Historical fiction, American; New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
often destitute of any,--that I doubt whether he would refuse a
cup of kindness with either Oliver Cromwell or John Hancock,--to
say nothing of any democrat now upon the stage. In another paper
of this series I may perhaps give the reader a closer glimpse of
his portrait.
Our host, in due season, uncorked a bottle of Madeira, of such
exquisite perfume and admirable flavor that he surely must have
discovered it in an ancient bin, down deep beneath the deepest
cellar, where some jolly old butler stored away the Governor's
choicest wine, and forgot to reveal the secret on his death-bed.
Peace to his red-nosed ghost, and a libation to his memory! This
precious liquor was imbibed by Mr. Tiffany with peculiar zest;
and after sipping the third glass, it was his pleasure to give us
one of the oddest legends which he had yet raked from the
storehouse where he keeps such matters. With some suitable
adornments from my own fancy, it ran pretty much as follows.
Not long after Colonel Shute had assumed the
government of Massachusetts Bay, now nearly a hundred and twenty
years ago, a young lady of rank and fortune arrived from England,
to claim his protection as her guardian. He was her distant
relative, but the nearest who had survived the gradual extinction
of her family; so that no more eligible shelter could be found
for the rich and high-born Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe than within
the Province House of a transatlantic colony. The consort of
Governor Shute, moreover, had been as a mother to her childhood,
and was now anxious to receive her, in the hope that a beautiful
young woman would be exposed to infinitely less peril from the
primitive society of New England than amid the artifices and
corruptions of a court. If either the Governor or his lady had
especially consulted their own comfort, they would probably have
sought to devolve the responsibility on other hands; since, with
some noble and splendid traits of character, Lady Eleanore was
remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness
of her hereditary and personal advantages, which made her almost
incapable of control. Judging from many traditionary anecdotes,
this peculiar temper was hardly less than a monomania; or, if the
acts which it inspired were those of a sane person, it seemed due
from Providence that pride so sinful should be followed by as
severe a retribution. That tinge of the marvellous, which is
thrown over so many of these half-forgotten legends, has probably
imparted an additional wildness to the strange story of Lady
Eleanore Rochcliffe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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