We did not visit the Clarke house where Paul Revere roused Adams
and Hancock; we saw it from the road. Originally, and until 1896,
the house stood on the opposite side of the street; the owner was
about to demolish it to subdivide the land, when the Historical
Society intervened and purchased it.

Neither did we enter the old burying-ground on Elm Street. The
automobile is no respecter of persons or places; it pants with
impatience if brought to a stand for so much as a moment before a
house or monument of interest, and somehow the throbbing, puffing,
impatient machine gets the upper hand of those who are supposed to
control it; we are hastened onward in spite of our better
inclinations.

The trolley line from Lexington to Concord is by way of Bedford,
but the direct road over the hill is the one the British followed.
It is nine miles by Bedford and the Old Bedford Road, and but six
miles direct.

A short distance out of Lexington a tablet marks an old well; the
inscription reads, "At this well, April 19, 1775, James Hayward,
of Acton, met a British soldier, who, raising his gun, said, 'You
are a dead man.' 'And so are you,' replied Hayward. Both fired.
The soldier was instantly killed and Hayward mortally wounded."

Grim meeting of two thirsty souls; they sought water and found
blood; they wooed life and won death. War is epitomized in the
exclamations, "You are a dead man," "And so are you." Further
debate would end the strife; the one query, "Why?" would bring
each musket to a rest. Poor unknown Britisher, exiled from home,
what did he know about the merits of the controversy? What did he
care? It was his business to shoot, and be shot. He fulfilled most
completely in the same moment the double mission of the soldier,
to kill and be killed. Those who do the fighting never do know
very much about what they are fighting for,--if they did, most of
them would not fight at all. In these days of common schools and
newspapers it becomes ever more and more difficult to recruit
armies with men who neither know nor think; the common soldier is
beginning to have opinions; by and by he will not fight unless
convinced he is right,--then there will be fewer wars.

Over the road we were following the British marched in order and
retreated in disorder. The undisciplined minute-men were not very
good at standing up in an open square and awaiting the onslaught
of a company of regulars,--it takes regulars to meet regulars ou