Part 4 (1/2)

Robert replied that he intended to visit his relatives, Mr. and Mrs.

Brandon, on Copp's Hill.

”Oh yes, my friend the s.h.i.+pbuilder--a very worthy gentleman, and his wife an estimable lady. They have an energetic and n.o.ble daughter and a promising son. I have an engagement to-night, another to-morrow, but shall be at home to-morrow evening, and I would like to have you and your young friends take supper with us. I will tell you something that your father would like to know.”

Robert thanked him, and took his departure. Thinking that Doctor Warren probably would be visiting his patients at that hour of the day, he drove to the Green Dragon, and put Jenny in her stall, and after dinner made his way to the goldsmith's shop to find a present for Rachel.

Mr. Paul Revere, who had gold beads, brooches, silver spoons, shoe and knee buckles, clocks, and a great variety of articles for sale, was sitting on a bench engraving a copper plate. He laid down his graving-tool and came to the counter. Robert saw he had a benevolent face; that he was hale and hearty.

”I would like to look at what you have that is pretty for a girl of eighteen,” said Robert.

Mr. Revere smiled as if he understood that the young man before him wanted something that would delight his sweetheart.

”I want it for my sister,” Robert added.

Mr. Revere smiled again as he took a bag filled with gold beads from the showcase.

”I think you cannot find anything prettier for your sister than a string of beads,” he said. ”Women and girls like them better than anything else. They are always in fas.h.i.+on. You will not make any mistake, I am sure, in selecting them.”

He held up several strings to the light, that Robert might see how beautiful they were.

”I would like to look at your brooches.”

While the goldsmith was taking them from the showcase, he glanced at the pictures on the walls, printed from plates which Mr. Revere had engraved.

The brooches were beautiful--ruby, onyx, sapphire, emerald, but after examining them he turned once more to the beads.

”They are eighteen carats fine, and will not grow dim with use. I think your sister will be delighted with them.”

Robert thought so too, and felt a glow of pleasure when they were packed in soft paper and transferred from the case to his pocket.

With the afternoon before him he strolled the streets, looking at articles in the shop windows, at the clock on the Old Brick Meetinghouse, the barracks of the soldiers,--the king's Twenty-Ninth Regiment.[14] Some of the redcoats were polis.h.i.+ng their gun barrels and bayonets, others smoking their pipes. Beyond the barracks a little distance he saw Mr. Gray's ropewalk. He turned through Mackerel Lane and came to the Bunch of Grapes Tavern,[15] and just beyond it the Admiral Vernon. He strolled to Long Wharf. The king's wars.h.i.+p, Romney, was riding at anchor near by, and a stately merchant s.h.i.+p was coming up the harbor. The fragrance of the sea was in the air. Upon the wharf were hogsheads of mola.s.ses unloaded from a vessel just arrived from Jamaica. Boys had knocked out a bung and were running a stick into the hole and lapping the mola.s.ses. The sailors lounging on the wharf were speaking a language he could not understand. For the first time in his life he was in touch, as it were, with the great world beyond the sea.

[Footnote 14: The troops were ordered to Boston in 1765, in consequence of the riots growing out of the pa.s.sage of the Stamp Act, the mob having sacked the house of Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson.

Though the Stamp Act had been repealed, and though the citizens were orderly and law-abiding, the regiments remained.]

[Footnote 15: The Bunch of Grapes Tavern stood on the corner of Mackerel Lane and King Street, now Kilby and State streets. Its sign was three cl.u.s.ters of grapes. It was a noted tavern, often patronized by the royal governors. In July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read to the people from its balcony. After hearing it they tore the lion and unicorn, and all emblems of British authority, from the Custom House, Court House, and Town House, and made a bonfire of them in front of the tavern.]

During the day he had met several of the king's soldiers, swaggering along the streets as if privileged to do as they pleased, regardless of the people. Two, whom he had seen drinking toddy in the Admiral Vernon, swayed against him.

”h.e.l.lo, clodhopper! How's yer dad and marm?” said one.

Robert felt the hot blood mount to his brow.

”Say, b.u.mpkin, how did ye get away from your ma's ap.r.o.n-string?” said the other.

”He hasn't got the pluck of a goslin,” said the first.

Robert set his teeth together, but made no reply, and walked away. He felt like pitching them headforemost into the dock, and was fearful he might do something which, in cooler blood, he would wish he had not done.

By what right were they strolling the streets of an orderly town?