One day--it was at the time of the French Revolution--Louis Philippe and his two brothers applied at the door of the William Pitt for lodgings; but the tavern was full, and the future king, with his companions, found comfortable quarters under the hospitable roof of Governor Langdon in Pleasant Street.
A record of the scenes, tragic and humorous, that have been enacted within this old yellow house on the corner would fill a volume. A vivid picture of the social and public life of the old time might be painted by a skillful hand, using the two Earl of Halifax inns for a background. The painter would find gay and sombre pigments ready mixed for his palette, and a hundred romantic incidents waiting for his canvas. One of these romantic episodes has been turned to very pretty account by Longfellow in the last series of The Tales of a Wayside Inn--the marriage of Governor Benning Wentworth with Martha Hilton, a sort of second edition of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid.
Martha Hilton was a poor girl, whose bare feet and ankles and scant drapery when she was a child, and even after she was well in the bloom of her teens, used to scandalize good Dame Stavers, the innkeeper's wife. Standing one afternoon in the doorway of the Earl of Halifax, (1. The first of the two hotels bearing that title. Mr. Brewster commits a slight anachronism in locating the scene of this incident in Jaffrey Street, now Court. The Stavers House was not built until the year of Governor Benning Wentworth's death. Mr. Longfellow, in the poem, does not fall into the same error.
"One hundred years ago, and something more, In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door, Neat as a pin, and blooming as a rose, Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows.")Dame Stavers took occasion to remonstrate with the sleek-limbed and lightly draped Martha, who chanced to be passing the tavern, carrying a pail of water, in which, as the poet neatly says, "the shifting sunbeam danced.""You Pat! you Pat!" cried Mrs. Stavers severely; "why do you go looking so? You should be ashamed to be seen in the street.""Never mind how I look," says Miss Martha, with a merry laugh, letting slip a saucy brown shoulder out of her dress; "I shall ride in my chariot yet, ma'am."Fortunate prophecy! Martha went to live as servant with Governor Wentworth at his mansion at Little Harbor, looking out to sea.
Seven years passed, and the "thin slip of a girl," who promised to be no great beauty, had flowered into the loveliest of women, with a lip like a cherry and a cheek like a tea-rose--a lady by instinct, one of Nature's own ladies. The governor, a lonely widower, and not too young, fell in love with his fair handmaid.
Without stating his purpose to any one, Governor Wentworth invited a number of friends (among others the Rev. Arthur Brown)to dine with him at Little Harbor on his birthday. After the dinner, which was a very elaborate one, was at an end, and the guests were discussing their tobacco-pipes, Martha Hilton glided into the room, and stood blushing in front of the chimney-place.
She was exquisitely dressed, as you may conceive, and wore her hair three stories high. The guests stared at each other, and particularly at her, and wondered. Then the governor, rising from his seat, "Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down, And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown:
'This is my birthday; it shall likewise be My wedding-day; and you shall marry me!'"The rector was dumfounded, knowing the humble footing Martha had held in the house, and could think of nothing cleverer to say than, "To whom, your excellency?" which was not cleaver at all.
"To this lady," replied the governor, taking Martha Hilton by the hand. The Rev. Arthur Brown hesitated. "As the Chief Magistrate of New Hampshire I command you to marry me!" cried the choleric old governor.
And so it was done; and the pretty kitchen-maid became Lady Wentworth, and did ride in her own chariot. She would not have been a woman if she had not taken an early opportunity to drive by Staver's hotel!
