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

Then the people laughed aloud, and would have thrown mud against
the blazing transparency of the King's crown and initials, only that
they pitied the poor old dame, who was so dismally triumphant amid the
wreck and ruin of the system to which she appertained.

Oftentimes it was her custom to climb the weary staircase that
wound upward to the cupola, and thence strain her dimmed eyesight
seaward and countryward, watching for a British fleet, or for the
march of a grand procession, with the King's banner floating over
it. The passengers in the street below would discern her anxious
visage, and send up a shout, "When the golden Indian on the Province
House shall shoot his arrow, and when the cock on the Old South
spire shall crow, then look for a Royal Governor again!"- for this had
grown a byword through the town. And at last, after long, long
years, old Esther Dudley knew, or perchance she only dreamed, that a
Royal Governor was on the eve of returning to the Province House to
receive the heavy key which Sir William Howe had committed to her
charge. Now it was the fact that intelligence bearing some faint
analogy to Esther's version of it was current among the townspeople.
She set the mansion in the best order that her means allowed, and,
arraying herself in silks and tarnished gold, stood long before the
blurred mirror to admire her own magnificence. As she gazed, the
gray and withered lady moved her ashen lips, murmuring half aloud,
talking to shapes that she saw within the mirror, to shadows of her
own fantasies, to the household friends of memory, and bidding them
rejoice with her and come forth to meet the Governor. And while
absorbed in this communion, Mistress Dudley heard the tramp of many
footsteps in the street, and, looking out at the window, beheld what
she construed as the Royal Governor's arrival.

"O happy day! O blessed, blessed hour!" she exclaimed. "Let me
but bid him welcome within the portal, and my task in the Province
House, and on earth, is done!"

Then with tottering feet, which age and tremulous joy caused to
tread amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her silks sweeping
and rustling as she went, so that the sound was as if a train of
spectral courtiers were thronging from the dim mirror. And Esther
Dudley fancied that as soon as the wide door should be flung open, all
the pomp and splendor of by-gone times would pace majestically into
the Province House, and the gilded tapestry of the past would be
brightened by the sunshine of the present. She turned the key-
withdrew it from the lock- unclosed the door- and stepped across the
threshold. Advancing up the court-yard appeared a person of most
dignified mien, with tokens, as Esther interpreted them, of gentle
blood, high rank, and long-accustomed authority, even in his walk and
every gesture. He was richly dressed, but wore a gouty shoe, which,
however, did not lessen the stateliness of his gait. Around and behind
him were people in plain civic dresses, and two or three war-worn
veterans, evidently officers of rank, arrayed in a uniform of blue and