Twice-told tales
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