her isolated existence, her age, and
1:41:29
Speaker 1: the infirmity that each added winter flung upon her, made
1:41:32
Speaker 1: Mistress Dudley the object both of fear and pity.
1:41:36
Speaker 2: It was partly the result.
1:41:37
Speaker 1: Of either sentiment that, amid all the angry license of
1:41:40
Speaker 1: the times, neither wrong nor insult ever fell upon her
1:41:44
Speaker 1: protected head. Indeed, there was so much haughtiness in her
1:41:47
Speaker 1: demeanor towards intruders, among whom she reckoned, all persons acting
1:41:51
Speaker 1: under the new authorities, that it was really an affair
1:41:54
Speaker 1: of no small nerve to look her in the face
1:41:57
Speaker 1: and to do the people justice. Stern with public plickins,
1:42:00
Speaker 1: as they had now become, they were well content that
1:42:03
Speaker 1: the old gentlewoman, in her hoop, petticoat and faded embroidery,
1:42:06
Speaker 1: to still haunt the palace of ruined pride and overthrown power,
1:42:11
Speaker 1: the symbol of a departed system, embodying a history in
1:42:14
Speaker 1: her person. So Ester Dudley dwelt year after year in
1:42:18
Speaker 1: the Province House, still reverencing all that others had flung aside,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: still faithful to her King, who, so long as the
1:42:25
Speaker 1: Venerable Dame yet held her post, might be said to
1:42:28
Speaker 1: retain one true subject in New England, and one spot
1:42:32
Speaker 1: of the empire that had been wrested from him. And
1:42:36
Speaker 1: did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Womis said? Not so?
1:42:41
Speaker 1: Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she was
1:42:44
Speaker 1: wont to summon a black slave of Governor Shirley's from
1:42:47
Speaker 1: the blurred mirror and send him in search of guests,
1:42:50
Speaker 1: would long ago been familiar in those deserted chambers. Forth
1:42:54
Speaker 1: went the sable Messenger, with the starlight or the moonshine
1:42:57
Speaker 1: gleaming through him, and it his errand in the burial ground,
1:43:00
Speaker 1: knocking at the iron doors of tombs, or upon the
1:43:04
Speaker 1: marble slabs that covered them, and whispering.
1:43:06
Speaker 2: To those within.
1:43:07
Speaker 1: And Mistress Aster Dudley bids you to the Province House
1:43:10
Speaker 1: at midnight, and punctually, as the clock of the old
1:43:14
Speaker 1: South told twelve, came the shadows of the Olives, the Hutchinsons,
1:43:18
Speaker 1: the Dudley's, all the grandees of a bygone generation, gliding
1:43:23
Speaker 1: beneath the portal into the well known mansion. Esther mingled
1:43:26
Speaker 1: with them as if she, likewise were a shade. Without
1:43:30
Speaker 1: vouching for the truth of such traditions, it is certain
1:43:33
Speaker 1: that Mistress Dudley sometimes assembled the few of the stanch
1:43:36
Speaker 1: who crestfallen o tories who had lingered in the rebel
1:43:39
Speaker 1: town during those days of wrath and tribulation, out of
1:43:42
Speaker 1: a cobwebbed bottle containing liquor that a royal governor might
1:43:46
Speaker 1: have smacked his lips over. They coroaffed healths to the
1:43:49
Speaker 1: King and babbled treason to the republic, feeling as if
1:43:53
Speaker 1: the protecting shadow of the throne were still flung around them.
1:43:58
Speaker 1: But draining the last of their liquor, they stole timorously
1:44:02
Speaker 1: homeward and answered not again if the rude mob reviled
1:44:06
Speaker 1: them in the street. Yet Esther Dudley's most frequent and
1:44:10
Speaker 1: favored guests were the children of the town. Towards them,
1:44:13
Speaker 1: she was never astern. A kindly and loving nature hindered
1:44:17
Speaker 1: elsewhere from its free course by a thousand rocky prejudices,
1:44:21
Speaker 1: lavished itself upon these little ones by bribes of gingerbread
1:44:25
Speaker 1: of her own making, stamped with a royal crown. She
1:44:28
Speaker 1: tempted their sunny spotiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the
1:44:32
Speaker 1: Province House, and would often beguile them to spend a
1:44:35
Speaker 1: whole play day there, sitting in a circle round the
1:44:38
Speaker 1: verge of her hoop petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories
1:44:42
Speaker 1: of a dead world. And when these little boys and
1:44:45
Speaker 1: girls stole forth again from the dark, mysterious mansion, they
1:44:48
Speaker 1: went bewildered, full of old feelings that graver people had
1:44:52
Speaker 1: long ago forgotten, rubbing their eyes the world around them
1:44:55
Speaker 1: as if they had gone astray into ancient times, and
1:44:58
Speaker 1: become children of the past. At home, when their parents
1:45:02
Speaker 1: asked where they had loitered such a weary while, and
1:45:05
Speaker 1: with whom they had been at play, the children would
1:45:08
Speaker 1: talk of all the departed worthies of the province, as
1:45:11
Speaker 1: far back as Governor Boucher, the haughty Dame of Sir
1:45:14
Speaker 1: William Phipps. It was seemed as though they had been
1:45:16
Speaker 1: sitting on the knees of these famous personages, whom the
1:45:19
Speaker 1: grave had hidden for half a century, and had toiled
1:45:22
Speaker 1: with the embroidery of their rich waistcoats, who roguishly pulled
1:45:26
Speaker 1: the long curls of their flowing wigs. But Governor Belcher
1:45:30
Speaker 1: has been dead this many a year, would the mother
1:45:33
Speaker 1: say to her little boy, And did you really see
1:45:35
Speaker 1: him at the province house? Oh, yes, dear mother, Yes,
1:45:39
Speaker 1: the half dreaming child would answer. But when old Esther
1:45:41
Speaker 1: had done speaking about him, he faded away out of
1:45:44
Speaker 1: his chair. Thus, without affrighting her little guests, she led
1:45:47
Speaker 1: them by the hand and the chambers of her own
1:45:50
Speaker 1: desolate heart, and made childhood's fancy discern the ghosts that
1:45:54
Speaker 1: haunted there. Living so continually in her own circle of ideas,
1:45:59
Speaker 1: and never regulated her mind by proper reference to present things,
1:46:03
Speaker 1: Esther Dudley appears to have grown partially crazed. It was
1:46:07
Speaker 1: found that she had no right sense of the progress
1:46:10
Speaker 1: and true state of the Revolutionary War, but held a
1:46:12
Speaker 1: constant faith with the armies of Britain, victorious on every field,
1:46:17
Speaker 1: and destined to be ultimately triumphant whenever the town rejoiced
1:46:22
Speaker 1: for a battle won by Washington or Gates, or Morgan
1:46:25
Speaker 1: or Green, the news, in passing through the door of
1:46:27
Speaker 1: the Province House, as through the ivory gate of dreams,
1:46:30
Speaker 1: became metamorphosed into a strange tale of the prowess of Howe,
1:46:34
Speaker 1: Clinton or Cornwallis. Sooner or later it was her invincible
1:46:39
Speaker 1: belief the colonies would be prostrate at the footstool.
1:46:42
Speaker 2: Of the King.
1:46:43
Speaker 1: Sometimes she seemed to take for granted that such was
1:46:46
Speaker 1: already the case. On one occasion she startled the townspeople
1:46:50
Speaker 1: by brilliant illumination of the Province House, with candles at
1:46:53
Speaker 1: every pane of glass, in a transparency of the King's initials,
1:46:56
Speaker 1: and a crown of light in the great balcony window.
1:47:00
Speaker 1: The figure of the aged woman and the most gorgeous
1:47:02
Speaker 1: of her mildewed velvets and barcades, was seen passing from
1:47:06
Speaker 1: casement to casement, until she paused before the balcony and
1:47:09
Speaker 1: flourished a huge key above her head. Her wrinkled visage
1:47:13
Speaker 1: actually gleamed with triumph, as if the saw within her
1:47:16
Speaker 1: were a festal lamp.
1:47:18
Speaker 2: What means displays of light? What does old ester's.
1:47:21
Speaker 1: Joy returned, whispered the spectator. It is frightful to see
1:47:24
Speaker 1: her gliding about her chambers, rejoicing there that a soul
1:47:28
Speaker 1: to bear her company. It's as if she were making
1:47:30
Speaker 1: merry in a tone, said another. Pshah, it is no
1:47:34
Speaker 1: such mystery, observed no man. After some brief exercise of memory,
1:47:38
Speaker 1: mister S. Dudley has kippen jobily for the King of
1:47:41
Speaker 1: England's birthday. Then the people laughed aloud and would have
1:47:44
Speaker 1: thrown mud against the blazing transparency of the King's crown
1:47:48
Speaker 1: and initials. Only that they pitied the poor old dame
1:47:51
Speaker 1: who was so dismally triumphant amid the wreck and ruin
1:47:54
Speaker 1: of the system to which she appertained. Oftentimes it was
1:47:57
Speaker 1: her custom climbed the weary staircase, wound upward to the coupler,
1:48:01
Speaker 1: and thence strain her dimmed eyesight, seaward and countrywood watching
1:48:05
Speaker 1: for a British fleet before the march, or a grand
1:48:08
Speaker 1: procession with the King's banner floating over it. The passengers
1:48:12
Speaker 1: in the street below would discern her anxious visage and
1:48:15
Speaker 1: send up a shout. When the golden Indian of the
1:48:17
Speaker 1: Province House should shoot his arrow when the cock and the.
1:48:20
Speaker 2: Old saft spire shall crow look for a royal.
1:48:23
Speaker 1: Governor again, For this had grown a byword through the town.
1:48:27
Speaker 1: And at last, after long, long years, old Dester Dudley
1:48:30
Speaker 1: knew upper chance. She only dreamed that a royal governor
1:48:33
Speaker 1: was on the eve of returning to the Province House
1:48:36
Speaker 1: to receive the heavy key which Sir William Howe had
1:48:39
Speaker 1: committed to her charge. Now it was the fact that
1:48:42
Speaker 1: intelligence bearing some faint analogy to esther's version of it,
1:48:46
Speaker 1: was current among the townspeople. She set the mansion in
1:48:49
Speaker 1: the best order that her means allowed, and, arraying herself
1:48:53
Speaker 1: in silks and tarnished gold, stood long before the blurred
1:48:56
Speaker 1: mirror to admire her own magnificence. As she gazed the
1:49:01
Speaker 1: gray and withered lady moved her ashen lips, murmuring half aloud,
1:49:06
Speaker 1: talking to shapes that she saw within the mirror, to
1:49:08
Speaker 1: shadows of her own fantasies, to the household friends of memory,
1:49:12
Speaker 1: and bidding them a joice with her and come forth
1:49:15
Speaker 1: to meet the Governor. And while absorbed in the communion,
1:49:18
Speaker 1: Mistress Dudley heard the tramp of many footsteps in the street,
1:49:22
Speaker 1: and looking out at the window, beheld what she construed
1:49:25
Speaker 1: as the Royal governor's arrival.
1:49:28
Speaker 3: A happy day, how blessed, blessed hour, she exclaimed, Let
1:49:34
Speaker 3: me but bid him welcome within the porkill, and my
1:49:38
Speaker 3: task in the province House and on earth is done.
1:49:43
Speaker 1: Then, with tattering feet which age and tremulous joy caused
1:49:47
Speaker 1: to tread amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her
1:49:50
Speaker 1: silks sweeping and rustling as she went, so that the
1:49:54
Speaker 1: sound was as if a train of spectral courtiers were
1:49:56
Speaker 1: thronging from the dim mirror. And Esther Dudley fancied that as
1:50:00
Speaker 1: soon as the wide door should be flung open, all
1:50:03
Speaker 1: the pomp and splendor of by gone times would pace
1:50:06
Speaker 1: majestically into the Province's House, and the gilded tapestry of
1:50:09
Speaker 1: the past would be brightened by the sunshine of the present.
1:50:13
Speaker 1: She turned the key, withdrew it from the lock, unclosed
1:50:16
Speaker 1: the door, and stepped across the threshold. Advancing up the courtyard,
1:50:20
Speaker 1: appeared a person of most dignified mien, with tokens, as
1:50:24
Speaker 1: Esther interpreted them, of gentle blood, high rank, and long
1:50:28
Speaker 1: accustomed authority. Even in his walk in every gesture. He
1:50:32
Speaker 1: was richly dressed, but wore a gouty shoe, which, however,
1:50:35
Speaker 1: did not lessen the stateliness of his gait. Around and
1:50:38
Speaker 1: behind him were people in plain civic dresses, and two
1:50:41
Speaker 1: or three war worn veterans, evidently officers of rank, arrayed
1:50:45
Speaker 1: in a uniform.
1:50:46
Speaker 2: Of blue and buff.
1:50:48
Speaker 1: But esther dudley from in the belief that had fastened
1:50:51
Speaker 1: its roots about her heart, beheld only the principal personage,
1:50:55
Speaker 1: and never doubted that this was the long looked for
1:50:57
Speaker 1: governor to whom she was to surrender up her charge.
1:51:01
Speaker 1: As he approached, she involuntarily sank down on her knees
1:51:04
Speaker 1: and tremblingly held forth the heavy key.
1:51:08
Speaker 2: Receive my trust, take it.
1:51:10
Speaker 5: Quickly, cried she, for methinks death is striving to snatch
1:51:15
Speaker 5: away my triumph, but he comes too late. Thank Heaven
1:51:18
Speaker 5: for this blessed hour, God save King George. That madam
1:51:22
Speaker 5: little strange prayer to be offered up at such a moment,
1:51:26
Speaker 5: replied the unknown guest of the Province's house, and, courteously,
1:51:30
Speaker 5: removing his hat, he offered his arm to raise the
1:51:32
Speaker 5: aged woman. Yet, in reverence for your gray hairs and
1:51:37
Speaker 5: long kept faith. Heaven forbid that any here should say
1:51:40
Speaker 5: you nay over the realms which still acknowledge his scepter
1:51:44
Speaker 5: guard save King George Ester Dudley started to her feet, and, hastily,
1:51:49
Speaker 5: clutching back the key, gazed with fearful earnestness at the stranger,
1:51:53
Speaker 5: and dimly and doubtfully, as if suddenly awakened from a dream,
1:51:56
Speaker 5: her bewildered eyes half recognized his face.
1:52:01
Speaker 2: Years ago.
1:52:02
Speaker 1: She had known him among the gentry of the province,
1:52:04
Speaker 1: but the ban of the king had fallen upon him.
1:52:07
Speaker 1: How then came the doomed victim, here proscribed, excluded from mercy,
1:52:12
Speaker 1: the monarch's most dreaded and hated foe. This New England
1:52:15
Speaker 1: merchant had stood triumphantly against a kingdom's strength, and his
1:52:19
Speaker 1: foot now trod upon humble the royalty as he ascended
1:52:24
Speaker 1: the steps of the province house, the people's chosen Governor
1:52:27
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts.
1:52:29
Speaker 2: Wretch, wretch, that I.
1:52:31
Speaker 1: Am, muttered the old woman with such a hard, broken expression,
1:52:34
Speaker 1: that the tears gushed from the stranger's eyes. Have I
1:52:38
Speaker 1: been the traitor? Welcome come death, Come quickly, alas venerable lady,
1:52:45
Speaker 1: said Governor Hancock, lending her his support with all the
1:52:48
Speaker 1: reverence that a courtier would have shown to a queen.
1:52:51
Speaker 1: Your life has been prolonged until the world has changed
1:52:54
Speaker 1: around you. You have treasured up all that time has
1:52:57
Speaker 1: rendered worthless the principles, feelings, manners, molds of being enacting
1:53:02
Speaker 1: which another generation has flung aside. And you are a
1:53:05
Speaker 1: symbol of the past. And I and these around me
1:53:09
Speaker 1: we represent a new race of men, living no longer
1:53:12
Speaker 1: in the past, scarcely in the present, but projecting our
1:53:16
Speaker 1: lives forward into the future, ceasing to model ourselves on
1:53:20
Speaker 1: ancestral superstitions. It is our faith and principle to press onward, onward, Yet,
1:53:26
Speaker 1: continued he, turning to his attendants, let us reverence for
1:53:29
Speaker 1: the last time the stately and gorgeous prejudices of the
1:53:32
Speaker 1: tottering past. While the Republican governor spoke, he had continued
1:53:36
Speaker 1: to support the helpless form of Esther Dudley. Her weight
1:53:40
Speaker 1: grew heavier against his arm, but at last, with a
1:53:43
Speaker 1: sudden effort to free herself, the ancient woman sank down
1:53:46
Speaker 1: beside one of the pillars of the portal. The key
1:53:49
Speaker 1: of the province house fell from her grasp and clanked
1:53:52
Speaker 1: against the stone. I have been faithful unto death, murmured
1:53:56
Speaker 1: she God, save the King. She hath done her office,
1:54:01
Speaker 1: said Hancock, solemnly. We will follow her reverently to the
1:54:05
Speaker 1: tomb of her ancestors, and then my fellow citizens onward onward.
1:54:10
Speaker 1: We are no longer children of the past. As the
1:54:13
Speaker 1: old Loyalist concluded his narrative, the enthusiasm which had been
1:54:17
Speaker 1: fitfully flashing within his sunken eyes and quivering across his
1:54:20
Speaker 1: wrinkled visage, faded away, as if all the lingering fire
1:54:25
Speaker 1: of his soul were extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp
1:54:29
Speaker 1: upon the mantelpiece, throughout a dying gleam, which vanished as
1:54:33
Speaker 1: speedily as it shut upward, compelling our eyes to grope
1:54:37
Speaker 1: for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth.
1:54:40
Speaker 1: With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam,
1:54:44
Speaker 1: had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the
1:54:46
Speaker 1: Province's house when the spirit of old est Dudley took
1:54:49
Speaker 1: its flight. And now again the clock of the old
1:54:52
Speaker 1: South threw its voice of ages on the breeze, gnalling
1:54:56
Speaker 1: the hourly knall of the past crying out far and
1:54:59
Speaker 1: wide through the multitudinous city, and filling our ears as
1:55:03
Speaker 1: we sat in the dusky chamber with its reverberating depth
1:55:06
Speaker 1: of tone, in that same mansion, in that very chamber,
1:55:11
Speaker 1: what a volume of history had been told off into
1:55:13
Speaker 1: hours by the same voice that was now trembling in
1:55:15
Speaker 1: the air. Many a governor had heard those midnight accents
1:55:20
Speaker 1: and longed to exchange his stately cares for slumber. And
1:55:25
Speaker 1: as for mine, host and mister Beller, Tiffany, and the
1:55:28
Speaker 1: old Loyalist and me, we had babbled about dreams of
1:55:31
Speaker 1: the past until we almost fancied that the clock was
1:55:34
Speaker 1: still striking in a bygone sentry. Neither of us would
1:55:38
Speaker 1: have wondered had a hoop petticoated phantom of Estra Dudley
1:55:41
Speaker 1: tottered into the chamber, walking her rounds in the hush
1:55:44
Speaker 1: of midnight as of yore, and motioned us to quench
1:55:48
Speaker 1: the fading embers of the fire and leave the historic
1:55:51
Speaker 1: precincts to herself and her kindred shades. But as no
1:55:55
Speaker 1: such vision was vouchsafed, I retired unbidden, and would advise
1:56:00
Speaker 1: mister Tiffany to lay hold of another Auditor, being resolved
1:56:03
Speaker 1: not to show my face in the Province House for
1:56:06
Speaker 1: a good while. Hence, if ever, end of Chapter four,
1:56:12
Speaker 1: End of Incolonial Days by Nathaniel Hawthorne, read by Edmund
1:56:16
Speaker 1: Bloxam in Glasgow, Scotland. For more audio unwritten stories, please
1:56:21
Speaker 1: visit Edmund Bloxom dot com