Cardigan Part 106

Behind a stone wall a farmer rose and presented his firelock, but the piece flashed in the pan. A shot rang out, but I could not see who fired.

Far down the Boston Road the solid front of a second British column appeared.

Already some of the Minute Men were quitting the single, disordered rank on the green which still wavered, facing the regulars; but their captain continued in front of his men, and the drummer still drummed his hoa.r.s.e challenge.

Then a British officer fired his pistol from the saddle, and, before any one could move or lift a finger, a bright sheet of flame girdled the British front, and the deafening roar of musketry shook the earth.

Through the low rus.h.i.+ng billows of smoke that gushed out over the ground like foam, I saw the British major rise in his stirrups, and, reversing his sword, drive it downward as signal to cease firing.

Other officers rode up through the smoke, shouting orders which were lost in the dropping shots from the militia, now retreating on a run past us up the Bedford Road.

"Look at Harrington," cried Mount; "he's down under that smoke!"

But Harrington rose, and reeled away towards his own house. I saw his wife at the door; the wounded man also saw her, and feebly stretched out his hands as though calling for aid, then he pitched forward on his face and lay still, one hand clutching his own door-step.

"Halt!" shouted the British major, plunging about on his wounded horse through the smoke. "Stop that firing! D'ye hear what I say? Stop it!

Stop it!" And again and again he reversed his sword in frantic signals which no one heeded.

An officer cantered up, calling out: "Major Pitcairn! Major Pitcairn!

Are you hit, sir?"

A volley from the British Tenth Foot drowned his voice, and the red-coated soldiers came bursting through the smoke on a double-quick, shouting and hoisting their mitre-caps on the points of their bayonets. Behind them the grenadiers rushed forward, cheering.

A soldier of the light infantry in front of the Meeting-house flung up his musket and fired at an old man who was hobbling across the street; shots came quicker and quicker; I saw my acquaintance, Monroe, attempt to traverse the road towards the tavern; he was rolling in the mud ere he had taken two steps. A grenadier ran after a lank farmer and caught him by the collar; the farmer tripped up the redcoat and started to run, but they brought him to his knees in the road, and then shot him to death under their very feet.

I galloped to the chaise and jerked the horses back, then wheeled them westward towards Bedford, where the remnants of the militia were sullenly falling back, firing across at the British, now marching on past the Meeting-house up the Concord Road.

"No! No!" cried Foxcroft, "we cannot risk it! Stay where you are!"

"We cannot risk being butchered here!" I replied. Silver Heels was standing straight up in the chaise, one hand holding to the leather curtain. Her face had grown very white.

"They've killed a poor young man behind that barn!" she whispered, as I leaned from my saddle and motioned her to crouch low. "They shot him twice, and struck him with their muskets!"

I glanced hastily towards the barn and saw a dark heap lying in the gra.s.s behind it. Three red-coated soldiers stood near, loading their muskets and laughing.

"Look at the Weasel!" muttered Mount, jerking my arm as my horse ranged up beside his.

The Weasel was hastily climbing out of his saddle, rifle in hand. His face, which a few moments before had been haggard and vacant, had grown flushed and eager, his eyes snapped with intelligence, his head was erect, and his movements quick as a forest-cat's.

"Cade!" quavered Mount. "Cade, old friend, what are you doing?"

"Come!" cried the Weasel, briskly; "can't you see the redskins?"

"Redcoats! Redcoats!" cried Mount, anxiously. "Where are you going, Cade? Come back! Come back! They can't hit us here! Redcoats, Cade, not redskins!"

"They be all one to me!" replied the Weasel, briskly, scuttling away to cover under a tuft of hazel.

"Don't shoot, Cade!" bawled Mount. "Wait till we can gather our people! Wait! h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation! don't fire!"

"Bang!" went the Weasel's long brown rifle; a red-coated soldier on the Concord Road dropped.

"He's done it! G.o.d help us!" groaned Foxcroft.

"Hold those horses!" said Mount, desperately. I seized the leaders, Mount slipped from his saddle to the ground, and ran out to the long, dead gra.s.s behind the Meeting-house. I could see him catch the Weasel by the arm and attempt to drag him back by force, but the mad little creature clung obstinately to his patch of hazel.

"He won't come!" shouted Mount, turning towards me.

As he turned, I saw the entire British column marching swiftly up the Concord Road, a small flanking party thrown out on the right. The Weasel also saw the troops and made haste to level his rifle again, but Mount fell upon him and dragged him down into the marsh-gra.s.s.

From the Bedford Road our militia fired slowly across at the fast vanis.h.i.+ng troops on the Concord Road; the British flanking party returned the fire, but the main column paid no heed to the shots, and pressed on in silence, without music, without banners, without a drum-tap to mark their rapid march. No British soldiers came our way; they appeared to disdain the groups of militia retreating along the Bedford Road; their rear-guard fired a few scattering shots into "Buckman's Tavern" at long range, then ran on to keep in touch with the main body.

Both the Weasel and Mount were now deliberately firing at the British flanking party, which had halted on a bit of ploughed ground, and seemed to be undecided whether to continue their march or return and punish the two foolhardy riflemen whose bullets had already knocked one big soldier flat on his back across the fresh furrows.

All at once six red-coated soldiers started running towards Jack Mount and the Weasel. I shouted to warn the infatuated men. Silver Heels caught my arm.

"I cannot leave them there!" I stammered; "I must go to them!"

"Foxcroft will guard me!" she murmured. "Go to them, dearest!"

"Foxcroft! Hold these horses!" I cried, flinging Warlock's bridle to him, and slipping out of my saddle.

Rifle a-trail, I ran across the road, leaped the fence, and plunged into the low bushes. Jack Mount turned a cool, amused eye on me as I came up.

"The Weasel is right," he said, triumphantly; "we'll catch a half-dozen red-birds now. Be ready when I draw their fire, lad; then drop and run forward through the swamp! You know how the Senecas fight. We'll catch them alive!"

Over the tops of the low bushes I could see the soldiers coming towards us, muskets half raised, scanning the cover for the game they meant to bag, thrusting their bayonets into bushes, beating the long gra.s.s with their gunstocks to flush the skulking quarry for a snap-shot.

Without warning, Mount rose, then sank to the ground as a volley rattled out; and instantly we three ran forward, bent double. In a moment more I sprang up from the swamp-gra.s.s beside a soldier and knocked him flat with a blow from my rifle-stock. Mount shot at another and missed him, but the fellow promptly threw down his musket, yelling l.u.s.tily for quarter.

The four remaining soldiers attempted to load, but the Weasel tripped up one, with a cartridge half bitten in his mouth, and the other three were chased and caught by some Acton militia, who came leaping across the swampy covert from the Bedford Road.

When the Acton men returned with their prisoners, the soldier whom I had struck was sitting up in the swamp-gra.s.s, rubbing his powdered head and staring wildly at his sweating and anxious comrades.

"That's the fellow who murdered Harrington!" said one of the militia, and drew up his rifle with a jerk.

"Use these prisoners well, or I'll knock your head off!" roared Mount, striking up the rifle.

An officer of Minute Men came up; his eyes were red as though he had been weeping.

"They butchered his brother behind the red barn yonder," whispered a lean yokel beside me. "He'll hang 'em, that's what he'll do."

"That's it! Hang 'em!" bawled out a red-headed lout, flouris.h.i.+ng a pitchfork. "Hang the d.a.m.n--!"

"Put that fool under arrest," said the officer, sharply. Some Acton Minute Men seized the lout and hustled him off; others formed a guard and conducted the big, perspiring, red-coated soldiers towards "Buckman's Tavern."

"You will treat them humanely?" I asked, as the officer pa.s.sed me.

He gave me a blank glance; the tears again had filled his eyes.

"Certainly," he said, shortly; "I am not a butcher."