Twice-Told Tales (29 page)

The Province House is constructed of brick, which seems recently to
have been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint. A flight of red
freestone steps fenced in by a balustrade of curiously wrought iron
ascends from the court-yard to the spacious porch, over which is a
balcony with an iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to
that beneath. These letters and figures—"16 P.S. 79"—are wrought
into the ironwork of the balcony, and probably express the date of the
edifice, with the initials of its founder's name.

A wide door with double leaves admitted me into the hall or entry, on
the right of which is the entrance to the bar-room. It was in this
apartment, I presume, that the ancient governors held their levees
with vice-regal pomp, surrounded by the military men, the counsellors,
the judges, and other officers of the Crown, while all the loyalty of
the province thronged to do them honor. But the room in its present
condition cannot boast even of faded magnificence. The panelled
wainscot is covered with dingy paint and acquires a duskier hue from
the deep shadow into which the Province House is thrown by the brick
block that shuts it in from Washington street. A ray of sunshine never
visits this apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches
which have been extinguished from the era of the Revolution. The most
venerable and ornamental object is a chimney-piece set round with
Dutch tiles of blue-figured china, representing scenes from Scripture,
and, for aught I know, the lady of Pownall or Bernard may have sat
beside this fireplace and told her children the story of each blue
tile. A bar in modern style, well replenished with decanters, bottles,
cigar-boxes and network bags of lemons, and provided with a beer-pump
and a soda-fount, extends along one side of the room.

At my entrance an elderly person was smacking his lips with a zest
which satisfied me that the cellars of the Province House still hold
good liquor, though doubtless of other vintages than were quaffed by
the old governors. After sipping a glass of port-sangaree prepared by
the skilful hands of Mr. Thomas Waite, I besought that worthy
successor and representative of so many historic personages to conduct
me over their time-honored mansion. He readily complied, but, to
confess the truth, I was forced to draw strenuously upon my
imagination in order to find aught that was interesting in a house
which, without its historic associations, would have seemed merely
such a tavern as is usually favored by the custom of decent city
boarders and old-fashioned country gentlemen. The chambers, which were
probably spacious in former times, are now cut up by partitions and
subdivided into little nooks, each affording scanty room for the
narrow bed and chair and dressing-table of a single lodger: The great
staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature
of grandeur and magnificence. It winds through the midst of the house
by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square
landing-place, whence the ascent is continued toward the cupola. A
carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower stories, but growing
dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted
and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. Up these stairs the
military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a governor have
trodden as the wearers mounted to the cupola which afforded them so
wide a view over their metropolis and the surrounding country. The
cupola is an octagon with several windows, and a door opening upon the
roof. From this station, as I pleased myself 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.