At Grafton we baited at the "Weather-cock Tavern"; then on along the Charles River, with the scent o' the distant sea in every breath we drew, through Dedham, past Needham, and north into a most lovely country of rolling golden stubble and orchards all red with apples, and bridges of stone, neatly fashioned to resist the freshets. Alas, that this fair province of Massachusetts Bay should lie a-gasping amid plenty, with the hand of Britain upon the country's thrapple to choke out the life God gave it.
On the straight, well-laid high-road we passed scores of farmers' wains, piled with corn and yellow pumpkins, cabbages, squashes, barrels of apples, sacks o' flour, and thraves, all bound for Boston, where the poor were starving and the rich went hungering because the King of England had been angered to hear men prate of human rights.
Since the 1st day of June the Boston Port Bill was in full effect, and the city was sealed to commerce. Not a keel had stirred the waters of the bay save when the great bulging war-ships shifted their moorings to swing their broadsides towards the town; not a sail was bent to the shore breeze in this harbour where a thousand vessels had cleared in a single year from its busy port.
So when the city felt the punishment heavy upon her, and the poor starved and the rich suffered, and the hot sun poured down on the empty rotting wharves, the farmers of Massachusetts Bay brought their harvests by land to the famine-stricken city, and sister colonies sent generously of their best with the watchword: "Stand fast, Boston! A King's anger is a little thing, but human rights shall not perish until we perish, every one!"
It was sunset as we turned into the Roxbury road, with the salt wind blowing the marsh-reeds and ruffling the shallow waters of the harbour to the north and east. It was ebb-tide; beyond the eastern bog, far out in the yellow shallows, the harbour channel ran in a darker streak, glittering under the red blaze of sunset.
Wet marshes spread away to the north; the wind was heavy with the salty stench of mud-flats uncovered at low-water, and all alive with sea-fowl hovering. Northeast the steeples of Boston rose, blood-red in the setting sun; distant windows flashed fire; weather-vanes turned to jets of flame.
The red glow enveloped the road over which we travelled, now in company with scores of other vehicles, all bound for Boston—coaches, flies, chaises, wagons, farm wains—all moving slowly as though the head of the column had been checked by something which we could not yet see.
I rode forward to where Jack Mount was sitting on the box of the chaise, and he motioned me to his side.
"We're close to Boston Neck," he said. "Tommy Gage has been making some forts ahead of us since I last smelled the mud-flats yonder."
I rode on slowly, passing along the stalled line of vehicles, until, just ahead, I caught a glimpse of an earthwork flying the British flag. The red banner stood straight out in the sea-wind, rippling, and snapping like a whip when the breeze freshened. Under it a sentry moved, bayonet glittering as he turned, paced on, turned again, only to retrace his endless path on the brown rampart of earth.