"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - Old Esther Dudley" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

the mansion was to glide through its passages and public chambers,
late at night, to see that the servants had dropped no fire from their
flaring torches, nor left embers crackling and blazing on the hearths.
Perhaps it was this invariable custom of walking her rounds in the
hush of midnight that caused the superstition of the times to invest
the old woman with attributes of awe and mystery; fabling that she had
entered the portal of the Province House, none knew whence, in the
train of the first Royal Governor, and that it was her fate to dwell
there till the last should have departed. But Sir William Howe, if
he ever heard this legend, had forgotten it.

"Mistress Dudley, why are you loitering here?" asked he, with
some severity of tone. "It is my pleasure to be the last in this
mansion of the King."

"Not so, if it please your Excellency," answered the
time-stricken woman. "This roof has sheltered me long. I will not pass
from it until they bear me to the tomb of my forefathers. What other
shelter is there for old Esther Dudley, save the Province House or the
grave?"

"Now Heaven forgive me!" said Sir William Howe to himself. "I was
about to leave this wretched old creature to starve or beg. Take this,
good Mistress Dudley," he added, putting a purse into her hands. "King
George's head on these golden guineas is sterling yet, and will
continue so, I warrant you, even should the rebels crown John
Hancock their king. That purse will buy a better shelter than the
Province House can now afford."

"While the burden of life remains upon me, I will have no other
shelter than this roof," persisted Esther Dudley, striking her staff
upon the floor with a gesture that expressed immovable resolve. "And
when your Excellency returns in triumph, I will totter into the
porch to welcome you."

"My poor old friend!" answered the British General- and all his
manly and martial pride could no longer restrain a gush of bitter
tears. "This is an evil hour for you and me. The Province which the
King intrusted to my charge is lost. I go hence in misfortune-
perchance in disgrace- to return no more. And you, whose present being
is incorporated with the past- who have seen Governor after
Governor, in stately pageantry, ascend these steps- whose whole life
has been an observance of majestic ceremonies, and a worship of the
King- how will you endure the change? Come with us! Bid farewell to
a land that has shaken off its allegiance, and live still under a
royal government, at Halifax."

"Never, never!" said the pertinacious old dame. "Here will I abide;
and King George shall still have one true subject in his disloyal
Province."