At that moment the sound of galloping troops fell upon our ears, and a little later the largest body of American soldiers I had yet seen swept around a turn in the road just ahead of us. I drew to the left, and they thundered past, going in the direction of Boston. My companion turned his horse, and prepared to join the troops. As he galloped off with them, I heard him shouting my name, at which I saw three or four of those nearest to him turn their heads and look back toward me somewhat curiously. But they all kept on, and were soon lost in the dust and distance.
As I went on my way alone, I could not help thinking upon the words of my late companion, who had left me as suddenly as he came upon me. What he had told me regarding laws and taxes was not really news; I had heard the rebel side of the case many times from Duncan Hale; but there was quite a different note in the words of the rough young farmer. Evidently there were two sides to the great question—at least it was not difficult to see that people thought there were.
With myself, as with many others, up to the time of the real outbreak, it had not been necessary to take sides. But now it was quite different. Then I was a schoolboy thinking only of Oxford; now I was the sole defender and counsellor of my mother and sisters. I was anxious to try the case fairly and honestly. I wished to do right. Consulting my feelings alone, recalling the words of Duncan Hale, and remembering that my father had been slain, I felt that perhaps I had done wrong in not openly, even before the troop of soldiers, declaring myself a sympathiser with the King and his cause. But second thought showed me that such a course would have been folly. If I did this, what of my mother and sisters? It was here that the real difficulties of my situation first dawned upon me. Things were strangely bound together. As I rode along, thinking all the while, the situation, instead of growing simpler, became more complex.
The whole country was, I saw, in the hands of the rebels. During my entire ride so far, I had not seen a single soldier of the King. My mother and sisters, my father's fine and valuable property, were all at the mercy of the King's enemies. Duncan Hale was a fugitive, if not already a captive. My brother was somewhere in the King's service, but, following his usual policy, my father had revealed nothing. Then if we were able to find him, how could he help us? He could not look for a discharge at such a time. Again, his presence with us might mean more of danger than his absence from us. But the question that insisted on coming to me most seriously and frequently was, 'How am I to serve the King, and yet do what is best for my mother and sisters?'
The sun was now getting high. The glory of the spring was everywhere. Here and there a ploughman followed his team in a distant field. But it became more and more evident, as I advanced along the road, that the spirit of war would soon absorb everything.
Suddenly my horse snorted and lurched violently back, almost throwing me from the saddle. He gazed wild-eyed and with fiercely-blowing nostrils at a spot in the road. Here blood had been shed. A momentary shudder ran through me, but I urged him on. A few miles further along the way I noticed that the fence had been torn with bullets, and in a field, a little from the road, were four fresh mounds that I took at once for graves. Under a shady tree near these sat an old man of some eighty years.
'Are these graves?' I asked.
'Aye, they be. Four redcoats lie here, or accordin' to some, three sodgers and a Tory. But if you're wantin' to see where the main slaughter was, go on. I'm watchin' here. There's some reason for thinkin' the one who wasn't a sodger was a person o' consequence—a man o' valuable property that may be useful during the siege as well as after. There was a lank old villain—a schoolmaster of Cambridge, I think our Colonel said—nosin' round here early this mornin'. It leaked out that he was huntin' for a body. Anyway he was surprised, captured, an' carried off to the village. It's generally agreed that he'll be hanged.'
It flashed upon me in an instant, that the man of consequence spoken of was my father, and that the other was Duncan Hale. I was quite sure Duncan had escaped from the soldiers who had attempted to seize him in our home; and I knew also that for friendship's sake he would in all probability venture out, even in the face of danger, to learn, if possible, where my father fell. If I was right in my conjecture, and the old man spoke truly, the faithful fellow's love had got him into strange difficulties. I resolved to go on, hoping to pick up some further scraps of information before returning home. Had I known all that was to befall me, I certainly would not have gone further. But the information I had received regarding Duncan Hale, especially the hint of his danger, convinced me that it was my duty to go on at least to Lexington.
After leaving the old man at the graves, I saw numerous evidences of severe fighting almost everywhere. Barns and buildings on every side were riddled with bullets. Fences were thrown down, and the fields showed the marks of galloping troops. Graves and bloodstains became more and more common.