"The night preceding the outrages at Lexington there were not fifty people in the whole colony that ever expected any blood would be shed in the contest; the night after, the king's governor and the king's army found themselves closely beleaguered in Boston."
"Did the news fly very fast all over the country, Mamma?" asked Walter.
"Very fast for those times," she replied; "you must remember that then they had neither railroads nor telegraph, but as Bancroft says, 'Heralds by swift relays transmitted the war messages from hand to hand, till village repeated it to village; the sea to the backwoods; the plains to the highlands; and it was never suffered to droop till it had been borne north and south, east and west, throughout the land.'"
"But there wasn't any more fighting till the battle of Bunker Hill, was there, Mamma?" asked Walter.
"Yes," she replied, "there was the taking of Ticonderoga and Crown Point early in May, by a party under the command of Ethan Allen; there were about a hundred 'Green Mountain Boys' and nearly fifty soldiers from Massachusetts besides the men of Connecticut. The thing was planned in Connecticut, and the expense borne there.
"Allen marched in the night to the shore of the lake opposite to Ticonderoga. A farmer named Beman offered his son Nathan as a guide, saying that he (the lad) had been used to playing about the fort with the boys of the garrison, and knew of every secret way leading into it.
"Allen accepted the offer, but there was a difficulty about getting boats in which to cross the lake. They had but few and day began to dawn. If the garrison should be aroused their expedition was likely to fail, for a great deal depended upon taking them by surprise; so Allen decided not to wait for the rear division to cross, but to make the attempt with the officers and eighty-three men who were already on that side. He drew up his men in three ranks on the shore and made them a little speech in a low tone: 'Friends and fellow-soldiers, we must this morning quit our pretensions to valour, or possess ourselves of this fortress; and inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge it on, contrary to will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelock.'
"Instantly every firelock was poised. 'Face to the right!' he cried, putting himself at their head, Benedict Arnold close at his side, and they marched quietly and steadily up to the gate.
"The sentinel there snapped his fusee at Allen, but it missed fire, and he retreated within the fort. The Americans rushed in after him, another sentinel made a thrust at one of them, but they ran upon the guard, raising the Indian war-whoop, Allen giving the sentinel a blow upon the head with his sword that made him beg for quarter.