Kitty looked, too. Down the narrow way between the gabled houses came a slowly moving procession. First the drummer stepped out, a scrawny lad not much taller than Dick. He walked all alone, beating a brass-bound drum, and behind him followed a black horse drawing a phaeton with two men in it. After the phaeton rode two British officers on horseback. She could see nothing more at the moment because of a crook in the street. A little crowd was beginning to gather in the direction of Market Square. Sally Rose finally got back her breath and answered Dick’s question.
“When I heard the drum I ran down to Mr. Bassett’s wine shop. He’s back in town, you know, to cut his hay on the Point Road, and I asked him what was happening. He said he heard—”
The drummer had come even with the Bay and Beagle now, and his steady beating drowned out the girl’s excited voice. Sally Rose stopped talking and got to her feet. She and Dick and Kitty stood together in the tavern doorway and watched the slow procession advance and pass close by them.
The two men who rode in the phaeton behind the drummer were in odd contrast to each other, and yet there was the same air of dignity and purpose enveloping both of them. One was old—not so old as Timothy, but not young any more. He was broad-shouldered and sturdy and had a round, good-natured face and a shock of tousled gray hair. He wore a blue uniform. His companion was younger, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a ruddy face and a fresh, scrubbed look about him. He was not a soldier, apparently, for his coat was fawn-colored with a white-fringed waistcoat underneath.
“That’s Old Put,” said Timothy proudly, for he and Gran had come to stand just behind them. “See! In the blue coat there! General Putnam. His wife must ha’ sent him his uniform.”
“Why would she have to do that?” asked Gran tartly. “Wouldn’t go off to war without it, would he?”
Timothy chuckled. “That’s just what he done! When he heard about Concord Fight, he was building a stone wall on his farm away down in Connecticut. But he come just as he was, in leather breeches and apron. Got here at next day’s sunrise, they say.”
“I guess there was others got here just as quick as he did,” answered Gran. “Yourself for one.” She peered over Kitty’s shoulder. “Who be that by his side?”
“That’s Dr. Warren. Best damn man, I say, that ever come out o’ Boston. Don’t know how General Ward would run Cambridge Camp without him. Figures out how to get supplies, and men, and money, and all. He’s got book learning and can talk to anybody. More’n that, he’s a good doctor.”
“Where are the prisoners, I wonder?” asked Sally Rose.