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. NOTES AND QUESTIONS =Historical Note.= A tradition handed down from the time of King Philip’s war gave Hawthorne the suggestion for this story. In the attack made upon the village of Hadley, Massachusetts, by the Indians in 1675 a venerable man, of stately form, and with flowing white beard, suddenly appeared among the panic-stricken villagers, took command, and helped them put the savages to flight. Then he disappeared as suddenly as he had come. In their wonder, not knowing where he had come from or where he had gone, many believed he had been sent from Heaven to deliver them. Their defender was William Goffe, who had been an officer in Cromwell’s army, and a member of the court which condemned Charles I to death. (Read the reference to this court in the story.) He was a Puritan, a man of deep religious feeling, whose acts had been governed by the desire to secure his countrymen their liberties. When Charles II succeeded to the English throne, Goffe fled to New England to escape his vengeance. Officers were sent across the ocean in pursuit of him. For this reason he lived in hiding, his name and identity being known only to friends who aided and protected him. He had many narrow escapes, but was never captured. From his hiding place he had seen the Indians stealing upon the people of Hadley and had gone forth to battle against them. After living in exile for the rest of his life, he died about 1679.