Twice Told Tales | Page 4

with soldiers at
their back, representing the whole power and authority of the Crown,
had no alternative but obedience.
"What does this old fellow here?" cried Edward Randolph,
fiercely.--"On, Sir Edmund! Bid the soldiers forward, and give the
dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen--to stand aside
or be trampled on."
"Nay, nay! Let us show respect to the good grandsire," said Bullivant,
laughing. "See you not he is some old round-headed dignitary who hath
lain asleep these thirty years and knows nothing of the change of times?
Doubtless he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in Old Noll's
name."
"Are you mad, old man?" demanded Sir Edmund Andros, in loud and
harsh tones. "How dare you stay the march of King James's governor?"
"I have stayed the march of a king himself ere now," replied the gray
figure, with stern composure. "I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry
of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place, and,
beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was vouchsafed me to
appear once again on earth in the good old cause of his saints. And
what speak ye of James? There is no longer a popish tyrant on the
throne of England, and by to-morrow noon his name shall be a by-word
in this very street, where ye would make it a word of terror. Back, thou
that wast a governor, back! With this night thy power is ended.
To-morrow, the prison! Back, lest I foretell the scaffold!"
The people had been drawing nearer and nearer and drinking in the

words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one
unaccustomed to converse except with the dead of many years ago. But
his voice stirred their souls. They confronted the soldiers, not wholly
without arms and ready to convert the very stones of the street into
deadly weapons. Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man; then he
cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude and beheld them burning
with that lurid wrath so difficult to kindle or to quench, and again he
fixed his gaze on the aged form which stood obscurely in an open space
where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What were his thoughts
he uttered no word which might discover, but, whether the oppressor
were overawed by the Gray Champion's look or perceived his peril in
the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that he gave back and
ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and guarded retreat. Before
another sunset the governor and all that rode so proudly with him were
prisoners, and long ere it was known that James had abdicated King
William was proclaimed throughout New England.
But where was the Gray Champion? Some reported that when the
troops had gone from King street and the people were thronging
tumultuously in their rear, Bradstreet, the aged governor, was seen to
embrace a form more aged than his own. Others soberly affirmed that
while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of his aspect the old
man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twilight,
till where he stood there was an empty space. But all agreed that the
hoary shape was gone. The men of that generation watched for his
reappearance in sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor
knew when his funeral passed nor where his gravestone was.
And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his name might be found in
the records of that stern court of justice which passed a sentence too
mighty for the age, but glorious in all after-times for its humbling
lesson to the monarch and its high example to the subject. I have heard
that whenever the descendants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of
their sires the old man appears again. When eighty years had passed, he
walked once more in King street. Five years later, in the twilight of an
April morning, he stood on the green beside the meeting-house at
Lexington where now the obelisk of granite with a slab of slate inlaid
commemorates the first-fallen of the Revolution. And when our fathers
were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker's Hill, all through that night

the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be ere he comes
again! His hour is one of darkness and adversity and peril. But should
domestic tyranny oppress us or the invader's step pollute our soil, still
may the Gray Champion come! for he is the type of New England's
hereditary spirit, and his shadowy march on the eve of danger must
ever be the pledge that New England's sons will vindicate their
ancestry.

SUNDAY AT HOME.
Every Sabbath morning in the summer-time