"What news?" queried Dick, wondering whether it might be of another Indian war, like that of Lord Dunmore's in Western Virginia the preceding year; or whether there had been a renewal of the old feud between the Pennsylvanians and the Connecticut settlers up in the Wyoming Valley; or whether the English government had repealed or reinforced the Boston Port Bill. These were matters in which Dick and M'Cleland had both taken interest,—especially the last one, for nowhere had the difference between King and colonies, which quarrel had been growing ever since the passage of the Stamp Act ten years before, been more thoroughly discussed than in the Wetheral household, and nowhere was the feeling for resistance to the King more ardent.
"Great news," said M'Cleland, controlling his voice with difficulty, while his eyes sparkled with excitement. "On the nineteenth the King's troops marched out from Boston to take some ammunition the people had stored at Concord. At Lexington they met a company of minutemen, and there were shots and bloodshed. The whole country around rose and killed God knows how many of the regulars on their way back to Boston. When the messengers left Cambridge, there was an army of Massachusetts men besieging the King's soldiers in Boston. There's no doubt about it. At Hunter's Mill I saw the man who met at Paxton the rider that talked in Philadelphia with the messenger from Cambridge, who had affidavits from Massachusetts citizens. Tell your people. I'm off up the river. Get up!"
Dick never went any farther towards the field. He called in his father and Tom, and there was a long discussion of the situation. Wetheral said that Pennsylvania would be organizing troops, in due time, to back up Massachusetts, and that the only course was to wait and join such a force. But Dick would not hear of waiting. "Now is the time men are needed!" was his answer to every counsel. First make for the scene of war; it would be time to join the Pennsylvania forces when these should arrive there. The father gave in, at last, and the mother had nothing to oppose to the inevitable but the protest of silent tears. To her, the whole matter was as lightning from a clear sky. It was settled; the boy should go, the father should stay. The mother had a day in which to get Dick's things ready. As for Tom MacAlister, who was subject to no man's will but his own, his first hearing of the news had set him preparing for departure. As he tied his own horse to the fence rail the next day, to wait for Dick, he bethought him how of old his motto had been always "up and away again," and he marvelled that he had remained twelve years contented in one place.
It was not yet Sunday noon when Dick, who it was decided should share with Tom the use of the latter's horse on the journey to Cambridge, according to the custom known as "riding and tying," mounted for the first stage. He wore a cocked hat, a blue cloth coat altered from one his father had brought from England, a linsey shirt, an old figured waistcoat, gray breeches, worsted stockings, home-made shoes, and buckskin leggings; carried a rifle, a blanket, and a change of shirts; and had two gold pieces, long saved by his mother against the time of his setting up for himself. Tom MacAlister was dressed and armed exactly as at Dick's first meeting with him, his clothes having been temporarily supplanted by homespun during his years of farm service.
There was a lump in Dick's throat when he put his arms around his mother's neck, and felt against his cheek the tear she had striven to hold back. The last embrace taken, he gave his horse the word rather huskily, and followed Tom MacAlister, who was already striding down the lane. Turning into the road, Dick looked back, and saw his father, his mother, his aunt, and Rover, the last-named now feeble and far beyond the age ordinarily attained by dogkind, standing together by the fence. His father waved an awkward military salute, his mother forced a smile into her face, and the old dog made two or three steps to follow, as in the past, then stopped and looked somewhat surprised and hurt that Dick did not call him. One swift glance from the puzzled dog to his mother's wistful face, and Dick's home in the Pennsylvania valley passed from his sight forever. He cleared his throat, swallowed down the lump in it, and turned his eyes forward towards the east. Tom MacAlister's grim face wore a look of quiet elation, and he could be heard softly whistling, as he trudged on, the tune of "Over the hills and far away."
CHAPTER III.
AT THE SIGN OF THE GEORGE.
As they proceeded, Dick laughingly alluded to the time when, at the age of four, he had started out on this same road, thinking it would take him to Paris in a few hours.
"And wha kens," said MacAlister, in all seriousness, "but this same road may yet lead ye there, or to Chiney, for that matter? Him that sets out on a journey knowing where 'twill land him is a wiser man nor you and me, my son!"