Twice-told tales
with imagining, Gage may have beheld his disastrous victory on Bunker
Hill (unless one of the tri-mountains intervened), and Howe have marked
the approaches of Washington’s besieging army, although the buildings
since erected in the vicinity have shut out almost every object save
the steeple of the Old South, which seems almost within arm’s length.
Descending from the cupola, I paused in the garret to observe the
ponderous white-oak framework, so much more massive than the frames of
modern houses, and thereby resembling an antique skeleton. The brick
walls, the materials of which were imported from Holland, and the
timbers of the mansion, are still as sound as ever, but, the floors and
other interior parts being greatly decayed, it is contemplated to gut
the whole and build a new house within the ancient frame-and brickwork.
Among other inconveniences of the present edifice, mine host mentioned
that any jar or motion was apt to shake down the dust of ages out of
the ceiling of one chamber upon the floor of that beneath it.
We stepped forth from the great front window into the balcony where in
old times it was doubtless the custom of the king’s representative to
show himself to a loyal populace, requiting their huzzas and tossed-up
hats with stately bendings of his dignified person. In those days the
front of the Province House looked upon the street, and the whole site
now occupied by the brick range of stores, as well as the present
court-yard, was laid out in grass-plats overshadowed by trees and
bordered by a wrought-iron fence. Now the old aristocratic edifice
hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart modern building; at one of
the back windows I observed some pretty tailoresses sewing and chatting
and laughing, with now and then a careless glance toward the balcony.
Descending thence, we again entered the bar-room, where the elderly
gentleman above mentioned—the smack of whose lips had spoken so
favorably for Mr. Waite’s good liquor—was still lounging in his chair.
He seemed to be, if not a lodger, at least a familiar visitor of the
house who might be supposed to have his regular score at the bar, his
summer seat at the open window and his prescriptive corner at the
winter’s fireside. Being of a sociable aspect, I ventured to address
him with a remark calculated to draw forth his historical
reminiscences, if any such were in his mind, and it gratified me to
discover that, between memory and tradition, the old gentleman was
really possessed of some very pleasant gossip about the Province House.
The portion of his talk which chiefly interested me was the outline of
the following legend. He professed to have received it at one or two
removes from an eye-witness, but this derivation, together with the
lapse of time, must have afforded opportunities for many variations of
the narrative; so that, despairing of literal and absolute truth, I
have not scrupled to make such further changes as seemed conducive to
the reader’s profit and delight.
At one of the entertainments given at the province-house during the
latter part of the siege of Boston there passed a scene which has never
yet been satisfactorily explained. The officers of the British army and
the loyal gentry of the province, most of whom were collected within
the beleaguered town, had been invited to a masqued ball, for it was
the policy for Sir William Howe to hide the distress and danger of the
period and the desperate aspect of the siege under an ostentation of
festivity. The spectacle of this evening, if the oldest members of the
provincial court circle might be believed, was the most gay and
gorgeous affair that had occurred in the annals of the government. The
brilliantly-lighted apartments were thronged with figures that seemed
to have stepped from the dark canvas of historic portraits or to have
flitted forth from the magic pages of romance, or at least to have
flown hither from one of the London theatres without a change of
garments. Steeled knights of the Conquest, bearded statesmen of Queen
Elizabeth and high-ruffed ladies of her court were mingled with
characters of comedy, such as a parti-colored Merry Andrew jingling his
cap and bells, a Falstaff almost as provocative of laughter as his
prototype, and a Don Quixote with a bean-pole for a lance and a pot-lid
for a shield.
But the broadest merriment was excited by a group of figures
ridiculously dressed in old regimentals which seemed to have been
purchased at a military rag-fair or pilfered from some receptacle of
the cast-off clothes of both the French and British armies. Portions of
their attire had probably been worn at the siege of Louisburg, and the
coats of most recent cut might have been rent and tattered by sword,
ball or bayonet as long ago as Wolfe’s victory. One of these worthies—a
tall, lank figure brandishing a rusty sword of immense
longitude—purported to be no less a personage than General George
Washington, and the other principal officers of the American army, such
as Gates, Lee, Putnam, Schuyler, Ward and Heath, were represented by
similar scarecrows. An interview in the mock-heroic style between the
rebel warriors and the British commander-in-chief was received with
immense applause, which came loudest of all from the loyalists of the
colony.
There was one of the guests, however, who stood apart, eying these
antics sternly and scornfully at once with a frown and a bitter smile.
It was an old man formerly of high station and great repute in the
province, and who had been a very famous soldier in his day. Some
surprise had been expressed that a person of Colonel Joliffe’s known
Whig principles, though now too old to take an active part in the
contest, should have remained in Boston during the siege, and
especially that he should consent to show himself in the mansion of Sir
William Howe. But thither he had come with a fair granddaughter under
his arm, and there, amid all the mirth and buffoonery, stood this stern
old figure, the best-sustained character in the masquerade, because so
well representing the antique spirit of his native land. The other
guests affirmed that Colonel Joliffe’s black puritanical scowl threw a
shadow round about him, although, in spite of his sombre influence,
their gayety continued to blaze higher, like—an ominous comparison—the
flickering brilliancy of a lamp which has but a little while to burn.
Eleven strokes full half an hour ago had pealed from the clock of the
Old South, when a rumor was circulated among the company that some new
spectacle or pageant was about to be exhibited which should put a
fitting close to the splendid festivities of the night.
“What new jest has Your Excellency in hand?” asked the Reverend Mather
Byles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him from the
entertainment. “Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more than beseems
my cloth at your Homeric confabulation with yonder ragamuffin general
of the rebels. One other such fit of merriment, and I must throw off my
clerical wig and band.”
“Not so, good Dr. Byles,” answered Sir William Howe; “if mirth were a
crime, you had never gained your doctorate in divinity. As to this new
foolery, I know no more about it than yourself—perhaps not so much.
Honestly, now, doctor, have you not stirred up the sober brains of some
of your countrymen to enact a scene in our masquerade?”
“Perhaps,” slyly remarked the granddaughter of Colonel Joliffe, whose
high spirit had been stung by many taunts against New England—“perhaps
we are to have a masque of allegorical figures—Victory with trophies
from Lexington and Bunker Hill, Plenty with her overflowing horn to
typify the present abundance in this good town, and Glory with a wreath
for His Excellency’s brow.”
Sir William Howe smiled at words which he would have answered with one
of his darkest frowns had they been uttered by lips that wore a beard.
He was spared the necessity of a retort by a singular interruption. A
sound of music was heard without the house, as if proceeding from a
full band of military instruments stationed in the street, playing, not
such a festal strain as was suited to the occasion, but a slow
funeral-march. The drums appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets
poured forth a wailing breath which at once hushed the merriment of the
auditors, filling all with wonder and some with apprehension. The idea
occurred to many that either the funeral procession of some great
personage had halted in front of the province-house, or that a corpse
in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-decorated coffin was about to be
borne from the portal. After listening a moment, Sir William Howe
called in a stern voice to the leader of the musicians, who had
hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies.
The man was drum-major to one of the British regiments.
“Dighton,” demanded the general, “what means this foolery? Bid your
band silence that dead march, or, by my word, they shall have
sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains. Silence it, sirrah!”
“Please, Your Honor,” answered the drum-major, whose rubicund visage
had lost all its color, “the fault is none of mine. I and my band are
all here together, and I question whether there be a man of us that
could play that march without book. I never heard it but once before,
and that was at the funeral of his late Majesty, King George II.”
“Well, well!” said Sir William Howe, recovering his composure; “it is
the prelude to some masquerading antic. Let it pass.”
A figure now presented itself, but among the many fantastic masks that
were dispersed through the apartments none could tell precisely from
whence it came. It was a man in an old-fashioned dress of black serge
and having the aspect of a steward or principal domestic in the
household of a nobleman or great English landholder. This figure
advanced to the outer door of the mansion, and, throwing both its
leaves wide open, withdrew a little to one side and looked back toward
the grand staircase, as if expecting some person to descend. At the
same time, the music in the street sounded a loud and doleful summons.
The eyes of Sir William Howe and his guests being directed to the
staircase, there appeared on the uppermost landing-place, that was
discernible from the bottom, several personages descending toward the
door. The foremost was a man of stern visage, wearing a steeple-crowned
hat and a skull-cap beneath it, a dark cloak and huge wrinkled boots
that came halfway up his legs. Under his arm was a rolled-up banner
which seemed to be the banner of England, but strangely rent and torn;
he had a sword in his right hand and grasped a Bible in his left. The
next figure was of milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad
ruff, over which descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet and a
doublet and hose of black satin; he carried a roll of manuscript in his
hand. Close behind these two came a young man of very striking
countenance and demeanor with deep thought and contemplation on his
brow, and perhaps a flash of enthusiasm in his eye; his garb, like that
of his predecessors, was of an antique fashion, and there was a stain
of blood upon his ruff. In the same group with these were three or four
others, all men of dignity and evident command, and bearing themselves
like personages who were accustomed to the gaze of the multitude. It
was the idea of the beholders that these figures went to join the
mysterious funeral that had halted in front of the province-house, yet
that supposition seemed to be contradicted by the air of triumph with
which they waved their hands as they crossed the threshold and vanished
through the portal.
“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