"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - Lady Eleanores Mantle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

have appeared stiff and ungraceful on any other form.

The coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole
cavalcade came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade
that fenced the Province House from the public street. It was an
awkward coincidence that the bell of the Old South was just then
tolling for a funeral; so that, instead of a gladsome peal with
which it was customary to announce the arrival of distinguished
strangers, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as
if calamity had come embodied in her beautiful person.

"A very great disrespect!" exclaimed Captain Langford, an English
officer, who had recently brought dispatches to Governor Shute. "The
funeral should have been deferred, lest Lady Eleanore's spirits be
affected by such a dismal welcome."

"With your pardon, sir," replied Doctor Clarke, a physician, and
a famous champion of the popular party, "whatever the heralds may
pretend, a dead beggar must have precedence of a living queen. King
Death confers high privileges."

These remarks were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage
through the crowd, which had gathered on each side of the gateway,
leaving an open avenue to the portal of the Province House. A black
slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach, and threw open the
door; while at the same moment Governor Shute descended the flight
of steps from his mansion, to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. But
the Governor's stately approach was anticipated in a manner that
excited general astonishment. A pale young man, with his black hair
all in disorder, rushed from the throng, and prostrated himself beside
the coach, thus offering his person as a footstool for Lady Eleanore
Rochcliffe to tread upon. She held back an instant, yet with an
expression as if doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear
the weight of her footstep, rather than dissatisfied to receive such
awful reverence from a fellow-mortal.

"Up, sir," said the Governor, sternly, at the same time lifting his
cane over the intruder. "What means the Bedlamite by this freak?"

"Nay," answered Lady Eleanore playfully, but with more scorn than
pity in her tone, "your Excellency shall not strike him. When men seek
only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so
easily granted- and so well deserved!"

Then, though as lightly as a sunbeam on a cloud, she placed her
foot upon the cowering form, and extended her hand to meet that of the
Governor. There was a brief interval, during which Lady Eleanore
retained this attitude; and never, surely, was there an apter emblem
of aristocracy and hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies
and the kindred of nature, than these two figures presented at that