“That, madam, is a strange prayer to be offered up at such a moment,� replied the unknown guest of the Province House, and, courteously removing his hat, he offered his arm to raise the aged woman. “Yet, in reverence for your gray hairs and long-kept faith, Heaven forbid that any here should say you nay. Over the realms which still acknowledge his sceptre, God save King George!�
Esther Dudley started to her feet, and, hastily clutching back the key, gazed with fearful earnestness at the stranger; and dimly and doubtfully, as if suddenly awakened from a dream, her bewildered eyes half recognized his face. Years ago she had known him among the gentry of the province. But the ban of the king had fallen upon him! How, then, came the doomed victim here? Proscribed, excluded from mercy, the monarch’s most dreaded and hated foe, this New England merchant had stood triumphantly against a kingdom’s strength; and his foot now trod upon humbled royalty as he ascended the steps of the Province House, the people’s chosen governor of Massachusetts.
“Wretch, wretch that I am!� muttered the old woman, with such a heart-broken expression that the tears gushed from the stranger’s eyes. “Have I bidden a traitor welcome? Come, Death! come quickly!�
“Alas, venerable lady!� said Governor Hancock, lending her his support with all the reverence that a courtier would have shown to a queen. “Your life has been prolonged until the world has changed around you. You have treasured up all that time has rendered worthless—the principles, feelings, manners, modes of being and acting, which another generation has flung aside—and you are a symbol of the past. And I, and these around me—we represent a new race of men—living no longer in the past, scarcely in the present—but projecting our lives forward into the future. Ceasing to model ourselves on ancestral superstitions, it is our faith and principle to press onward, onward! Yet,� continued he, turning to his attendants, “let us reverence, for the last time, the stately and gorgeous prejudices of the tottering Past!�
While the republican governor spoke he had continued to support the helpless form of Esther Dudley; her weight grew heavier against his arm; but at last, with a sudden effort to free herself, the ancient woman sank down beside one of the pillars of the portal. The key of the Province House fell from her grasp, and clanked against the stone.
“I have been faithful unto death,� murmured she. “God save the king!�
“She hath done her office!� said Hancock solemnly. “We will follow her reverently to the tomb of her ancestors; and then, my fellow-citizens, onward, onward! We are no longer children of the Past!�
BETTY’S RIDE: A TALE OF THE REVOLUTION[D]
By Henry S. Canby
The story of a brave little Quaker girl’s perilous ride. How she saved the lives of many hard-pressed patriots, and won praise from the lips of General Washington, himself.