“Samuel Adams is a glorious man, your Honor, and has a heart true to your own. I would die for liberty, and be willing to be forgotten for the cause. What matters what becomes of Dennis O’Hay—but the cause, the cause!”
“Then, Dennis, you are the one of all others to take charge of the alarm-post that you propose to establish permanently.” Many are willing to die in a cause that would not be willing to be forgotten, the old man thought, and walked about with his hands behind him.
“Forgotten, Dennis, what is it to be forgotten? The winds of the desert blow over the Persepolis, but where is the Persepolis? Babylon, where are thy sixty miles of walls, and the chariots that rolled on their lofty ways? Gone with the wind. Egypt, where are all the kings that raised thy pyramids? Gone with the wind. Solomon, where is thy throne of the gold and gems of the Ind? Gone with the wind. We all shall be forgotten, or only live in the good that we do. I like that word which you spoke, willing to be forgotten for the welfare of mankind. Dennis, I would be willing to be forgotten. I live for the cause. I seek neither money nor fame, but only to do the will of the everlasting God, to which I surrender all. To live for good influence is the whole of life. Soul value is everything. How will you establish the alarm-post?”
“I will watch the roads from the top of the second stairs as I have done before. I will have trusty men in the cedars who will set up signal lights at night. One of these men shall live in the rocks so that he may guard the place where the powder is stored. He shall ride a swift horse, and set up fire-signals at night. The secret shall be known to but few, if you will trust it to me to pick my men. And Peter—nimble Peter—your trusty clerk—who was sent out—he shall be my heart’s own.”
“I leave it all to you, Dennis. Establish the alarm-post. Select you hidden men. As for me, I believe like the men in the camp of the Hebrews, in helpers invisible. An angel stayed the hand of Abraham, and went before the tribes on their march out of Egypt, and led the feet of Abraham’s servant to find Rebecca; and when the young king was afraid to encounter so great a host, the prophet opened his spiritual eyes, and lo! the mountain was full of chariots and horsemen. The angel of Providence protects me; I know it, I feel it; it is my mission to reenforce the American army when it is in straits. Faith walks with the heavens, and I live by faith.”
Dennis went out. He felt free, like one commissioned by a higher power. Yes, he did know a tremendous secret. He knew where the powder was hidden.
When he had come to share with the Governor the secrets of collecting saltpeter and powder, he learned all the ways of this secret service. There must be found a place where this powder could be hidden, so as to be safely guarded. It was a necessity.
Lebanon abounded in rocky hills in which were caves. These caves could be guarded, and yet they would not be secure against spies. Dennis began to put his Irish wits at work to devise a way to protect a storage of powder against spies.
The tall, nimble boy who had been in the service of William Williams came first into Dennis’s mind and heart. Mr. Williams, for whom the boy had kept sheep, was a graduate of Harvard College, and had been a member of the Committee of Correspondence for the Union and Safety of the Colonies. This man had written several pamphlets to awaken the spirit of the colonies to resist aggression, and the nimble boy to whom we have referred, now the clerk, had listened at doors to the reading of these pamphlets, and drank in the spirit of them until he had become so full of patriotic feeling that he thought of little but the cause.
Dennis’s intuitive eye fixed itself upon this boy for secret service.