They heard, far away, the drumbeat of the advancing British.
No messengers had arrived to inform the minute-men of Concord what had happened at Lexington; for Doctor Prescott did not know that British muskets had fired a fatal volley.
From the burial ground Roger could look far down the road and see the sunlight glinting from the bayonets of the grenadiers, as the red-coated platoons emerged from the woodland into the open highway.
Major Buttrick with the minute-men and Colonel Barrett with the militia formed in line by the liberty pole.
“Prime and load!” his order.
Roger poured the powder into the palm of his hand, emptied it into the gun, and rammed it home with a ball. Never had he experienced such a sensation as at the moment. He was not doing it to take aim at a deer or fox, but to send it through the heart of a fellow-being if need be; to maintain justice and liberty. He could die in their defense; why should it trouble him, then, to think of shooting those who were assailing what he held so dear?
“I am doing right. Liberty shall live, cost what it may,” he said to himself as he poured the priming into the pan.
On in serried ranks came the British.
“We are too few, they are three to our one. We must cross the river and wait till we are stronger,” said Colonel Barrett.