Part 35 (1/2)

Satisfying to the appet.i.te was the dinner which landlord Wins.h.i.+p set before a dozen British officers,--roast beef, dish gravy, mealy potatoes, plum-pudding, mince pie, crackers and cheese, prime old port, and brandy distilled from the grapes of Bordeaux.

”We will jog on slowly; it won't do to get there too early,” said one of the officers as they mounted their horses and rode up past the green, and along the wide and level highways, towards Menotomy, paying no attention to Solomon Brown, plodding homeward in his horse-cart from market. When the old mare lagged to a walk, they rode past him; when he stirred her up with his switch she made the old cart rattle past them. The twinkling eyes peeping out from under his s.h.a.ggy brows saw that their pistols were in the holsters, and their swords were clanking at times.

”I pa.s.sed nine of them,” he said to Sergeant Munroe when he reached Lexington Common; and the sergeant, mistrusting they might be coming to nab Adams and Hanc.o.c.k, summoned eight of his company to guard the house of Mr. Clark.

Mr. Devens and Mr. Watson met the Britishers.

”They mean mischief. We must let Gerry, Orne, and Joe know,” Mr.

Devens said.

Quickly the chaise turned, and they rode back to Wetherby's. The moon was higher in the eastern sky, and the hands of the clock pointed to the figure nine when the officers rode past the house.

”We must put Adams and Hanc.o.c.k on their guard,” said Mr. Gerry; and a little later a messenger on horseback was scurrying along a bypath towards Lexington.

In Boston, Abraham Duncan was keeping his eyes and ears open.

”What's the news, Billy?” was his question to Billy Baker, apprentice to Mr. Hall, who sold toddy to the redcoats.

”I guess something is going to happen,” said Billy.

”What makes you think so?”

”'Cause a woman who belongs to one of the redcoats was in just now after a toddy; she said the lobsters were going somewhere.”

”Is that so?”

”Yes; and they are packing their knapsacks.”

Abraham whispered it to Doctor Warren, and a few minutes later William Dawes was mounting his old mare and riding toward Roxbury. She was thin in flesh, and showed her ribs; and the man on her back, who dressed calf-skins for a living, jogged along Cornhill as if in no hurry. The red-coated sentinels, keeping guard by the fortifications on the Neck, said to themselves he was an old farmer, but were surprised to see him, after pa.s.sing them, going like the wind out towards Roxbury, to the Parting Stone, then turning towards Cambridge, making the gravel fly from her heels as she tore along the road.

Berinthia Brandon, sitting in her chamber, looking out into the starlit night, saw the faint light of the rising moon along the eastern horizon. Twilight was still lingering in the western sky. In the gloaming, she saw the sailors of the wars.h.i.+ps and transports were stepping into their boats and floating with the incoming tide up the Charles. What was the meaning of it? She ran downstairs and told her father and Tom what she had seen; and Tom, seizing his hat, tore along Salem Street and over the bridge across Mill Creek to Doctor Warren's.

The clock on the Old Brick Meetinghouse was striking ten when he rattled the knocker.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Paul Revere's House.]

”The boats are on their way up the river with the tide,” he said, out of breath with his running.

Abraham Duncan came in, also out of breath.

”The lobsters are marching across the Common, toward Barton's Point,”

he said.

”All of which means, they are going to take the boats and cross Charles River, instead of marching by way of Roxbury,” said the doctor, reflecting a moment.

He asked Tom if he would please run down to North Square and ask Paul Revere to come and see him.

A few minutes later Revere was there.

”I've already sent Dawes, but for fear Gage's spies may pick him up, I want you to take the short cut to Lexington and alarm people on your way; you'll have to look sharp for Gage's officers. Tell Newman to hang out the two signals.”