True to the Old Flag (Historical Novels - American Cycle). G. A. Henty

as Captain Wilson rode in a messenger ran up with the news that the head of the British column was close at hand. Some of the militia had dispersed to lie down until the English arrived. John Parker, who commanded them, ordered the drums to beat and the alarm-guns to be fired, and his men drew up in two ranks across the road.

      "It is too late now, Harold," Captain Wilson said. "Let us get out of the line of fire."

      The British, hearing the drums and the alarm-guns, loaded, and the advance company came on at the double. Major Pitcairne was at their head and shouted to the militia to lay down their arms.

      It is a matter of dispute, and will always remain one, as to who fired the first shot. The Americans assert that it was the English; the English say that as they advanced several shots were fired at them from behind a stone wall and from some of the adjoining houses, which wounded one man and hit Major Pitcairne's horse in two places.

      The militia disregarded Major Pitcairne's orders to lay down their arms. The English fired; several of the militia were killed, nine wounded, and the rest dispersed. There was no further fighting and the English marched on, unopposed, to Concord.

      As they approached the town the militia retreated from it. The English took possession of a bridge behind the place and held this while the troops were engaged in destroying the ammunition and gun-carriages. Most of the guns had been removed and only two twenty-four pounders were taken. In destroying the stores by fire the court-house took flames. At the sight of this fire the militia and armed countrymen advanced down the hill toward the bridge. The English tried to pull up the planks, but the Americans ran forward rapidly. The English guard fired; the colonists returned the fire. Some of the English were killed and wounded and the party fell back into the town. Half an hour later Colonel Smith, having performed the duty that he was sent to do, resumed the homeward march with the whole of his troops.

      Then the militiamen of Concord, with those from many villages around and every man in the district capable of bearing arms, fell upon the retiring English.

      The road led through several defiles, and every tree, every rock, every depression of ground was taken advantage of by the Americans. Scarcely a man was to be seen, but their deadly fire rained thick upon the tired troops. This they vainly attempted to return, but they could do nothing against an invisible foe, every man of whom possessed a skill with his rifle far beyond that of the British soldier. Very many fell and the retreat was fast becoming a rout, when, near Lexington, the column met a strong re-enforcement which had been sent out from Boston. This was commanded by Lord Percy, who formed his detachment into square, in which Colonel Smith's party, now so utterly exhausted that they were obliged to lie down for some time, took refuge. When they were rested the whole force moved forward again toward Boston, harassed the whole way by the Americans, who from behind stone walls and other places of shelter kept up an incessant fire upon both flanks, as well as in the front and rear, against which the troops could do nothing. At last the retreating column safely arrived at Boston, spent and worn out with fatigue. Their loss was 65 men killed, 136 wounded, 49 missing.

      Such was the beginning of the war of independence. Many American writers have declared that previous to that battle there was no desire for independence on the part of the colonists, but this is emphatically contradicted by the language used at the meetings and in the newspapers which have come down to us. The leaders may not have wished to go so far—may not have intended to gain more than an entire immunity from taxation and an absolute power for the colonists to manage their own affairs. But experience has shown that when the spark of revolution is once lighted, when resistance to the law has once commenced, things are carried to a point far beyond that dreamed of by the first leaders.

      Those who commenced the French Revolution were moderate men who desired only that some slight check should be placed on the arbitrary power of the king—that the people should be relieved in some slight degree from the horrible tyranny of the nobles, from the misery and wretchedness in which they lived. These just demands increased step by step until they culminated in the Reign of Terror and the most horrible scenes of bloodshed and massacre of modern times.

      Men like Washington and Franklin and Adams may have desired only that the colonists should be free from imperial taxation, but the popular voice went far beyond this. Three years earlier wise counsels in the British Parliament might have averted a catastrophe and delayed for many years the separation of the colonies from their mother country. At the time the march began from Boston to Concord the American colonists stood virtually in armed rebellion. The militia throughout New England were ready to fight. Arms, ammunition, and military stores were collected in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The cannon and military stores belonging to the Crown had been carried off by the people, forty cannon being seized in Rhode Island alone. Such being the case, it is nonsense to speak of the fray at Lexington as the cause of the Revolutionary War. It was but the spark in the powder. The magazine was ready and primed, the explosion was inevitable, and the fight at Lexington was the accidental incident which set fire to it.

      The efforts of American writers to conceal the real facts of the case, to minimize the rebellious language, the violent acts of the colonists, and to make England responsible for the war because a body of troops were sent to seize cannon and military stores intended to be used against them are so absurd, as well as so untrue, that it is astonishing how wide a credence such statements have received.

      From an eminence at some distance from the line of retreat Captain Wilson and his son watched sorrowfully the attack upon the British troops. When at last the combatants disappeared from sight through one of the defiles Captain Wilson turned his horse's head homeward.

      "The die is cast," he said to his wife as she met him at the door. "The war has begun, and I fear it can have but one termination. The colonists can place forces in the field twenty times as numerous as any army that England can spare. They are inferior in drill and in discipline, but these things, which are of such vast consequence in a European battlefield, matter but little in such a country as this. Skill with the rifle and knowledge of forest warfare are far more important. In these points the colonists are as superior to the English soldiers as they are in point of numbers. Nevertheless, my dear, my duty is plain. I am an Englishman and have borne his Majesty's commission, and I must fight for the king. Harold has spoken to me as we rode home together, and he wishes to fight by my side. I have pointed out to him that as he was born here he can without dishonor remain neutral in the struggle. He, however, insists that as a royal subject of the king he is entitled to fight for him. He saw to-day many lads not older than himself in the rebel ranks, and he has pleaded strongly for permission to go with me. To this I have agreed. Which would you prefer, Mary—to stay quietly here, where I imagine you would not be molested on account of the part I take, or will you move into Boston and stop with your relations there until the struggle has ended one way or the other?"

      As Mrs. Wilson had frequently talked over with her husband the course that he would take in the event of civil war actually breaking out, the news that he would at once offer his services to the British authorities did not come as a shock upon her. Even the question of Harold accompanying his father had been talked over; and although her heart bled at the thought of husband and son being both engaged in such a struggle, she agreed to acquiesce in any decision that Harold might arrive at. He was now nearly sixteen, and in the colonies a lad of this age is, in point of independence and self-reliance, older than an English boy. Harold, too, had already shown that he possessed discretion and coolness as well as courage, and although now that the moment had come Mrs. Wilson wept passionately at the thought of their leaving her, she abstained from saying any word to dissuade them from the course they had determined upon. When she recovered from her fit of crying she said that she would accompany them at once to Boston, as in the first place their duties might for some time lie in that city, and that in any case she would obtain far more speedy news there of what was going on throughout the country than she would at Concord. She would, too, be living among her friends and would meet with many of the same convictions and opinions as her husband's, whereas in Concord the whole population would be hostile.

      Captain Wilson said that there was no time to be lost, as the whole town was in a tumult. He therefore advised her to pack up such necessary articles as could be carried in the valises, on the horses' backs.

      Pompey and the