LEGENDS OF THE PROVINCE HOUSE
IV
OLD ESTHER DUDLEY
Our host having resumed the chair, he, as well as Mr. Tiffany andmyself; expressed much eagerness to be made acquainted with thestory to which the loyalist had alluded. That venerable man firstof all saw fit to moisten his throat with another glass of wine,and then, turning his face towards our coal fire, lookedsteadfastly for a few moments into the depths of its cheerfulglow. Finally, he poured forth a great fluency of speech. Thegenerous liquid that he had imbibed, while it warmed hisage-chilled blood, likewise took off the chill from his heart andmind, and gave him an energy to think and feel, which we couldhardly have expected to find beneath the snows of fourscorewinters. His feelings, indeed, appeared to me more excitable thanthose of a younger man; or at least, the same degree of feelingmanifested itself by more visible effects than if his judgmentand will had possessed the potency of meridian life. At thepathetic passages of his narrative he readily melted into tears.When a breath of indignation swept across his spirit the bloodflushed his withered visage even to the roots of his white hair;and he shook his clinched fist at the trio of peaceful auditors,seeming to fancy enemies in those who felt very kindly towardsthe desolate old soul. But ever and anon, sometimes in the midstof his most earnest talk, this ancient person's intellect wouldwander vaguely, losing its hold of the matter in hand, andgroping for it amid misty shadows. Then would he cackle forth afeeble laugh, and express a doubt whether his wits--for by thatphrase it pleased our ancient friend to signify his mentalpowers--were not getting a little the worse for wear.
Under these disadvantages, the old loyalist's story required morerevision to render it fit for the public eye than those of theseries which have preceded it; nor should it be concealed thatthe sentiment and tone of the affair may have undergone someslight, or perchance more than slight, metamorphosis, in itstransmission to the reader through the medium of a thorough-goingdemocrat. The tale itself is a mere sketch, with no involution ofplot, nor any great interest of events, yet possessing, if I haverehearsed it aright, that pensive influence over the mind whichthe shadow of the old Province House flings upon the loiterer inits court-yard.
The hour had come--the hour of defeat andhumiliation--when Sir William Howe was to pass over the thresholdof the Province House, and embark, with no such triumphalceremonies as he once promised himself, on board the Britishfleet. He bade his servants and military attendants go beforehim, and lingered a moment in the loneliness of the mansion, toquell the fierce emotions that struggled in his bosom as with adeath throb. Preferable, then, would he have deemed his fate, hada warrior's death left him a claim to the narrow territory of agrave within the soil which the King had given him to defend.With an ominous perception that, as his departing footstepsechoed adown the staircase, the sway of Britain was passingforever from New England, he smote his clinched hand on his brow,and cursed the destiny that had flung the shame of a dismemberedempire upon him.
"Would to God," cried he, hardly repressing his tears of rage,"that the rebels were even now at the doorstep! A blood-stainupon the floor should then bear testimony that the last Britishruler was faithful to his trust."
The tremulous voice of a woman replied to his exclamation.
"Heaven's cause and the King's are one," it said. "Go forth, SirWilliam Howe, and trust in Heaven to bring back a Royal Governorin triumph."
Subduing, at once, the passion to which he had yielded only inthe faith that it was unwitnessed, Sir William Howe becameconscious that an aged woman, leaning on a gold-headed staff, wasstanding betwixt him and the door. It was old Esther Dudley, whohad dwelt almost immemorial years in this mansion, until herpresence seemed as inseparable from it as the recollections ofits history. She was the daughter of an ancient and once eminentfamily, which had fallen into poverty and decay, and left itslast descendant no resource save the bounty of the King, nor anyshelter except within the walls of the Province House. An officein the household, with merely nominal duties, had been assignedto her as a pretext for the payment of a small pension, thegreater part of which she expended in adorning herself with anantique magnificence of attire. The claims of Esther Dudley'sgentle blood were acknowledged by all the successive Governors;and they treated her with the punctilious courtesy which it washer foible to demand, not always with success, from a neglectfulworld. The only actual share which she assumed in the business ofthe mansion was to glide through its passages and publicchambers, late at night, to see that the servants had dropped nofire from their flaring torches, nor left embers crackling andblazing on the hearths. Perhaps it was this invariable custom ofwalking her rounds in the hush of midnight that caused thesuperstition of the times to invest the old woman with attributesof awe and mystery; fabling that she had entered the portal ofthe Province House, none knew whence, in the train of the firstRoyal Governor, and that it was her fate to dwell there till thelast should have departed. But Sir William Howe, if he ever heardthis legend, had forgotten it.
"Mistress Dudley, why are you loitering here?" asked he, withsome severity of tone. "It is my pleasure to be the last in thismansion of the King."
"Not so, if it please your Excellency," answered thetime-stricken woman. "This roof has sheltered me long. I will notpass from it until they bear me to the tomb of my forefathers.What other shelter is there for old Esther Dudley, save theProvince House or the grave?"
"Now Heaven forgive me!" said Sir William Howe to himself. "I wasabout to leave this wretched old creature to starve or beg. Takethis, good Mistress Dudley," he added, putting a purse into herhands. "King George's head on these golden guineas is sterlingyet, and will continue so, I warrant you, even should the rebelscrown John Hancock their king. That purse will buy a bettershelter than the Province House can now afford."
"While the burden of life remains upon me, I will have no othershelter than this roof," persisted Esther Dudley, striking herstaff upon the floor with a gesture that expressed immovableresolve. "And when your Excellency returns in triumph, I willtotter into the porch to welcome you."
"My poor old friend!" answered the British General,--and all hismanly and martial pride could no longer restrain a gush of bittertears. "This is an evil hour for you and me. The Province whichthe King intrusted to my charge is lost. I go hence inmisfortune--perchance in disgrace--to return no more. And you,whose present being is incorporated with the past--who have seenGovernor after Governor, in stately pageantry, ascend thesesteps--whose whole life has been an observance of majesticceremonies, and a worship of the King--how will you endure thechange? Come with us! Bid farewell to a land that has shaken offits allegiance, and live still under a royal government, atHalifax."
"Never, never!" said the pertinacious old dame. "Here will Iabide; and King George shall still have one true subject in hisdisloyal Province."
"Beshrew the old fool!" muttered Sir William Howe, growingimpatient of her obstinacy, and ashamed of the emotion into whichhe had been betrayed. "She is the very moral of old-fashionedprejudice, and could exist nowhere but in this musty edifice.Well, then, Mistress Dudley, since you will needs tarry, I givethe Province House in charge to you. Take this key, and keep itsafe until myself, or some other Royal Governor, shall demand itof you."
Smiling bitterly at himself and her, he took the heavy key of theProvince House, and delivering it into the old lady's hands, drewhis cloak around him for departure. As the General glanced backat Esther Dudley's antique figure, he deemed her well fitted forsuch a charge, as being so perfect a representative of thedecayed past--of an age gone by, with its manners, opinions,faith and feelings, all fallen into oblivion or scorn--of whathad once been a reality, but was now merely a vision of fadedmagnificence. Then Sir William Howe strode forth, smiting hisclinched hands together, in the fierce anguish of his spirit; andold Esther Dudley was left to keep watch in the lonely ProvinceHouse, dwelling there with memory; and if Hope ever seemed toflit around her, still was it Memory in disguise.
The total change of
affairs that ensued on the departure of theBritish troops did not drive the venerable lady from herstronghold. There was not, for many years afterwards, a Governorof Massachusetts; and the magistrates, who had charge of suchmatters, saw no objection to Esther Dudley's residence in theProvince House, especially as they must otherwise have paid ahireling for taking care of the premises, which with her was alabor of love. And so they left her the undisturbed mistress ofthe old historic edifice. Many and strange were the fables whichthe gossips whispered about her, in all the chimney corners ofthe town. Among the time-worn articles of furniture that had beenleft in the mansion there was a tall, antique mirror, which waswell worthy of a tale by itself, and perhaps may hereafter be thetheme of one. The gold of its heavily-wrought frame wastarnished, and its surface so blurred, that the old woman'sfigure, whenever she paused before it, looked indistinct andghost-like. But it was the general belief that Esther could causethe Governors of the overthrown dynasty, with the beautifulladies who had once adorned their festivals, the Indian chiefswho had come up to the Province House to hold council or swearallegiance, the grim Provincial warriors, the severeclergymen--in short, all the pageantry of gone days--all thefigures that ever swept across the broad plate of glass in formertimes--she could cause the whole to reappear, and people theinner world of the mirror with shadows of old life. Such legendsas these, together with the singularity of her isolatedexistence, her age, and the infirmity that each added winterflung upon her, made Mistress Dudley the object both of fear andpity; and it was partly the result of either sentiment that, amidall the angry license of the times, neither wrong nor insult everfell upon her unprotected head. Indeed, there was so muchhaughtiness in her demeanor towards intruders, among whom shereckoned all persons acting under the new authorities, that itwas really an affair of no small nerve to look her in the face.And to do the people justice, stern republicans as they had nowbecome, they were well content that the old gentlewoman, in herhoop petticoat and faded embroidery, should still haunt thepalace of ruined pride and overthrown power, the symbol of adeparted system, embodying a history in her person. So EstherDudley dwelt year after year in the Province House, stillreverencing all that others had flung aside, still faithful toher King, who, so long as the venerable dame yet held her post,might be said to retain one true subject in New England, and onespot of the empire that had been wrested from him.
And did she dwell there in utter loneliness? Rumor said, not so.Whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she waswont to summon a black slave of Governor Shirley's from theblurred mirror, and send him in search of guests who had long agobeen familiar in those deserted chambers. Forth went the sablemessenger, with the starlight or the moonshine gleaming throughhim, and did his errand in the burial ground, knocking at theiron doors of tombs, or upon the marble slabs that covered them,and whispering to those within: "My mistress, old Esther Dudley,bids you to the Province House at midnight." And punctually asthe clock of the Old South told twelve came the shadows of theOlivers, the Hutchinsons, the Dudleys, all the grandees of aby-gone generation, gliding beneath the portal into thewell-known mansion, where Esther mingled with them as if shelikewise were a shade. Without vouching for the truth of suchtraditions, it is certain that Mistress Dudley sometimesassembled a few of the stanch, though crestfallen, old Tories,who had lingered in the rebel town during those days of wrath andtribulation. Out of a cobwebbed bottle, containing liquor that aroyal Governor might have smacked his lips over, they quaffedhealths to the King, and babbled treason to the Republic, feelingas if the protecting shadow of the throne were still flung aroundthem. But, draining the last drops of their liquor, they stoletimorously homeward, and answered not again if the rude mobreviled them in the street.
Yet Esther Dudley's most frequent and favored guests were thechildren of the town. Towards them she was never stern. A kindlyand loving nature, hindered elsewhere from its free course by athousand rocky prejudices, lavished itself upon these littleones. By bribes of gingerbread of her own making, stamped with aroyal crown, she tempted their sunny sportiveness beneath thegloomy portal of the Province House, and would often beguile themto spend a whole play-day there, sitting in a circle round theverge of her hoop petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories ofa dead world. And when these little boys and girls stole forthagain from the dark, mysterious mansion, they went bewildered,full of old feelings that graver people had long ago forgotten,rubbing their eyes at the world around them as if they had goneastray into ancient times, and become children of the past. Athome, when their parents asked where they had loitered such aweary while, and with whom they had been at play, the childrenwould talk of all the departed worthies of the Province, as farback as Governor Belcher and the haughty dame of Sir WilliamPhipps. It would seem as though they had been sitting on theknees of these famous personages, whom the grave had hidden forhalf a century, and had toyed with the embroidery of their richwaistcoats, or roguishly pulled the long curls of their flowingwigs. "But Governor Belcher has been dead this many a year,"would the mother say to her little boy. "And did you really seehim at the Province House?" "Oh yes, dear mother! yes!" thehalf-dreaming child would answer. "But when old Esther had donespeaking about him he faded away out of his chair." Thus, withoutaffrighting her little guests, she led them by the hand into thechambers of her own desolate heart, and made childhood's fancydiscern the ghosts that haunted there.
Living so continually in her own circle of ideas, and neverregulating her mind by a proper reference to present things,Esther Dudley appears to have grown partially crazed. It wasfound that she had no right sense of the progress and true stateof the Revolutionary War, but held a constant faith that thearmies of Britain were victorious on every field, and destined tobe ultimately triumphant. Whenever the town rejoiced for a battlewon by Washington, or Gates, or Morgan or Greene, the news, inpassing through the door of the Province House, as through theivory gate of dreams, became metamorphosed into a strange tale ofthe prowess of Howe, Clinton, or Cornwallis. Sooner or later itwas her invincible belief the colonies would be prostrate at thefootstool of the King. Sometimes she seemed to take for grantedthat such was already the case. On one occasion, she startled thetownspeople by a brilliant illumination of the Province House,with candles at every pane of glass, and a transparency of theKing's initials and a crown of light in the great balcony window.The figure of the aged woman in the most gorgeous of her mildewedvelvets and brocades was seen passing from casement to casement,until she paused before the balcony, and flourished a huge keyabove her head. Her wrinkled visage actually gleamed withtriumph, as if the soul within her were a festal lamp.
"What means this blaze of light? What does old Esther's joyportend?" whispered a spectator. "It is frightful to see hergliding about the chambers, and rejoicing there without a soul tobear her company."
"It is as if she were making merry in a tomb," said another.
"Pshaw! It is no such mystery," observed an old man, after somebrief exercise of memory. "Mistress Dudley is keeping jubilee forthe King of England's birthday."
Then the people laughed aloud, and would have thrown mud againstthe blazing transparency of the King's crown and initials, onlythat they pitied the poor old dame, who was so dismallytriumphant amid the wreck and ruin of the system to which sheappertained.
Oftentimes it was her custom to climb the weary staircase thatwound upward to the cupola, and thence strain her dimmed eyesightseaward and countryward, watching for a British fleet, or for themarch of a grand procession, with the King's banner floating overit. The passengers in the street below would discern her anxiousvisage, and send up a shout, "When the golden Indian on theProvince House shall shoot his arrow, and when the cock on theOld South spire shall crow, then look for a Royal Governoragain!"--for this had grown a byword through the town. And atlast, after long, long years, old Esther Dudley knew, orperchance she only dreamed, that a Royal Governor was on the eveof returning to the Province House, to receive the heavy keywhich Sir William Howe had comm
itted to her charge. Now it wasthe fact that intelligence bearing some faint analogy to Esther'sversion of it was current among the townspeople. She set themansion in the best order that her means allowed, and, arrayingherself in silks and tarnished gold, stood long before theblurred mirror to admire her own magnificence. As she gazed, thegray and withered lady moved her ashen lips, murmuring halfaloud, talking to shapes that she saw within the mirror, toshadows of her own fantasies, to the household friends of memory,and bidding them rejoice with her and come forth to meet theGovernor. And while absorbed in this communion, Mistress Dudleyheard the tramp of many footsteps in the street, and, looking outat the window, beheld what she construed as the Royal Governor'sarrival.
"O happy day! O blessed, blessed hour!" she exclaimed. "Let mebut bid him welcome within the portal, and my task in theProvince House, and on earth, is done!"
Then with tottering feet, which age and tremulous joy caused totread amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her silkssweeping and rustling as she went, so that the sound was as if atrain of spectral courtiers were thronging from the dim mirror.And Esther Dudley fancied that as soon as the wide door should beflung open, all the pomp and splendor of by-gone times would pacemajestically into the Province House, and the gilded tapestry ofthe past would be brightened by the sunshine of the present. Sheturned the key--withdrew it from the lock--unclosed the door--andstepped across the threshold. Advancing up the court-yardappeared a person of most dignified mien, with tokens, as Estherinterpreted them, of gentle blood, high rank, and long-accustomedauthority, even in his walk and every gesture. He was richlydressed, but wore a gouty shoe which, however, did not lessen thestateliness of his gait. Around and behind him were people inplain civic dresses, and two or three war-worn veterans,evidently officers of rank, arrayed in a uniform of blue andbuff. But Esther Dudley, firm in the belief that had fastened itsroots about her heart, beheld only the principal personage, andnever doubted that this was the long-looked-for Governor, to whomshe was to surrender up her charge. As he approached, sheinvoluntary sank down on her knees and tremblingly held forth theheavy key.
"Receive my trust! take it quickly!" cried she, "for methinksDeath is striving to snatch away my triumph. But he comes toolate. Thank Heaven for this blessed hour! God save King George!"
"That, Madam, is a strange prayer to be offered up at such amoment," replied the unknown guest of the Province House, andcourteously removing his hat, he offered his arm to raise theaged woman. "Yet, in reverence for your gray hairs and long-keptfaith, Heaven forbid that any here should say you nay. Over therealms which still acknowledge his sceptre, God save KingGeorge!"
Esther Dudley started to her feet, and hastily clutching back thekey gazed with fearful earnestness at the stranger; and dimly anddoubtfully, as if suddenly awakened from a dream, her bewilderedeyes half recognized his face. Years ago she had known him amongthe gentry of the province. But the ban of the King had fallenupon him! How, then, came the doomed victim here? Proscribed,excluded from mercy, the monarch's most dreaded and hated foe,this New England merchant had stood triumphantly against akingdom's strength; and his foot now trod upon humbled Royalty,as he ascended the steps of the Province House, the people'schosen Governor of Massachusetts.
"Wretch, wretch that I am!" muttered the old woman, with such aheart-broken expression that the tears gushed from the stranger'seyes "Have I bidden a traitor welcome? Come, Death! comequickly!"
"Alas, venerable lady!" said Governor Hancock, tending her hissupport with all the reverence that a courtier would have shownto a queen.
"Your life has been prolonged until the world has changed aroundyou. You have treasured up all that time has renderedworthless--the principles, feelings, manners, modes of being andacting, which another generation has flung aside--and you are asymbol of the past. And I, and these around me--we represent anew race of men--living no longer in the past, scarcely in thepresent--but projecting our lives forward into the future.Ceasing to model ourselves on ancestral superstitions, it is ourfaith and principle to press onward, onward! Yet," continued he,turning to his attendants, "let us reverence, for the last time,the stately and gorgeous prejudices of the tottering Past!"
While the Republican Governor spoke, he had continued to supportthe helpless form of Esther Dudley; her weight grew heavieragainst his arm; but at last, with a sudden effort to freeherself, the ancient woman sank down beside one of the pillars ofthe portal. The key of the Province House fell from her grasp,and clanked against the stone.
"I have been faithful unto death," murmured she. "God save the King!"
"She hath done her office!" said Hancock solemnly. "We will followher reverently to the tomb of her ancestors; and then, my fellow-citizens,onward--onward! We are no longer children of the Past!"
As the old loyalist concluded his narrative, theenthusiasm which had been fitfully flashing within his sunkeneyes, and quivering across his wrinkled visage, faded away, as ifall the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. Just then,too, a lamp upon the mantel-piece threw out a dying gleam, whichvanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes togrope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth.With such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam,had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the ProvinceHouse, when the spirit of old Esther Dudley took its flight. Andnow, again, the clock of the Old South threw its voice of ages onthe breeze, knolling the hourly knell of the Past, crying out farand wide through the multitudinous city, and filling our ears, aswe sat in the dusky chamber, with its reverberating depth oftone. In that same mansion--in that very chamber--what a volumeof history had been told off into hours, by the same voice thatwas now trembling in the air. Many a Governor had heard thosemidnight accents, and longed to exchange his stately cares forslumber. And as for mine host and Mr. Bela Tiffany and the oldloyalist and me, we had babbled about dreams of the past, untilwe almost fancied that the clock was still striking in a bygonecentury. Neither of us would have wondered, had ahoop-petticoated phantom of Esther Dudley tottered into thechamber, walking her rounds in the hush of midnight, as of yore,and motioned us to quench the fading embers of the fire, andleave the historic precincts to herself and her kindred shades.But as no such vision was vouchsafed, I retired unbidden, andwould advise Mr. Tiffany to lay hold of another auditor, beingresolved not to show my face in the Province House for a goodwhile hence--if ever.
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