from the bayonets of the grenadiers, as the
red-coated platoons emerged from the woodland into the open highway.

Major Buttrick with the minute-men and Colonel Barrett with the
militia formed in line by the liberty pole.

"Prime and load!" his order.

Roger poured the powder into the palm of his hand, emptied it into the
gun, and rammed it home with a ball. Never had he experienced such a
sensation as at the moment. He was not doing it to take aim at a deer
or fox, but to send it through the heart of a fellow-being if need be;
to maintain justice and liberty. He could die in their defense; why
should it trouble him, then, to think of shooting those who were
assailing what he held so dear?

"I am doing right. Liberty shall live, cost what it may," he said to
himself as he poured the priming into the pan.

On in serried ranks came the British.

"We are too few, they are three to our one. We must cross the river
and wait till we are stronger," said Colonel Barrett.

[Illustration: REVEREND WILLIAM EMERSON'S HOUSE--THE OLD MANSE The
conflict at the Bridge was in plain view from this house]

They were only two hundred. They filed into the road, marched past
the Reverend Mr. Emerson's house to the north bridge, crossed the
river, and came to a halt on a hill overlooking the meadows, the
village, and surrounding country. They could see the British
dividing,--one party crossing the south bridge and going towards
Colonel Barrett's house to destroy the supplies collected there;
another party advancing to the north bridge. Roger saw groups of
officers in the graveyard using their spy-glasses. A soldier was
cutting down the liberty pole. Other soldiers were entering houses,
helping themselves to what food was left on the breakfast-tables or
in the pantries. Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn rested themselves
in Mr. Wright's tavern.

"I'll stir the Yankee blood before night, just as I stir this brandy,"
said Pitcairn, stirring the spirit in his tumbler with his finger.

A party of British crossed the south bridge, made their way to Colonel
Barrett's house, and burned the cannon carriages stored in his barn.

Roger was glad to see Captain Isaac Davis and the minute-men of Acton
march up the hill to join them. Captain Davis was thirty years old. He
had kissed his young wife and four children good-by.

"Take good care of the children, Hannah," he said as he bade her
farewell.

Twice a week he had drilled his company. He