Twice Told Tales
Page 24
As the old loyalist concluded his narrative the enthusiasm which hadbeen fitfully flashing within his sunken eyes and quivering across hiswrinkled visage faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soulwere extinguished. Just then, too, a lamp upon the mantelpiece threwout a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward,compelling our eyes to grope for one another's features by the dimglow of the hearth. With such a lingering fire, methought, with such adying gleam, had the glory of the ancient system vanished from theprovince-house when the spirit of old Esther Dudley took its flight.And now, again, the clock of the Old South threw its voice of ages onthe breeze, knolling the hourly knell of the past, crying out far andwide through the multitudinous city, and filling our ears, as we satin the dusky chamber, with its reverberating depth of tone. In thatsame mansion--in that very chamber--what a volume of history had beentold off into hours by the same voice that was now trembling in theair! Many a governor had heard those midnight accents and longed toexchange his stately cares for slumber. And, as for mine host and Mr.Bela Tiffany and the old loyalist and me, we had babbled about dreamsof the past until we almost fancied that the clock was still strikingin a bygone century. Neither of us would have wondered had ahoop-petticoated phantom of Esther Dudley tottered into the chamber,walking her rounds in the hush of midnight as of yore, and motioned usto quench the fading embers of the fire and leave the historicprecincts to herself and her kindred shades. But, as no such visionwas vouchsafed, I retired unbidden, and would advise Mr. Tiffany tolay hold of another auditor, being resolved not to show my face in theProvince House for a good while hence--if ever.