Samuel Gray and his two companions were carried, without effort on their part, with one of these bodies, and, by a singular chance, pressed into close companionship with the barber's apprentice and his comrades.
The direction taken by this last division led them directly past the Custom House, and as they approached it Amos heard the shrill voice of Hardy, high above the cries and shouts of his companions:
"There's the scoundrel who knocked me down! That sentinel in the doorway blackened my eye because I dared ask to see Lieutenant Draper!"
The attention of the throng was thus directed to the single soldier who stood on duty at the Custom House.
"Knock him down as well! Give him a dose of his own medicine!"
"Death to the 'bloody backs'!"
"Kill him! Kill him!"
Now the excited ones no longer thought of the main guard. They saw before them an armed enemy, and he it was who had abused one of the town-born.
Some continued to utter threats; but many flung bits of ice, frozen dirt, and even such harmless missiles as snowballs, while not a few pressed toward the soldier, as if to make him prisoner.