om the face of the spoiler."[42] After this
exposition, there was of course no dispute as to duty. The Pope is a
deceiver, and Catholic Councils are lies; but when was a Puritan
preacher ever doubted, by his followers, to be an oracle from heaven?

It was in vain that the loyal pursuers came to Newhaven, after the
little general had thus got his forces prepared for the contest.
Wellington, with the forest of Soignies behind him, at Waterloo, was not
half so confident of wearing out Napoleon, as Davenport was of beating
back King Charles the Second, in his presumptuous attempt to govern his
Puritan colonies. Accordingly, when the pursuers waited on Governor
Leete, they found his conscience peculiarly tender to the fact, that
they were not provided with the original of his Majesty's command, which
he felt it his duty to see, before he could move in the business. He
finally yielded so far, however, as to direct a warrant to certain
catchpoles, requiring them to take the runaways, accompanying it, as it
would seem, with assurances of affectionate condolence, should they
happen to let the criminals, when captured, effect a violent escape. A
preconcerted farce was enacted, to satisfy the forms of law, the
bailiffs seizing the regicides, a mile or two from town, as they were
making for East Rock; and they very sturdily defending themselves, till
the officers had received bruises enough, to excuse their return without
them. But after this pleasant little exercise, the regicides had an
escape of a more really fortunate character, and quite in the style of
King Charles Second's Boscobel adventures. For while cooling themselves
under a bridge, they discovered the young Bostonians galloping that way,
and had only time to lie close, when a smart quadrupedal hexameter was
thundered over their heads, as they lay peering up through the chinks of
the bridge at their furious pursuers. No doubt the classic ear of Goffe,
the Oxford Master of Arts, was singularly refreshed with the delightful
prosody, which the retiring horse-hoofs still drummed on the dusty
plain; but they seem to have been so seriously alarmed by their escape,
that if they ever smiled again, they certainly had little cause for
their good-humour; for that very day they took to the woods, and entered
upon a long and wretched life of perpetual apprehension, from which
death, in any shape, would have been, to better men, a comfortable
relief. They immediately directed their co