Twice-Told Tales (2 page)

"Whence did he come? What is his purpose? Who can this old man be?"
whispered the wondering crowd.

Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his
solitary walk along the centre of the street. As he drew near the
advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon his
ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the
decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him in
gray but unbroken dignity. Now he marched onward with a warrior's
step, keeping time to the military music. Thus the aged form advanced
on one side and the whole parade of soldiers and magistrates on the
other, till, when scarcely twenty yards remained between, the old man
grasped his staff by the middle and held it before him like a leader's
truncheon.

"Stand!" cried he.

The eye, the face and attitude of command, the solemn yet warlike peal
of that voice—fit either to rule a host in the battle-field or be
raised to God in prayer—were irresistible. At the old man's word and
outstretched arm the roll of the drum was hushed at once and the
advancing line stood still. A tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the
multitude. That stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so
gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to
some old champion of the righteous cause whom the oppressor's drum had
summoned from his grave. They raised a shout of awe and exultation,
and looked for the deliverance of New England.

The governor and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves
brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would
have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the
hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, but, glancing his
severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent
it sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark
old man was chief ruler there, and that the governor and council 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.

Every Sabbath morning in the summer-time I thrust back the curtain to
watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple which stands opposite my
chamber window. First the weathercock begins to flash; then a fainter
lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower
and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold as it points to
the gilded figure of the hour. Now the loftiest window gleams, and now
the lower. The carved framework of the portal is marked strongly out.
At length the morning glory in its descent from heaven comes down the
stone steps one by one, and there stands the steeple glowing with
fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves
among the nooks of the adjacent buildings. Methinks though the same
sun brightens it every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar
robe of brightness for the Sabbath.

By dwelling near a church a person soon contracts an attachment for
the edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massy walls
and its dim emptiness to be instinct with a calm and meditative and
somewhat melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost in our
thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses us as a giant with a mind
comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and
small concerns of all the town. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to the
few that think, it reminds thousands of busy individuals of their
separate and most secret affairs. It is the steeple, too, that flings
abroad the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm; neither
have gladness and festivity found a better utterance than by its
tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the
steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome. Yet, in spite of
this connection with human interests, what a moral loneliness on
week-days broods round about its stately height! It has no kindred
with the houses above which it towers; it looks down into the narrow
thoroughfare—the lonelier because the crowd are elbowing their
passage at its base. A glance at the body of the church deepens this
impression. Within, by the light of distant windows, amid refracted
shadows we discern the vacant pews and empty galleries, the silent
organ, the voiceless pulpit and the clock which tells to solitude how
time is passing. Time—where man lives not—what is it but eternity?
And in the church, we might suppose, are garnered up throughout the
week all thoughts and feelings that have reference to eternity, until
the holy day comes round again to let them forth. Might not, then, its
more appropriate site be in the outskirts of the town, with space for
old trees to wave around it and throw their solemn shadows over a
quiet green? We will say more of this hereafter.

But on the Sabbath I watch the earliest sunshine and fancy that a
holier brightness marks the day when there shall be no buzz of voices
on the Exchange nor traffic in the shops, nor crowd nor business
anywhere but at church. Many have fancied so. For my own part, whether
I see it scattered down among tangled woods, or beaming broad across
the fields, or hemmed in between brick buildings, or tracing out the
figure of the casement on my chamber floor, still I recognize the
Sabbath sunshine. And ever let me recognize it! Some illusions—and
this among them—are the shadows of great truths. Doubts may flit
around me or seem to close their evil wings and settle down, but so
long as I imagine that the earth is hallowed and the light of heaven
retains its sanctity on the Sabbath—while that blessed sunshine lives
within me—never can my soul have lost the instinct of its faith. If
it have gone astray, it will return again.

I love to spend such pleasant Sabbaths from morning till night behind
the curtain of my open window. Are they spent amiss? Every spot so
near the church as to be visited by the circling shadow of the steeple
should be deemed consecrated ground to-day. With stronger truth be it
said that a devout heart may consecrate a den of thieves, as an evil
one may convert a temple to the same. My heart, perhaps, has no such
holy, nor, I would fain trust, such impious, potency. It must suffice
that, though my form be absent, my inner man goes constantly to
church, while many whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats
have left their souls at home. But I am there even before my friend
the sexton. At length he comes—a man of kindly but sombre aspect, in
dark gray clothes, and hair of the same mixture. He comes and applies
his key to the wide portal. Now my thoughts may go in among the dusty
pews or ascend the pulpit without sacrilege, but soon come forth again
to enjoy the music of the bell. How glad, yet solemn too! All the
steeples in town are talking together aloft in the sunny air and
rejoicing among themselves while their spires point heavenward.
Meantime, here are the children assembling to the Sabbath-school,
which is kept somewhere within the church. Often, while looking at the
arched portal, I have been gladdened by the sight of a score of these
little girls and boys in pink, blue, yellow and crimson frocks
bursting suddenly forth into the sunshine like a swarm of gay
butterflies that had been shut up in the solemn gloom. Or I might
compare them to cherubs haunting that holy place.

About a quarter of an hour before the second ringing of the bell
individuals of the congregation begin to appear. The earliest is
invariably an old woman in black whose bent frame and rounded
shoulders are evidently laden with some heavy affliction which she is
eager to rest upon the altar. Would that the Sabbath came twice as
often, for the sake of that sorrowful old soul! There is an elderly
man, also, who arrives in good season and leans against the corner of
the tower, just within the line of its shadow, looking downward with a
darksome brow. I sometimes fancy that the old woman is the happier of
the two. After these, others drop in singly and by twos and threes,
either disappearing through the doorway or taking their stand in its
vicinity. At last, and always with an unexpected sensation, the bell
turns in the steeple overhead and throws out an irregular clangor,
jarring the tower to its foundation. As if there were magic in the
sound, the sidewalks of the street, both up and down along, are
immediately thronged with two long lines of people, all converging
hitherward and streaming into the church. Perhaps the far-off roar of
a coach draws nearer—a deeper thunder by its contrast with the
surrounding stillness—until it sets down the wealthy worshippers at
the portal among their humblest brethren. Beyond that entrance—in
theory, at least—there are no distinctions of earthly rank; nor,
indeed, by the goodly apparel which is flaunting in the sun would
there seem to be such on the hither side. Those pretty girls! Why will
they disturb my pious meditations? Of all days in the week, they
should strive to look least fascinating on the Sabbath, instead of
heightening their mortal loveliness, as if to rival the blessed angels
and keep our thoughts from heaven. Were I the minister himself, I must
needs look. One girl is white muslin from the waist upward and black
silk downward to her slippers; a second blushes from top-knot to
shoe-tie, one universal scarlet; another shines of a pervading yellow,
as if she had made a garment of the sunshine. The greater part,
however, have adopted a milder cheerfulness of hue. Their veils,
especially when the wind raises them, give a lightness to the general
effect and make them appear like airy phantoms as they flit up the
steps and vanish into the sombre doorway. Nearly all—though it is
very strange that I should know it—wear white stockings, white as
snow, and neat slippers laced crosswise with black ribbon pretty high
above the ankles. A white stocking is infinitely more effective than a
black one.