07 - PD Goth by Various

Immerse yourself in a chilling collection of eerie tales carefully selected from the vast library of Project Gutenberg, brought to life through the captivating narration of BellonaTimes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Section seven of p D. Goth This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. This
recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Edward

(00:22):
Randolph's portrait by Charles M. Skinner. Nothing is left of
Province House, the old home of the Royal governors in Boston,
but the gilded Indian that served as its weathercock and
aimed his arrow at the winds from the cupola. The
house itself was swept away long ago in the so

(00:43):
called March of Improvement. In one of its rooms hung
a picture so dark that when Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson went
to live there, hardly anybody could say what it represented.
There were hints that it was a portrait of the devil,
painted at a witch meeting near Salem, and that on
the eve of disasters in the province, a dreadful face
had glared from the canvas. Shirley had seen it on

(01:06):
the night of the fall of Ticonderoga, and servants had
gone shuddering from the room, certain that they had caught
the glance of a malignant eye. It was known to
the governors, however, that the portrait, if not that of
the arch fiend, was that of one who, in the
popular mind, was none the less a devil, Edward Randolph,

(01:26):
the traitor who had repealed the first Provincial Charter and
deprived the colonists of their liberties. Under the curse of
the people. He grew pale and pinched and ugly, his
face at last becoming so hateful that men were unwilling
to look at it. Then it was that he sat
for his portrait. Threescore or odd years afterward, Hutchinson sat

(01:48):
in the hall, wondering vaguely if coming events would consign
him to the obloquy that had fallen on his predecessor.
For at his bidding, a fleet had come into the
harbor with three regiments of regsts on board, dispatched from
Halifax to overawe the city. The coming of the Selectmen
to protest against quartering these troops on the people, and

(02:09):
the substitution of marshal for civic law, interrupted his reverie,
and a warm debate arose. At last, the governor seized
his pen impatiently and cried, the King is my master,
and England is my home upheld by them. I defy
the rabble. He was about to sign the order for
bringing in the troops when a curtain that had hung

(02:31):
before the picture was drawn aside. Hutchinson stared at the
canvas in amazement, then muttered, it is Randolph's spirit. It
wears the look of hell. The picture was seen to
be that of a man in antique garb, with the despairing,
hunted yet evil expression in the face, and seemed to

(02:52):
stare at Hutchinson. It is a warning, said one of
the company. Hutchinson covered himself with an effort and turned away.
It is a trick, he cried, and bending over the paper,
he fixed his name as if in desperate haste. Then
he trembled, turned white, and wiped a sweat from his brow.

(03:16):
The Selectman departed in silence but in anger, and those
who saw Hutchinson on the streets next day affirmed that
the portrait had stepped out of its canvas and stood
at his side through the night. Afterward, as he lay
on his deathbed, he cried that the blood of the
Boston massacre was filling his throat, and as his soul

(03:36):
passed from him, his face in its agony and rage
was the face of Edward Randolph end of Section seven