358

PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE 370

CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL 393

THE SHAKER BRIDAL 405

NIGHT-SKETCHES 412

ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS 419

THE LILY'S QUEST 427

FOOTPRINTS ON THE SEASHORE 435

EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD 447

THE THREEFOLD DESTINY 455

TWICE-TOLD TALES.

THE GRAY CHAMPION.

There was once a time when New England groaned under the actual
pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on
the Revolution. James II., the bigoted successor of Charles the
Voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies and sent a
harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger
our religion. The administration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely
a single characteristic of tyranny--a governor and council holding
office from the king and wholly independent of the country; laws made
and taxes levied without concurrence of the people, immediate or by
their representatives; the rights of private citizens violated and the
titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint
stifled by restrictions on the press; and finally, disaffection
overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on
our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen
submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their
allegiance to the mother-country, whether its head chanced to be a
Parliament, Protector or popish monarch. Till these evil times,
however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, and the colonists
had ruled themselves, enjoying far more freedom than is even yet the
privilege of the native subjects of Great Britain.

At length a rumor reached our shores that the prince of Orange had
ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the triumph of
civil and religious rights and the salvation of New England. It was
but a doubtful whisper; it might be false or the attempt might fail,
and in either case the man that stirred against King James would lose
his head. Still, the intelligence produced a marked effect. The people
smiled mysteriously in the streets and threw bold glances at their
oppressors, while far and wide there was a subdued and silent
agitation, as if the slightest signal