To the great delight of the young people on board the "Dolphin" the sun shone in a clear sky the next morning.
Soon after breakfast they were all on deck, as usual in pleasant weather, enjoying the breeze, the sight of passing vessels, and a distant view of the land.
The Captain and Violet sat near together with the two little ones playing about them, while Grandma Elsie, in a reclining chair, at no great distance, seemed absorbed in a book.
"Mamma is reading something sad, I know by the look on her face," said Walter, hurrying toward her, the others following. "What is it you are reading, Mamma, that makes you look so sorry?" he asked, putting an arm about her neck, and giving her a kiss. "Oh, that's Bancroft's History!"
"Yes," she said, "I was just looking over his account of the battles of Lexington and Concord, and some things he tells do make me sad though they happened more than a hundred years ago."
"Oh, please read them to us!" pleaded several young voices, all speaking at once.
"I will give you some passages," she said; "not the whole, because you have already been over that ground. It is what he tells of Isaac Davis that particularly interests me," and she began reading.
"At daybreak the minute-men of Acton crowded, at the drum-beat, to the house of Isaac Davis, their captain, who 'made haste to be ready.' Just thirty years old, the father of four little ones, stately in his person, a man of few words, earnest even to solemnity, he parted from his wife, saying, 'Take good care of the children;' and while she gazed after him with resignation, he led off his company.
"Between nine and ten the number of Americans on the rising ground above Concord Bridge had increased to more than four hundred. Of these there were twenty-five minute-men from Bedford, with Jonathan Wilson for their captain; others were from Westford, among them Thaxter, a preacher; others from Littleton, from Carlisle, and from Chelmsford. The Acton company came last and formed on the right. The whole was a gathering not so much of officers and soldiers as of brothers and equals, of whom every one was a man well known in his village, observed in the meeting-house on Sundays, familiar at town meetings and respected as a freeholder or a freeholder's son.... 'The Americans had as yet received only uncertain rumors of the morning's events at Lexington. At the sight of fire in the village, the impulse seized them to march into the town for its defence.' But were they not subjects of the British king? Had not the troops come out in obedience to acknowledged authorities? Was resistance practicable? Was it justifiable? By whom could it be authorized? No union had been formed, no independence proclaimed, no war declared. The husbandmen and mechanics who then stood on the hillock by Concord river were called on to act, and their action would be war or peace, submission or independence. Had they doubted they must have despaired. Prudent statesmanship would have asked for time to ponder. Wise philosophy would have lost from hesitation the glory of opening a new era on mankind. The train-bands at Concord acted and God was with them.