child, had him on the back of his snorting steed in no time, and giving
the beast a cut he flew like the wind in the teeth of a rising storm
toward the marshes of Brighton. As he reached there a lightning flash
descended into the wood and set it on fire. At the same moment Tom's
house was discovered to be in flames. When his effects were examined
nothing was found in his strong boxes but cinders and shavings.

THE GRAY CHAMPION

It befell Sir Edmund Andros to make himself the most hated of the
governors sent to represent the king in New England. A spirit of
independence, born of a free soil, was already moving in the people's
hearts, and the harsh edicts of this officer, as well as the oppressive
measures of his master, brought him into continual conflict with the
people. He it was who went to Hartford to demand the surrender of the
liberties of that colony. The lights were blown out and the patent of
those liberties was hurried away from under his nose and hidden from his
reach in a hollow of the Charter Oak.

In Boston, too, he could call no American his friend, and it was there
that he met one of the first checks to his arrogance. It was an April
evening in 1689, and there was an unusual stir in the streets. People
were talking in low tones, and one caught such phrases as, "If the Prince
of Orange is successful, this Andros will lose his head." "Our pastors
are to be burned alive in King Street." "The pope has ordered Andros to
celebrate the eve of St. Bartholomew in Boston: we are to be killed."
"Our old Governor Bradstreet is in town, and Andros fears him." While
talk was running in this excited strain the sound of a drum was heard
coming through Cornhill. Now was seen a file of soldiers with guns on
shoulder, matches twinkling in the falling twilight, and behind them, on
horseback, Andros and his councillors, including the priest of King's
Chapel, all wearing crucifixes at their throats, all flushed with wine,
all looking down with indifference at the people in their dark cloaks and
broadbrimmed hats, who looked back at them with suspicion and hate. The
soldiers trod the streets like men unused to giving way, and the crowd
fell back, pressed against the buildings. Groans and hisses were heard,
and a voice sent up this cry, "Lord of Hosts, provide a champion for thy
people!"

Ere the echo of that call had ceased there came from the other end of the
street, stepping as in time to the drum, an aged man, in