"I can't sit still in that tavern," I said. "Let us walk, Jack. Two hours are quickly past. Come, step beside me—and mind those ribbons! Jack! I am mad with happiness!"
"Then let us drink to it," suggested Mount, but I jerked him to my side, and scarcely knowing what to do or where to go, started on, with the vague idea of circling the city in a triumphal march.
I shall never forget my first glimpse of the city by daylight: its brick houses streaked with sea-fog, its bare wooden wharves glimmering in the sunshine, as Mount and I passed through Lyna Street and out along the water by Lee's ship-yard and Waldo's Wharf.
Northward across the misty water the roofs and steeples of Charlestown reddened in the sun; to the west the cannon on Corps Hill glittered, pointing seaward over the Northwest Water Mill. From somewhere in the city came the beating of drums and the faint squealing of fifes; the lion banner of England flapped from Beacon Hill; white tents crowned the summit of Valley Acre; the ashes of the beacon smoked.
In the northwestern portion of the city the quiet of death reigned; there was not a sign of life in the streets; the wooden houses were closed and darkened; the ship-yards and wharves deserted; not a living soul was to be seen abroad. Mount's noiseless moccasined tread awoke no echoes, but my smart heels clattered as we turned southeast through squalid Hawkins Street, through Sudbury, Hanover, Wings Lane, Dock Square, by the Town Dock, and then south, past the Long Wharf and Battery Marsh, above which, on Fort Hill, another British flag rippled against the blue sky.
"The damned rag flies high to-day," muttered Mount.
"Are you not done with cursing it?" I said, impatiently. "This is no day for bitterness."
"It's a slave's flag," retorted Mount—"parry that!"
"It flew for centuries above free men; let that plead for it!" I answered.
There was an inn on Milk Street, near Bishop's Alley, and the first open house we had encountered. Mount, before I could prevent him, had nosed out the tap-room, and I followed perforce, although I knew well enough that it was an ill-advised proceeding, the place being full of British soldiery and Mount in a quarrelsome mood.