antry under
Colonel Francis Smith, at midnight, marched from their quarters to
Barton's Point, together with the marines under Major Pitcairn.

"Where are we going?" Lieutenant Edward Gould of the King's Own put
the question to Captain Lawrie.

"I suppose General Gage and the Lord, and perhaps Colonel Smith, know,
but I don't," the captain replied, as he stepped into a boat with his
company.

It was eleven o'clock when the last boat-load of troops reached
Lechmere's Point,--not landing on solid ground, but amid the last
year's reeds and marshes. The tide was flowing into the creek and
eddies, and the mud beneath the feet of the king's troops was soft and
slippery.

"May his satanic majesty take the man who ordered us into this bog,"
said a soldier whose feet suddenly went out from under him and sent
him sprawling into the slimy oose.

"By holy Saint Patrick, isn't the water nice and warm!" said one of
the marines as he waded into the flowing tide fresh from the sea.

"Gineral Gage intends to teach us how to swim," said another.

With jokes upon their lips, but inwardly cursing whoever had directed
them to march across the marsh, the troops splashed through the water,
reached the main road leading to Menotomy, and waited while the
commissary distributed their rations. It was past two o'clock before
Colonel Smith was ready to move on. Looking at his watch in the
moonlight and seeing how late it was, he directed Major Pitcairn to
take six companies of the light infantry and hasten on to Lexington.

* * * * *

From the house of Reverend Mr. Clark, Paul Revere, William Dawes, and
young Doctor Prescott of Concord, who had been sparking his intended
wife in Lexington village, started on their horses up the road towards
Concord. From the deep shade of the alders a half dozen men suddenly
confronted them.

"Surrender, or I will blow out your brains!" shouts one of the
officers.

[Illustration: BUCKMAN'S TAVERN]

Revere and Dawes are prisoners; but Doctor Prescott, quick of eye,
ear, and motion, is leaping his horse over the stone wall, riding
through fields and pastures, along bypaths, his saddle-bags flopping,
his horse, young and fresh, bearing him swiftly on over the meadows to
the slumbering village, with the news that the redcoats are
coming.[57]

[Footnote 57: Longfellow in his poem has Revere riding on to Concord
bridge.

"It was two by the village clock,
When