splayed.)]

Of the person and the actions of this other friend there has been much
dispute. The weight of evidence seems to show that on making sure of the
route of the British, he went to the Old North Church, still standing in
Salem Street, and from its steeple displayed the signal. I make no
positive assertion that he spent any time in watching the British;
Revere, knowing the route, may have signalled in order to make sure that
the news crossed the river, even though he himself might fail. The
person who displayed the signals seems to have been one Newman, the
sexton of the church, rather than Captain Pulling, a friend of Revere's.
At any rate, the signals were hung while Revere was crossing the river
to Charlestown. He passed unobserved not far from the _Somerset_
man-of-war, and remarks that "it was then young flood, the ship was
winding, and the moon was rising." On landing, his Charlestown friends
told him they had already seen the signals. Revere (if we still suppose
that he needed to make sure of the route) himself must have taken a look
at the signal lanterns, as in Longfellow's poem. "Two if by sea." This
poetical language means merely that the troops were preparing to cross
the river in their boats. This is the traditional account of Revere's
action. A contemporary memorandum states, however, that on landing
Revere "informed [us] that the T [troops] were actually in the boats."

"I got a horse," says Revere, "of Deacon Larkin," which horse the deacon
never saw again. Before Revere started he again received warning that
there were British officers on the road, but he was quite cool enough to
take note of the beauty of the night, "about eleven o'clock and very
pleasant." Crossing Charlestown Neck, he started on the road for
Cambridge, when he saw before him two horsemen under a tree. As Revere
drew near, they pushed out into the moonlight, and he saw their
uniforms. One of them blocked the road, the other tried to take him,
and Revere, turning back, galloped first for Charlestown and then
"pushed for the Medford road." Revere made the turn successfully; the
officer who followed, ignorant of the locality, mired himself in a clay
pond. Revere's road was now clear. He reached Medford, and roused the
captain of the minute men; then, hastening on through Menotomy, now
Arlington, and thence to Lexington, he "alarmed almost every house." He
reached Lexington about midnight, and went directly to the house of the
Rev