A multitude of people were now thronging to New England: some, because
the ancient and ponderous framework of Church and State threatened to
crumble down upon their heads; others, because they despaired of such a
downfall. Among those who came to Naumkeag were men of history and
legend, whose feet leave a track of brightness along any pathway which
they have trodden. You shall behold their life-like images--their
spectres, if you choose so to call them--passing, encountering with a
familiar nod, stopping to converse together, praying, bearing weapons,
laboring or resting from their labors, in the Main Street. Here, now,
comes Hugh Peters, an earnest, restless man, walking swiftly, as being
impelled by that fiery activity of nature which shall hereafter thrust
him into the conflict of dangerous affairs, make him the chaplain and
counsellor of Cromwell, and finally bring him to a bloody end. He
pauses, by the meetinghouse, to exchange a greeting with Roger Williams,
whose face indicates, methinks, a gentler spirit, kinder and more
expansive, than that of Peters; yet not less active for what he discerns
to be the will of God, or the welfare of mankind. And look! here is a
guest for Endicott, coming forth out of the forest, through which he has
been journeying from Boston, and which, with its rude branches, has
caught hold of his attire, and has wet his feet with its swamps and
streams. Still there is something in his mild and venerable, though not
aged presence--a propriety, an equilibrium, in Governor Winthrop's
nature--that causes the disarray of his costume to be unnoticed, and
gives us the same impression as if he were clad in such rave and rich
attire as we may suppose him to have worn in the Council Chamber of the
colony. Is not this characteristic wonderfully perceptible in our
spectral representative of his person? But what dignitary is this
crossing from the other side to greet the governor? A stately personage,
in a dark velvet cloak, with a hoary beard, and a gold chain across his
breast; he has the authoritative port of one who has filled the highest