Twice-Told Tales (30 page)

"In the devil's name, what is this?" muttered Sir William Howe to a
gentleman beside him. "A procession of the regicide judges of King
Charles the martyr?"

"These," said Colonel Joliffe, breaking silence almost for the first
time that evening—"these, if I interpret them aright, are the
Puritan governors, the rulers of the old original democracy of
Massachusetts—Endicott with the banner from which he had torn the
symbol of subjection, and Winthrop and Sir Henry Vane and Dudley,
Haynes, Bellingham and Leverett."

"Why had that young man a stain of blood upon his ruff?" asked Miss
Joliffe.

"Because in after-years," answered her grandfather, "he laid down the
wisest head in England upon the block for the principles of liberty."

"Will not Your Excellency order out the guard?" whispered Lord Percy,
who, with other British officers, had now assembled round the general.
"There may be a plot under this mummery."

"Tush! we have nothing to fear," carelessly replied Sir William Howe.
"There can be no worse treason in the matter than a jest, and that
somewhat of the dullest. Even were it a sharp and bitter one, our best
policy would be to laugh it off. See! here come more of these gentry."

Another group of characters had now partly descended the staircase.
The first was a venerable and white-bearded patriarch who cautiously
felt his way downward with a staff. Treading hastily behind him, and
stretching forth his gauntleted hand as if to grasp the old man's
shoulder, came a tall soldier-like figure equipped with a plumed cap
of steel, a bright breastplate and a long sword, which rattled against
the stairs. Next was seen a stout man dressed in rich and courtly
attire, but not of courtly demeanor; his gait had the swinging motion
of a seaman's walk, and, chancing to stumble on the staircase, he
suddenly grew wrathful and was heard to mutter an oath. He was
followed by a noble-looking personage in a curled wig such as are
represented in the portraits of Queen Anne's time and earlier, and the
breast of his coat was decorated with an embroidered star. While
advancing to the door he bowed to the right hand and to the left in a
very gracious and insinuating style, but as he crossed the threshold,
unlike the early Puritan governors, he seemed to wring his hands with
sorrow.

"Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Dr. Byles," said Sir William
Howe. "What worthies are these?"

"If it please Your Excellency, they lived somewhat before my day,"
answered the doctor; "but doubtless our friend the colonel has been
hand and glove with them."

"Their living faces I never looked upon," said Colonel Joliffe,
gravely; "although I have spoken face to face with many rulers of this
land, and shall greet yet another with an old man's blessing ere I
die. But we talk of these figures. I take the venerable patriarch to
be Bradstreet, the last of the Puritans, who was governor at ninety or
thereabouts. The next is Sir Edmund Andros, a tyrant, as any New
England schoolboy will tell you, and therefore the people cast him
down from his high seat into a dungeon. Then comes Sir William Phipps,
shepherd, cooper, sea-captain and governor. May many of his countrymen
rise as high from as low an origin! Lastly, you saw the gracious earl
of Bellamont, who ruled us under King William."

"But what is the meaning of it all?" asked Lord Percy.

"Now, were I a rebel," said Miss Joliffe, half aloud, "I might fancy
that the ghosts of these ancient governors had been summoned to form
the funeral procession of royal authority in New England."

Several other figures were now seen at the turn of the staircase. The
one in advance had a thoughtful, anxious and somewhat crafty
expression of face, and in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was
evidently the result both of an ambitious spirit and of long
continuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing to a
greater than himself. A few steps behind came an officer in a scarlet
and embroidered uniform cut in a fashion old enough to have been worn
by the duke of Marlborough. His nose had a rubicund tinge, which,
together with the twinkle of his eye, might have marked him as a lover
of the wine-cup and good-fellowship; notwithstanding which tokens, he
appeared ill at ease, and often glanced around him as if apprehensive
of some secret mischief. Next came a portly gentleman wearing a coat
of shaggy cloth lined with silken velvet; he had sense, shrewdness and
humor in his face and a folio volume under his arm, but his aspect was
that of a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience and harassed
almost to death. He went hastily down, and was followed by a dignified
person dressed in a purple velvet suit with very rich embroidery; his
demeanor would have possessed much stateliness, only that a grievous
fit of the gout compelled him to hobble from stair to stair with
contortions of face and body. When Dr. Byles beheld this figure on the
staircase, he shivered as with an ague, but continued to watch him
steadfastly until the gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, made
a gesture of anguish and despair and vanished into the outer gloom,
whither the funeral music summoned him.

"Governor Belcher—my old patron—in his very shape and dress!" gasped
Dr. Byles. "This is an awful mockery."

"A tedious foolery, rather," said Sir William Howe, with an air of
indifference. "But who were the three that preceded him?"

"Governor Dudley, a cunning politician; yet his craft once brought him
to a prison," replied Colonel Joliffe. "Governor Shute, formerly a
colonel under Marlborough, and whom the people frightened out of the
province, and learned Governor Burnett, whom the legislature tormented
into a mortal fever."

"Methinks they were miserable men—these royal governors of
Massachusetts," observed Miss Joliffe. "Heavens! how dim the light
grows!"

It was certainly a fact that the large lamp which illuminated the
staircase now burned dim and duskily; so that several figures which
passed hastily down the stairs and went forth from the porch appeared
rather like shadows than persons of fleshly substance.

Sir William Howe and his guests stood at the doors of the contiguous
apartments watching the progress of this singular pageant with various
emotions of anger, contempt or half-acknowledged fear, but still with
an anxious curiosity. The shapes which now seemed hastening to join
the mysterious procession were recognized rather by striking
peculiarities of dress or broad characteristics of manner than by any
perceptible resemblance of features to their prototypes. Their faces,
indeed, were invariably kept in deep shadow, but Dr. Byles and other
gentlemen who had long been familiar with the successive rulers of the
province were heard to whisper the names of Shirley, of Pownall, of
Sir Francis Bernard and of the well-remembered Hutchinson, thereby
confessing that the actors, whoever they might be, in this spectral
march of governors had succeeded in putting on some distant
portraiture of the real personages. As they vanished from the door,
still did these shadows toss their arms into the gloom of night with a
dread expression of woe. Following the mimic representative of
Hutchinson came a military figure holding before his face the cocked
hat which he had taken from his powdered head, but his epaulettes and
other insignia of rank were those of a general officer, and something
in his mien reminded the beholders of one who had recently been master
of the province-house and chief of all the land.

"The shape of Gage, as true as in a looking-glass!" exclaimed Lord
Percy, turning pale.

"No, surely," cried Miss Joliffe, laughing hysterically; "it could not
be Gage, or Sir William would have greeted his old comrade in arms.
Perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass unchallenged."

"Of that be assured, young lady," answered Sir William Howe, fixing
his eyes with a very marked expression upon the immovable visage of
her grandfather. "I have long enough delayed to pay the ceremonies of
a host to these departing guests; the next that takes his leave shall
receive due courtesy."

A wild and dreary burst of music came through the open door. It seemed
as it the procession, which had been gradually filling up its ranks,
were now about to move, and that this loud peal of the wailing
trumpets and roll of the muffled drums were a call to some loiterer to
make haste. Many eyes, by an irresistible impulse, were turned upon
Sir William Howe, as if it were he whom the dreary music summoned to
the funeral of departed power.

"See! here comes the last," whispered Miss Joliffe, pointing her
tremulous finger to the staircase.

A figure had come into view as if descending the stairs, although so
dusky was the region whence it emerged some of the spectators fancied
that they had seen this human shape suddenly moulding itself amid the
gloom. Downward the figure came with a stately and martial tread, and,
reaching the lowest stair, was observed to be a tall man booted and
wrapped in a military cloak, which was drawn up around the face so as
to meet the napped brim of a laced hat; the features, therefore, were
completely hidden. But the British officers deemed that they had seen
that military cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery
on the collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which
protruded from the folds of the cloak and glittered in a vivid gleam
of light. Apart from these trifling particulars there were
characteristics of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering
guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir William Howe, as if
to satisfy themselves that their host had not suddenly vanished from
the midst of them. With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow, they saw
the general draw his sword and advance to meet the figure in the cloak
before the latter had stepped one pace upon the floor.

"Villain, unmuffle yourself!" cried he. "You pass no farther."

The figure, without blenching a hair's-breadth from the sword which
was pointed at his breast, made a solemn pause and lowered the cape of
the cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently for the spectators
to catch a glimpse of it. But Sir William Howe had evidently seen
enough. The sternness of his countenance gave place to a look of wild
amazement, if not horror, while he recoiled several steps from the
figure and let fall his sword upon the floor. The martial shape again
drew the cloak about his features and passed on, but, reaching the
threshold with his back toward the spectators, he was seen to stamp
his foot and shake his clenched hands in the air. It was afterward
affirmed that Sir William Howe had repeated that selfsame gesture of
rage and sorrow when for the last time, and as the last royal
governor, he passed through the portal of the province-house.

"Hark! The procession moves," said Miss Joliffe.

The music was dying away along the street, and its dismal strains were
mingled with the knell of midnight from the steeple of the Old South
and with the roar of artillery which announced that the beleaguered
army of Washington had intrenched itself upon a nearer height than
before. As the deep boom of the cannon smote upon his ear Colonel
Joliffe raised himself to the full height of his aged form and smiled
sternly on the British general.

"Would Your Excellency inquire further into the mystery of the
pageant?" said he.

"Take care of your gray head!" cried Sir William Howe, fiercely,
though with a quivering lip. "It has stood too long on a traitor's
shoulders."

"You must make haste to chop it off, then," calmly replied the
colonel, "for a few hours longer, and not all the power of Sir William
Howe, nor of his master, shall cause one of these gray hairs to fall.
The empire of Britain in this ancient province is at its last gasp
to-night; almost while I speak it is a dead corpse, and methinks the
shadows of the old governors are fit mourners at its funeral."

With these words Colonel Joliffe threw on his cloak, and, drawing his
granddaughter's arm within his own, retired from the last festival
that a British ruler ever held in the old province of Massachusetts
Bay. It was supposed that the colonel and the young lady possessed
some secret intelligence in regard to the mysterious pageant of that
night. However this might be, such knowledge has never become general.
The actors in the scene have vanished into deeper obscurity than even
that wild Indian hand who scattered the cargoes of the tea-ships on
the waves and gained a place in history, yet left no names. But
superstition, among other legends of this mansion, repeats the
wondrous tale that on the anniversary night of Britain's discomfiture
the ghosts of the ancient governors of Massachusetts still glide
through the portal of the Province House. And last of all comes a
figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his clenched hands into
the air and stamping his iron-shod boots upon the broad freestone
steps with a semblance of feverish despair, but without the sound of a
foot-tramp.

When the truth-telling accents of the elderly gentleman were hushed, I
drew a long breath and looked round the room, striving with the best
energy of my imagination to throw a tinge of romance and historic
grandeur over the realities of the scene. But my nostrils snuffed up a
scent of cigar-smoke, clouds of which the narrator had emitted by way
of visible emblem, I suppose, of the nebulous obscurity of his tale.
Moreover, my gorgeous fantasies were woefully disturbed by the
rattling of the spoon in a tumbler of whiskey-punch which Mr. Thomas
Waite was mingling for a customer. Nor did it add to the picturesque
appearance of the panelled walls that the slate of the Brookline stage
was suspended against them, instead of the armorial escutcheon of some
far-descended governor. A stage-driver sat at one of the windows
reading a penny paper of the day—the Boston
Times
—and presenting a
figure which could nowise be brought into any picture of "Times in
Boston" seventy or a hundred years ago. On the window-seat lay a
bundle neatly done up in brown paper, the direction of which I had the
idle curiosity to read: "MISS SUSAN HUGGINS, at the PROVINCE HOUSE." A
pretty chambermaid, no doubt. In truth, it is desperately hard work
when we attempt to throw the spell of hoar antiquity over localities
with which the living world and the day that is passing over us have
aught to do. Yet, as I glanced at the stately staircase down which the
procession of the old governors had descended, and as I emerged
through the venerable portal whence their figures had preceded me, it
gladdened me to be conscious of a thrill of awe. Then, diving through
the narrow archway, a few strides transported me into the densest
throng of Washington street.