"You one of the king's friends!" Archie cried derisively. "If he picks his intimates from such spawn as you there's good reason why he has allowed these colonies of his to come to open rebellion against injustice."
"You've said it! You've said it!" the Tory cur cried as if in delight. "You've admitted that you are rebels, and the king's officers shall hear of what you say, for the time has come when they are marking such as you for future punishment."
"And what have they marked you for?" Silas asked with a laugh. "Are you counted on being able to act the part of a half-way decent scarecrow, or are you ranked as a lickspittle to some lobster back who hasn't yet learned to speak English?"
"Before we're many days older you shall come to understand some of the marks, and I'll be the one to explain them in a way that won't be to your liking," Amos shouted, and just then he was bowled over by a clod of earth that Archie flung with an aim which would have done your heart good to see.
"There's what you call a rebel mark," the dear lad cried with a laugh at his own success, "and I'm counting you'll carry it longer than shall we that which the tyrant Gage puts upon us."
At that instant Archie was seized by the collar from behind, and I was near to letting out a cry of fear, for I counted as a certainty that some lobster backs, having overheard our words, were come to lend the Tory lad a hand.
Luckily the cry was choked before it escaped my lips, else I should have been bowed with shame, for on the moment I saw that it was none other than Doctor Warren who had seized Archie, and we lads knew him for one who would cut off his right hand rather than take the part of a Tory against a so-called rebel.
"Is it well to spend your time brawling on the streets with such as that lad, when there is work you might do in behalf of the Cause?" the doctor asked sharply, and, twisting himself round that he might look the good man squarely in the face, Archie cried:
"What is there that lads like us might do at such a time, sir? We are willing enough; but lack opportunity."
"I came out in search of one who can be trusted to carry a message into the country; but fail to find him. It strikes me that lads like you could be employed in such tasks, and thus give men full grown the opportunity of doing braver work though nothing could be more important than my business of this night. Think you it would be possible to leave Boston within the hour, and without attracting the attention of the guards?" the doctor added after a brief time of thought.