THE MIDNIGHT RIDE.

Abel Shrimpton, loyal to the king, hated Samuel Adams and John Hancock and the Sons of Liberty, holding them responsible for the troubles that had come to the people.  In Mr. Shrimpton’s attractive home, made beautiful by the presence of his daughter, Tom Brandon had been a welcome visitor, but the relations between Mr. Shrimpton and Tom were changing.

“The Regulation Act,” said Tom, “which in fact makes the king the government, deprives the people of their liberties.”

“People who abuse their liberties ought to be deprived of them,” Mr. Shrimpton replied.

“We are not allowed to select jurors.  The law takes away our right to assemble in town meeting, except by permission, and then we can only elect selectmen to look after town affairs,” said Tom.

“The people have shown they are not fit to govern themselves,” said Mr. Shrimpton.  “They allow the mob to run riot.  It was a mob that smashed Chief Justice Hutchinson’s windows.  Your gatherings under the Liberty Tree are in reality nothing but mobs; you have no legal authority for assembling.  It was a mob that assaulted the king’s troops on the 5th of March; a mob threw the tea into the harbor, and I strongly suspect that Tom Brandon had a hand in that iniquity.  The king stands for law and order.  The troops are here in the interest of good government, by constituted authority, to enforce the law and put down riots.”

“Just who had a hand in throwing the tea overboard no one can find out, but I am glad it was done,” said Tom.

“So you uphold lawlessness, Mr. Brandon?”

“I stand against the unrighteous acts of Parliament.  We will not be slaves; we will not be deprived of our liberties.  If King George and Lord North think they can starve the people of this town into submission, they will find themselves mistaken,” said Tom.

“I hope he will compel every one of you to obey the laws, and that whoever had a hand in destroying the tea will suffer for it,” Mr. Shrimpton replied.

Tom saw the smile fade from the countenance of Mary as she listened to the conversation.  Her quick insight, and acquaintance with her father’s surly temper, enabled her to see what was withholden from Tom’s slower perception.

“Mary,” said Mr. Shrimpton, after Tom took his departure, “I want you to stop having anything to do with Tom.”

“Why, father?”

“Because I don’t like him.”

“But I do like him.”

“No matter.  He’s an enemy to the king.  I have good reason to believe he had a hand in throwing the tea overboard.  If he did, he is no better than a thief.  He willfully, wantonly, and with malice aforethought stole the property of others from the holds of the ships, and destroyed it.  It was burglary-­breaking and entering.  It was a malicious destruction of property of the East India Company.  It was a heinous affair-­not mere larceny to be punished by standing in the pillory, or sitting in the stocks, or tied up to the whipping-post and flogged, but an offense which, if it could be proved, would send every one of the marauders to jail for ten or twenty years.  Now I don’t want the name of Shrimpton mixed up with that of Brandon.  So you can cut Tom adrift.”

“But, father”-

“I don’t want any buts.  You will do as I tell you if you know what is good for yourself.”

“Have you not, father, said in the past that he was an estimable young man?”

“But he is not estimable now.  He meets others in secret to plot mischief.  I have had spies on his track.  He is a lawbreaker, a mischief-maker, and sooner or later will be in jail, and possibly may be brought to the gallows.  Now, once for all, I tell you I will not have him coming here.”

Mr. Shrimpton said it with a flushed face, setting his teeth firmly together as he rose from his chair.

“Very well, father,” said Mary, wiping the tears from her eyes.

She knew how irascible he was at times,-­how he allowed his anger to master reason, and hoped it might pass away.  Through the night the words were repeating themselves.  What course should she pursue?  Give up Tom?  What if he did help destroy the tea; was it not a righteous protest against the tyranny of the king and Parliament?  He did not do it as an individual, but as a member of the community; it was the only course for them to pursue.  Tom was not therefore a thief at heart.  Was he not kind-hearted?  Was he not giving his time and strength to relieve suffering?  Had he not just as much right to stand resolutely for the liberties of the people as her father for the prerogatives of the king?  Must she stop seeing him to please her father?  It would not be pleasant to have Tom call upon her, and have her father shut the door in his face; that would be an indignity.  Should she withdraw her engagement?  Should she plunge a knife into her own heart to please her father?  Never.  Come what would, she would be true to Tom.  She would not anger her father by inviting Tom to continue his visits, but there were the elms of Long Acre, Beacon Hill, the market, and other places, where from time to time they might meet for a few moments.  True love could wait for better days.

There came a morning when the people saw a handbill posted upon the walls which said that the men who were misleading the people were bankrupt in purse and character.  Tom Brandon’s blood was at fever heat as he read the closing words:-

“Ask pardon of God, submit to our king and Parliament, whom we have wickedly and grievously offended.  Let us seize our seducers, make peace with our mother country, and save ourselves and children.”

He knew that the sentiments of the handbill were those of Mr. Shrimpton, and suspected that his hand had penned it.  The rumor was abroad that the king had sent word to General Gage to seize the two arch leaders of the rebels, Adams and Hancock.  The following evening Tom and other Sons gathered at the Green Dragon, laid their hands upon the Bible, and made a solemn oath to watch constantly the movements of the Tories and soldiers, and give information to Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Doctor Warren, and Benjamin Church, and to no others.

There came a day when a great multitude assembled in town meeting, in the Old South Meetinghouse, to listen to Doctor Warren’s oration commemorative of the massacre of the people by the troops.  Citizens from all the surrounding towns were there to let General Gage know they had not forgotten it; besides, they knew they would hear burning words from the lips of the fearless patriot.

Tom Brandon and Abraham Duncan, looking down from the gallery upon the great throng, saw Samuel Adams elected moderator.  He invited the officers of the regiments to take seats upon the platform.  Tom wondered if they were present to make mischief.  The pulpit was draped in black.  Every part of the house was filled,-­aisles, windows, seats,-­and there was a great crowd in the porches.  Tom was wondering if it would be possible for Doctor Warren to edge his way through the solid body of men, when he saw the window behind the pulpit opened by one of the selectmen and the doctor, wearing a student’s black gown, enter through the window.  The audience welcomed him with applause.  For more than an hour they listened spellbound to his patriotic and fearless words.  At times the people made the building shake with their applause.  Some of the king’s officers grew red in the face when he alluded to their presence in Boston to suppress the liberties of the people.  One of the officers of the Welsh Fusilliers sitting on the stairs was very insulting.  Tom saw him take some bullets from his pocket and hold them in the palm of his hand to annoy Doctor Warren, but instead of being frightened, he very quietly rebuked the officer’s insolence by letting his handkerchief drop upon the bullets.  Bold and eloquent were his closing words.

“Fellow-citizens,” he said, “you will maintain your rights or perish in the glorious struggle.  However difficult the combat, you will never decline it when freedom is the prize.  Independence of Great Britain is not our aim.  Our wish is that Britain and the Colonies may, like the oak and the ivy, grow and increase in strength together.  If pacific measures fail, and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from your foes, but will press forward till tyranny is trodden under foot and you have placed your adored goddess Liberty on her American throne.”

The building shook with applause when he sat down.

“It is moved that the thanks of the town be presented to Doctor Warren for his oration,” said the moderator.

“No, no! fie, fie!” shouted a captain of the Royal Irish Regiment, and the other officers around thumped the floor with their canes.

Tom’s blood was hot, as was the blood of those around him.  Some of the people under the galleries, who could not see what was going on, thought the officers were crying fire, to break up the meeting.  Very quietly Samuel Adams raised his hand.  The people became calm.  The officers left the building, and the town went on with its business.  The people were learning self-control.

When the meeting was over, Tom and Abraham walked along Cornhill, and turned down King Street on their way home.  They saw a crowd around the British Coffee House tavern,-­the officers who a little while before had left the Old South Meetinghouse, laughing, talking, and drinking their toddy.  Tom soon discovered they were having a mock town meeting.  One was acting as moderator, pounding with his cane and calling them to order.  They chose seven selectmen and a clerk.  Then one went upstairs and soon appeared upon the balcony wearing a rusty and ragged old black gown, a gray wig with a fox’s tail dangling down his back.  He bowed to those below, and began a mock oration.  He called Samuel Adams, Doctor Warren, and John Hancock scoundrels, blackguards, knaves, and other vile names.  His language was so scurrilous, profane, and indecent that Tom could not repeat it to his mother and Berinthia.  Those who listened clapped their hands.  Tom and Abraham came to the conclusion that most of the officers of the newly arrived regiments were too vile to be worthy the society of decent people.

Tom was boiling hot two nights later, at the treatment given Thomas Ditson of Billerica, who had come to market.  A soldier persuaded the guileless young farmer to buy an old worn-out gun.  The next moment he was seized by a file of soldiers and thrust into the guardhouse for buying anything of a soldier against the law.  He had only the bare floor to sleep on.  In the morning, Lieutenant-Colonel Nesbit ordered the soldiers to strip off Ditson’s clothes, and tar and feather him.

It was a pitiful spectacle which Ruth Newville saw,-­Colonel Nesbit marching at the head of his regiment, the soldiers with their bayonets surrounding a man stripped to the waist, smeared with tar, covered with feathers, the fifes playing, and the drums beating the Rogue’s March.

“It is disgraceful,” she said, with flashing eyes, to her mother.  “Colonel Nesbit ought to be ashamed of himself.  If he ever calls here again, I’ll not speak to him.”

Fast Day came, and again the eyes of Miss Newville flashed when she saw the king’s troops parading the streets; the drummers and fifers taking their stations by the doors of the meetinghouses to annoy the people, playing so loud they could scarcely hear a word of what the minister was saying.

“Do you think, father, that General Gage will win back the affections of the people, or even retain their respect by permitting such outrages?” Ruth asked.

“Perhaps it is not the wisest course to pursue.  Quite likely the officers of the regiments did it of their own notion,” Mr. Newville replied.

If Lord North and King George thought a show of military force would overawe the people of Boston town, they were mistaken.  Possibly they did not reflect that military repression might beget resistance by arms; but when the regiments began to arrive, the Sons of Liberty resolved to prepare for whatever might happen.  They appointed a committee of safety to protect the rights of the people.

Winter was over, and with their singing the birds were making the April mornings melodious.  The Provincial Congress was in session at Cambridge, and Samuel Adams and John Hancock had left Boston and with Dorothy Quincy were with Reverend Mr. Clark in Lexington.  Abraham Duncan discovered that General Gage had sent Captain Brown and Ensign De Berniere into the country to see the roads. Sharp-eyed Sons of Liberty watched the movements of the soldiers.  They saw Lord Percy march his brigade to Roxbury, and return as if for exercise, with no one opposing them.

“We can march from one end of the continent to the other, without opposition from the cowardly Yankees,” said the boasting soldiers.

Paul Revere, Tom Brandon, Robert Newman, and a score of the Sons of Liberty were keeping watch of the movements of the redcoats.  They saw the sailors of the warships, and of the vessels which had brought the new troops, launching their boats and putting them in order.  They knew General Gage wanted to seize Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and quite likely the military supplies which the committee of safety had collected at Concord.  Paul Revere rode out to Lexington on Sunday to see Adams and Hancock, and let them know what was going on in Boston.

“The launching of the ship’s boat means something,” said Mr. Adams.  “It looks as if the troops were going to make a short cut across Charles River instead of marching over Roxbury Neck.”

“We will keep our eyes open and let you know the moment they make any movement,” said Revere.

“Quite likely Gage will set a patrol so you can’t leave Boston,” said Hancock.

“I’ll tell ye what we’ll do.  If the troops leave in the night by way of Roxbury, I’ll get Robert Newman to hang a lantern in the steeple of Christ Church; if they take boats to make the short cut across Charles River, I’ll have him hang out two lanterns.  I’ll tell Deacon Larkin and Colonel Conant, over in Charlestown, to keep their eyes on the steeple.”

It was Tuesday morning, April 18.  Abraham Duncan wondered how it happened that so many British officers with their overcoats on were mounting their horses and riding out towards Roxbury, not in a group, but singly, or two together, with pistols in their holsters.

“We will dine at Winship’s tavern in Cambridge, and then go on,” he heard one say.

He also noticed that the grenadiers and light infantry guards were not on duty as on other days.

He hastened to inform Doctor Warren, who sent a messenger with a letter to the committee of safety.

It was evening when Richard Devens and Abraham Watson, members of the committee of safety, shook hands with their fellow members, Elbridge Gerry, Asa Orne, and Colonel Lee at Wetherby’s, bade them good-night, and stepped into their chaise to return to their homes in Charlestown.  The others would spend the night at Wetherby’s, and they would all meet in Woburn in the morning.

Satisfying to the appetite was the dinner which landlord Winship 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 shaggy brows saw that their pistols were in the holsters, and their swords were clanking at times.

“I passed 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 Hancock, 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 Hancock 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 passing 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 warships 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.

“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.”

Revere hastened down Salem Street, whispered a word in the ear of Robert Newman, ran to his own home for his overcoat, told two young men to accompany him, then ran to the riverside and stepped into his boat.  The great black hull of the frigate Somerset rose before him.  By the light of the rising moon he could see a marine, with his gun on his shoulder, pacing the deck; but no challenge came, and the rowers quickly landed him in Charlestown.

     “On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
     Now he patted his horse’s side,
     Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
     Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
     And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
     But mostly watched with eager search
     The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
     As it rose above the graves on the hill,
     Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
     And lo! as he looks, on the belfry height
     A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! 
     He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
     But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
     A second lamp in the belfry burns!”

From the narrative of Paul Revere in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, we learn that the signals were seen before he reached the Charlestown shore:-

“When I got into town, I met Colonel Conant and several others; they said they had seen our signals; I told them what was acting, and I went to get me a horse; I got a horse of Deacon Larkin.  While the horse was preparing, Richard Devens, Esq., who was one of the Committee of Safety, came to me and told me that he came down the road from Lexington after sundown, that evening; that he met ten British officers, all well mounted and armed, going up the road.”]

Robert Newman, sexton, had gone to bed.  The officers of one of the king’s regiments, occupying the front chamber, saw him retire, but did not see him a minute later crawl out of a window to the roof of a shed, drop lightly to the ground, make his way to the church, enter, turn the key, lock the door, climb the stairs to the tower, and hang the lanterns in the loft above the bell.  It was but the work of a moment.  Having done it, he hastened down the stairway, past the organ, to the floor of the church.  The full moon was flooding the arches above him with its mellow light; but he did not tarry to behold the beauty of the scene; not that he feared ghosts would rise from the coffins in the crypt beneath the church,-­he was not afraid of dead men,-­but he would rather the redcoats should not know what he had been doing.  He raised a window, dropped from it to the ground, ran down an alley, reached his house, climbed the shed, and was in bed when officers of one of the regiments came to make inquiry about the lanterns.  Of course, Robert, being in bed, could not have hung them there.  It must have been done by somebody else.

Paul Revere the while is flying up Main Street towards Charlestown Neck.  It is a pleasant night.  The grass in the fields is fresh and green; the trees above him are putting forth their young and tender leaves.  He is thinking of what Richard Devens has said, and keeps his eyes open.  He crosses the narrow neck of land between the Mystic and Charles rivers, and sees before him the tree where Mark was hung ten years before for poisoning his master.  The bones of the negro no longer rattle in the wind; the eyeless sockets of the once ghostly skeleton no longer glare at people coming from Cambridge and Medford to Charlestown, and Paul Revere has no fear of seeing Mark’s ghost hovering around the tree.  It is for the living-­Gage’s spies-­that he peers into the night.  Bucephalus suddenly pricks up his ears.  Ah! there they are! two men in uniform on horseback beneath the tree.  He is abreast of them.  They advance.  Quickly he wheels, and rides back towards Charlestown.  He reaches the road leading to Medford, reins Bucephalus into it.  He sees one of them riding across the field to cut him off; the other is following him along the road.  Suddenly the rider in the field disappears,-­going head foremost into a clay pit.  “Ha! ha!” laughs Revere, as the fleet steed bears him on towards Medford town.  He clatters across Mystic bridge, halts long enough to awaken the captain of the minute-men, and then rattles on towards Menotomy.

It is past eleven o’clock.  The fires have been covered for the night in the farmhouses, and the people are asleep.

“Turn out! turn out! the redcoats are coming!”

Paul Revere is shouting it at every door, as Bucephalus bears him swiftly on.  The farmers spring from their beds, peer through their window-panes into the darkness,-­seeing a vanishing form, and flashing sparks struck from the stones by the hoofs of the flying horse.  Once more across the Mystic on to Menotomy, past the meetinghouse and the houses of the slumbering people, up the hill, along the valley, to Lexington Green; past the meetinghouse, not halting at Buckman’s tavern, but pushing on, leaping from his foaming steed and rapping upon Mr. Clark’s door.

“Who are ye, and what d’ye want?” Sergeant Munroe asked the question.

“I want to see Mr. Hancock.”

“Well, you can’t.  The minister and his family mustn’t be disturbed, so just keep still and don’t make a racket.”

“There’ll be a racket pretty soon, for the redcoats are coming,” said Paul.

“Who are you and what do you wish?” asked Reverend Mr. Clark in his night-dress from the window.

“I want to see Adams and Hancock.”

“It is Revere; let him in!” shouted Hancock down the stairway.

“The regulars are coming, several hundred of them, to seize you!”

“It is the supplies at Concord they are after,” cried Mr. Adams.

A moment later other hoofs were striking fire from the stones, and another horseman, William Dawes, appeared, confirming what Revere had said.