An officer of Minute Men came up; his eyes were red as though he had been weeping.
"They butchered his brother behind the red barn yonder," whispered a lean yokel beside me. "He'll hang 'em, that's what he'll do."
"That's it! Hang 'em!" bawled out a red-headed lout, flourishing a pitchfork. "Hang the damn—!"
"Put that fool under arrest," said the officer, sharply. Some Acton Minute Men seized the lout and hustled him off; others formed a guard and conducted the big, perspiring, red-coated soldiers towards "Buckman's Tavern."
"You will treat them humanely?" I asked, as the officer passed me.
He gave me a blank glance; the tears again had filled his eyes.
"Certainly," he said, shortly; "I am not a butcher."
I gave him the officer's salute; he returned it absently, and walked on, with drawn sword and head sunk on his tarnished brass gorget.
A restless, silent crowd had gathered at "Buckman's Tavern," where two dead Minute Men lay on the porch, stiffening in their blood.
The sun had not yet risen, but all the east was turning yellow; great clouds of red-winged blackbirds rose and settled in the swampy meadows, and filled the air with their dry chirking; robins sang ecstatically.