e
gun, "but we are going to set the house on fire, and you must get
out."

With the babe in her arms, she crawled downstairs and into the yard.

The soldiers scattered the coals from the fireplace around the room,
and left, but the older children ran in and put out the flames.

[Illustration: MUNROE TAVERN Lord Percy's headquarters]

At Mr. Cooper's tavern was a ghastly sight; upon the floor lay the
mangled bodies of Jason Wyman and Jesse Winship, two old men, who had
come from their homes to learn the news. They were drinking toddy,
when the head of Earl Percy's retreating troops arrived, and fired a
volley into the house. The landlord and his wife fled to the cellar.
The British swarmed into the tavern, mangled the bodies of the two
old men with bayonet thrusts, and scattered their brains around the
room.

In the morning Roger had felt some qualms of conscience as he took aim
at the scarlet line of men by Concord River, but now to him the
redcoats were fiends in human form. It gave him fresh courage to see
Samuel Whittemore, eighty years old, come running with his musket,
taking deliberate aim, firing three times, and bringing down a redcoat
every time he pulled the trigger. But a soldier leaped from the ranks,
ran upon and shot the old man, stabbed him with his bayonet, beat him
with the butt of his musket, leaving him for dead.[65]

[Footnote 65: He was not dead, however, but lived many years.]

Roger swung his hat to welcome Captain Gideon Foster of Danvers, and
his company, who had marched sixteen miles in four hours, coming upon
the British at Menotomy meetinghouse. A moment later they were in the
thick of the fight.

It was a thrilling story which Timothy Monroe had to tell, how he and
Daniel Townsend fired, and each brought down a redcoat, and then ran
into a house; how the British surrounded it, and killed Townsend; how
he leaped through a window and ran, with a whole platoon firing at
him, riddling his clothes with bullets, yet escaping without a
scratch.

Again Roger rejoiced when he learned that before Earl Percy reached
Menotomy a company of men had captured his baggage wagons, killing and
wounding several British soldiers, and that the attacking party were
led by Reverend Philip Payson, the minister of Chelsea.

It was almost sunset when Roger held his horn up to the light once
more, and saw there was little more than enough powder for one charge,
and that there were only two bullets in the p