“I have put in everything I could think of that will in any way make you comfortable, mother dear,” said Ruth, mentioning the articles.
“I’ve put up some jelly and jam for ye, missus,” said Phillis.
Berinthia Brandon and Abraham Duncan came to bid them farewell, and to help Ruth prepare for their departure.
It was Ruth’s strong arm that upheld her mother as they slowly walked the street on their way to the ship. It was a mournful spectacle. Not they alone, but Mr. Shrimpton and Mary, Nathaniel Coffin and wife and John, and a hundred of Ruth’s acquaintances were on the wharf preparing to go on board the ships.
“This is what has come from Sam Adams’s meddling,” said Mr. Shrimpton. “May the Devil take him and John Hancock. They ought to be hanged, and I hope King George will yet have a chance to string ’em up—curse ’em! I’d like to see ’em dangling from the gibbet, and the crows picking their bones,” he said, smiting his fists together, walking to and fro.
He was bidding farewell to home,—to the house in which he was born. He had farms in the county, wide reaches of woodland, fields, and pastures. The provincials would confiscate them. In his declining years all his property was to slip through his fingers, and he was to totter in penury to his grave.
“I shall enlist in the service of the king and fight ’em,” said John Coffin, who had shown his loyalty by accompanying General Howe to the battle of Bunker Hill.
“And I hope you’ll have a chance to put a bullet through the carcass of Sam Adams,” said Mr. Shrimpton.
It was his daughter’s hand that guided him over the gang-plank to the deck of the Queen Charlotte.
“Let me put this muffler round your neck; the air is chill and you are shivering,” said Mary, gently leading him.