No less than six hundred men were now approaching a common centre with cries of:
"Let us drive out these rascals! They have no business here! Drive them out!"
"It is as was rumoured," Sam Gray said, quietly. "There is concerted action here, and before morning Governor Hutchinson will understand that it is the citizens of Boston, not a rabble, who demand the removal of the troops. If the better class of people wish the redcoats to remain, why do not some of them stand here to prevent mischief?"
Jim made no reply. He already realised that this was a movement of the populace, and not an ordinary street brawl.
Each moment the crowd that had assembled in the square increased in numbers; but it remained as orderly a gathering as ever assembled at Liberty Hall until a squad of soldiers, evidently for no other purpose than to show their contempt of the people, strode into the square, forcing a passage through the crowd in an offensive and insolent manner.
Then came that cry which aroused those who heard it more quickly than had the pealing of the alarm-bell.
"Town-born, turn out! Down with the 'bloody backs'!"
The soldiers lost their air of security and defiance as these words were passed from one side of the square to the other like the waves of the sea, and caught up in every direction by those on the adjacent streets, until it seemed as if the very air was tremulous with the cry:
"Town-born, turn out!"
The soldiers disappeared; but the summons for those who would defend their city's rights had so excited even the cooler-headed ones that action was an absolute necessity, and yet no leader had at that moment arisen to map out a course of action.