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
adv