Dorothy's eyes flashed as she read this, and laying it down she
exclaimed: "We will see whether the British come off victorious or
not! If I mistake not, there is more ability in the finger-tip of
John Hancock than in those of all the generals in the English army.
You will be taken the greatest care of, indeed--We shall see what we
shall see!" with which sage remark pretty Dolly, head held high,
walked out of the room and gave vent to her feelings in vigorous
exercise.
The issue was to be confronted sooner than they knew, and it was
peaceful Lexington where the first alarm of war sounded.
According to advice, a messenger had been sent to Concord to warn
Hancock of his possible danger, but neither he nor Adams attached much
importance to the report, after their first alarm was over, and they
were enjoying the quiet village life of Lexington with the two women
guests at the parsonage, when on the eighteenth of April, General Gage
really did order a force to march on Concord, not so much to seize the
few military supplies stored there, as to capture the rebellious
enemies of the crown.
Just how a small group of men in Boston, calling themselves the "Sons
of Liberty," who had constituted themselves a volunteer committee to
watch over the movements of the enemy, knew of the plan of the British
to march to Concord, and on the way to arrest Hancock and Samuel
Adams, will never be known. It is enough to know that they had
received the information, and knew that the British were determined
not to have a report of the march reach the enemy until it had been
successfully accomplished. The question was how to carry the news to
Lexington and Concord ahead of the British troops. There was no time
to waste in lengthy discussions, and in a very short time Paul Revere
was ready for his historic ride. The signals agreed on before affairs
had reached this climax were: if the British went out by water, _two_
lanterns would be swung in the North Church steeple; if they went by
land, _one_ would be shown, and a friend of Paul Revere's had been
chosen as the man to set the signal.
Now, on the night of the eighteenth of April, 1775, _two_ lanterns
swung high in the historic steeple, and off started Paul Revere on the
most famous ride in American history. As Longfellow has so vividly
expressed it:
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
With clank of spur and brave use of whip, on he dashed, to waken the
country and rouse it to instant action--and as he passed through every
hamlet heavy sleepers woke at the sound of his ringing shout:
"The Regulars are coming!"
Then on clattered horse and rider, scattering stones and dirt, as the
horse's hoofs tore into the ground and his flanks were flecked with
foam. Midnight had struck when the dripping steed and his breathless
rider drew up before the parsonage where unsuspecting Dorothy and Aunt
Lydia were sheltered, as well as the two patriots. The house was
guarded by eight men when Paul Revere dashed up to the door, and they
cautioned him not to make a noise.
"Noise!" exclaimed Revere. "You'll have noise enough before long. The
Regulars are coming out!"
John Hancock, ever on the alert for any unwonted sounds, heard the
commotion and recognizing Revere's voice opened a window and said:
"Courier Revere, we are not afraid of you!"
Revere repeated his startling news.
"Ring the Bell!" commanded Hancock. In a few moments the church bell
began to peal, according to pre-arranged signal, to call men of the
town together. All night the tones of the clanging bell rang out on
the clear air and before daylight one hundred and fifty men had
mustered for defense, strong in their desire for resistance and
confident of the justice of it.
John Hancock was determined to fight with the men who had come
together so hurriedly and were so poorly equipped for the combat. With
a firm hand he cleaned his gun and sword and put his accoutrements in
order, refusing to listen to the plea of Adams that it was not their
duty to fight, that theirs it was, rather, to safeguard their lives
for the sake of that cause to which they were so important at this
critical time. Hancock was deaf to all appeals, until Dorothy grasped
his hands in hers and forced him to look into her eyes:--
"I have lost my mother," she said; "to lose you, too, would be more
than I could bear, unless I were giving you for my country's good. But
you can serve best by living rather than by courting danger. You must
go, and go now!"
And Hancock went.
Meanwhile a British officer had been sent in advance of the troops to
inquire for "Clark's parsonage." By mistake he asked for Clark's
tavern, which news was brought to Hancock as he was debating whether
to take Dorothy's advice or not. He waited no longer. With Adams he
immediately took refuge in a thickly wooded hill back of the
parsonage. An hour later Paul Revere returned to the house to report
that after he left there, with two others, he had been captured by
British officers. Having answered their questions evasively about the
whereabouts of the patriots, he finally said: "Gentlemen, you have
missed your aim; the bell's ringing, the town's alarmed. You are all
dead men!" This so terrified the officers that, not one hundred yards
further on, one of them mounted Revere's horse and rode off at top
speed to give warning to the on-coming troops, while Revere went back
to report to Hancock and Adams.
It was evidently unsafe for them to remain so near the scene of the
struggle, and at daylight they were ready to start for the home of the
Rev. Mr. Marrett in Woburn. Dorothy and Aunt Lydia were to remain in
Lexington, and although they had kept well in the background through
all the excitement of the fateful night, Aunt Lydia now went down to
the door, not only to see the last of her beloved nephew, but to try
to speak to some one who could give her more definite news of the
seven hundred British soldiers who had arrived in town and were drawn
up in formidable array against the motley company of colonists. The
British officers at once commanded the colonists to lay down their
arms and disperse. Not a single man obeyed. All stood in silent
defiance of the order. Then the British regulars poured into the
"minute-men" a fatal volley of shots; and about that time Aunt Lydia
descended to the parsonage door, and excited Dorothy threw open her
window that she might wave to her lover until he was out of sight. As
she drew back, she saw something whiz through the air past her aunt's
head, striking the barn door beyond, and heard her aunt exclaim:
"What was that?"
It was a British bullet, and no mistake! As Dorothy told later: "The
next thing I knew, two men were being brought into the house, one,
whose head had been grazed by a bullet, insisted that he was dead; but
the other, who was shot in the arm, behaved better."
Dorothy Quincy had seen the first shot fired for independence!
Never was there a more gallant resistance of a large and
well-disciplined enemy force than that shown by the minute-men on that
day at Lexington, and when at last the British retreated under a hot
fire from the provincials at whom they had sneered, they had lost two
hundred and seventy-three, killed, wounded, and missing, while the
American force had lost only ninety-three.
As soon as the troops were marching on their way to Concord, a
messenger brought Dorothy a penciled note from Hancock: "Would she and
his aunt come to their hiding-place for dinner, and would they bring
with them the fine salmon which was to have been cooked for dinner at
the parsonage?" Of course they would--only too eagerly did they make
ready and allow the messenger to guide them to the patriot's place of
concealment. There, while the lovers enjoyed a tête-à-tête, Adams and
Aunt Lydia made the feast ready, and they were all about to enjoy it,
when a man rushed in crying out wildly:
"The British are coming! The British are coming! My wife's in eternity
now."
This was grim news, and there was no more thought of feasting.
Hurriedly Mr. Marrett made ready and took the patriots to a safer
hiding-place, in Amos Wyman's house in Billerica. There, later in the
day, they satisfied their appetites as best they could with cold pork
and potatoes in place of the princely salmon, while Dorothy and Aunt
Lydia, after eating what they had heart to consume of the feast,
returned to Parson Clark's home, where they waited as quietly as
possible until the retreat of the British troops. Then Dorothy had the
joy of being again clasped in her lover's arms--and as he looked
questioningly into her dear eyes, he could see lines of suffering and
of new womanliness carved on her face by the anxiety she had
experienced during the last twenty-four hours. Then, at a moment when
both were seemingly happiest at being together, came their first
lovers' quarrel.
When she had somewhat recovered from the fear of not seeing Hancock
again, Dorothy announced that she was going to Boston on the following
day--that she was worried about her father, who had not yet been able
to leave the city, that she must see him. Hancock listened with set
lips and grim determination:
"No, madam," he said, "you shall not return as long as there is a
British bayonet in Boston."
Quick came the characteristic reply: "Recollect, Mr. Hancock, I am not
under your control yet! I shall go to my father to-morrow."
Her determination matched his own, and Hancock saw no way to achieve
his end, yet he had not thought of yielding. As usual, he turned to
Aunt Lydia for advice. She wisely suggested retiring, without settling
the mooted question, as they were all too tired for sensible
reflection on any subject. Then, after defiant Dorothy had gone to her
room, the older woman stole to the girl's bedside, not to advise,--oh
no!--merely to suggest that there was more than one girl waiting to
step into Dorothy's place should she flout the handsome young patriot.
Also, she suggested, how terrible it would be if Hancock should be
killed, or even captured while the girl he worshiped was away from his
side! There was no reply, and the older woman stole from the room
without any evidence that she had succeeded in her mission. But she
smiled to herself the next morning when Dorothy announced that she had
never had any real intention of leaving for Boston, and gracefully
acknowledged to an entranced lover that _he_ had been right, after
all!
The next question was, where should the women take refuge until the
cloud of war should have passed over sufficiently to make it safe for
them to return to their homes? Hancock advised Fairfield, Connecticut,
a beautiful town where there would be small chance of any danger or
discomfort. His suggestion met with approval, and Mrs. Hancock and her
pretty ward at once set off for the Connecticut town, while Adams and
Hancock journeyed cautiously toward Worcester, where they were to meet
and go with other delegates to the Continental Congress at
Philadelphia. They were detained at Worcester three days, which gave
Hancock a chance to see his Dorothy again on her way to the new place
of refuge. Theirs was a rapturous though a brief visit together; then
the patriots went on toward New York, and Dorothy and Aunt Lydia
proceeded to Fairfield, where they were received in the home of Mr.
Thaddeus Burr, an intimate friend of the Hancocks, and a leading
citizen, whose fine colonial house was a landmark in the village.
Judge Quincy, meanwhile, had at last been able to take flight from
Boston, and after a long, uncomfortable trip, had arrived at his
daughter's home in Lancaster, where he heard that "Daughter Dolly and
Hancock had taken dinner ten days before, having driven over from
Shirley for the purpose." He writes to his son Henry of this, and
adds, "As I hear, she proceeded with Mrs. Hancock to Fairfield; I
don't expect to see her till peaceable times are restored."
The two patriots reached New York safely, and Hancock at once wrote to
Dorothy:
NEW YORK, _Sabbath Even'g, May 7, 1775_.