Living so continually in her own circle of ideas , and never regulating her mind by a proper reference to present things , Esther Dudley appears to have grown partially crazed . It was found that she had no right sense of the progress and true state of the Revolutionary war , but held a constant faith that the armies of Britain were victorious on every field and destined to be ultimately triumphant . Whenever the town rejoiced for a battle won by Washington or Gates or Morgan or Greene , the news , in passing through the door of the province-house as through the ivory gate of dreams , became metamorphosed into a strange tale of the prowess of Howe , Clinton or Cornwallis . Sooner or later , it was her invincible belief , the colonies would be prostrate at the footstool of the king . Sometimes she seemed to take for granted that such was already the case . On one occasion she startled the townspeople by a brilliant illumination of the province-house with candles at every pane of glass and a transparency of the king 's initials and a crown of light in the great balcony-window . The figure of the aged woman in the most gorgeous of her mildewed velvets and brocades was seen passing from casement to casement , until she paused before the balcony and flourished a huge key above her head . Her wrinkled visage actually gleamed with triumph , as if the soul within her were a festal lamp . `` What means this blaze of light ? What does old Esther 's joy portend ? '' whispered a spectator . `` It is frightful to , see her gliding about the chambers and rejoicing there without a soul to bear her company . '' `` It is as if she were making merry in a tomb , '' said another . `` Pshaw ! It is no such mystery , '' observed an old man , after some brief exercise of memory . `` Mistress Dudley is keeping jubilee for the king of England 's birthday . '' 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 by-word through the town .
And at last , XXXXX 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 .
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