Journeys Through Bookland Volume Iv Part 19

The lieutenant-governor listened. But his ears were duller than those of his daughter: he could hear nothing more terrible than the sound of a summer breeze sighing among the tops of the elm trees.

"No, foolish child!" he replied, playfully patting her cheek. "There is no tumult. Our Boston mobs are satisfied with what mischief they have already done. The king's friends need not tremble."

So Hutchinson resumed his pleasant and peaceful meditations, and again forgot that there were any troubles in the world. But his family were alarmed, and could not help straining their ears to catch the slightest sound. More and more distinctly they heard shouts, and then the trampling of many feet. While they were listening one of the neighbors rushed breathless into the room.

"A mob! a terrible mob!" cried he. "They have broken into Mr. Storey's house and into Mr. Hallowell's, and have made themselves drunk with the liquors in his cellar, and now they are coming hither, as wild as so many tigers. Flee, lieutenant-governor, for your life! for your life!"

"Father, dear father, make haste!" shrieked his children.

But Hutchinson would not hearken to them. He was an old lawyer, and he could not realize that the people would do anything so utterly lawless as to a.s.sault him in his peaceful home. He was one of King George's chief officers, and it would be an insult and outrage upon the king himself if the lieutenant-governor should suffer any wrong.

"Have no fears on my account," said he. "I am perfectly safe. The king's name shall be my protection."

Yet he bade his family retire into one of the neighboring houses. His daughter would have remained, but he forced her away.

The huzzas and riotous uproar of the mob were now heard close at hand.

The sound was terrible, and struck Hutchinson with the same sort of dread as if an enraged wild beast had broken loose and were roaring for its prey. He crept softly to the window. There he beheld an immense concourse of people filling all the street and rolling onward to his house. It was like a tempestuous flood that had swelled beyond its bounds and would sweep everything before it. Hutchinson trembled; he felt at that moment that the wrath of the people was a thousandfold more terrible than the wrath of a king. That was a moment when a loyalist and an aristocrat like Hutchinson might have learned how powerless are kings, n.o.bles, and great men when the low and humble range themselves against them. King George could do nothing for his servant now. Had King George been there he could have done nothing for himself. If Hutchinson had understood this lesson and remembered it, he need not in after years have been an exile from his native country, nor finally have laid his bones in a distant land.

[Footnote: THE RIOTERS BROKE INTO THE HOUSE]

There was now a rush against the doors of the house. The people sent up a hoa.r.s.e cry. At this instant the lieutenant-governor's daughter, whom he had supposed to be in a place of safety, ran into the room and threw her arms around him. She had returned by a private entrance.

"Father, are you mad?" cried she. "Will the king's name protect you now? Come with me or they will have your life."

"True," muttered Hutchinson to himself; "what care these roarers for the name of king? I must flee, or they will trample me down on the floor of my own dwelling."

Hurrying away, he and his daughter made their escape by the private pa.s.sage at the moment when the rioters broke into the house. The foremost of them rushed up the staircase and entered the room which Hutchinson had just quitted. There they beheld our good old chair facing them with quiet dignity, while the lion's head seemed to move its jaws in the unsteady light of their torches. Perhaps the stately aspect of our venerable friend, which had stood firm through a century and a half of trouble, arrested them for an instant. But they were thrust forward by those behind, and the chair lay overthrown.

Then began the work of destruction. The carved and polished mahogany tables were shattered with heavy clubs and hewn to splinters with axes.

The marble hearths and mantelpieces were broken. The volumes of Hutchinson's library, so precious to a studious man, were torn out of their covers and the leaves sent flying out of the windows. Ma.n.u.scripts containing secrets of our country's history which are now lost forever were scattered to the winds. The old ancestral portraits whose fixed countenances looked down on the wild scene were rent from the walls.

The mob triumphed in their downfall and destruction, as if these pictures of Hutchinson's forefathers had committed the same offenses as their descendants. A tall looking-gla.s.s which had hitherto presented a reflection of the enraged and drunken mult.i.tude was now smashed into a thousand fragments. We gladly dismiss the scene from the mirror of our fancy.

Before morning dawned the walls of the house were all that remained.

The interior was a dismal scene of ruin. A shower pattered in at the broken windows, and when Hutchinson and his family returned they stood s.h.i.+vering in the same room where the last evening had seen them so peaceful and happy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: North Church Tower, Boston]

THE BOSTON Ma.s.sACRE [Footnote: From _Grandfather's Chair_.]

_By_ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

It was now the 3d of March, 1770. The sunset music of the British regiments was heard as usual throughout the town. The shrill fife and rattling drum awoke the echoes in King Street while the last ray of suns.h.i.+ne was lingering on the cupola of the Town-house. And now all the sentinels were posted. One of them marched up and down before the custom-house, treading a short path through the snow and longing for the time when they would be dismissed to the warm fireside of the guard-room. Meanwhile, Captain Preston was perhaps sitting in our great chair before the hearth of the British Coffee-house. In the course of the evening there were two or three slight commotions which seemed to indicate that trouble was at hand. Small parties of young men stood at the corners of the streets or walked along the narrow pavements. Squads of soldiers who were dismissed from duty pa.s.sed by them, shoulder to shoulder, with the regular step which they had learned at the drill.

Whenever these encounters took place it appeared to be the object of the young men to treat the soldiers with as much incivility as possible.

"Turn out, you lobster-backs!" one would say.

"Crowd them off the sidewalks!" another would cry. "A red-coat has no right in Boston streets!"

"Oh, you rebel rascals!" perhaps the soldiers would reply, glaring fiercely at the young men. "Some day or other we'll make our way through Boston streets at the point of the bayonet!"

One or twice such disputes as these brought on a scuffle, which pa.s.sed off, however, without attracting much notice. About eight o'clock, for some unknown cause, an alarm bell rang loudly and hurriedly.

At the sound many people ran out of their houses, supposing it to be an alarm of fire. But there were no flames to be seen, nor was there any smell of smoke in the clear, frosty air, so that most of the townsmen went back to their own firesides and sat talking with their wives and children about the calamities of the times. Others who were younger and less prudent remained in the streets, for there seems to have been a presentiment that some strange event was on the eve of taking place.

Later in the evening, not far from nine o'clock several young men pa.s.sed by the Town-house and walked down King Street. The sentinel was still on his post in front of the custom-house, pacing to and fro, while as he turned a gleam of light from some neighboring window glittered on the barrel of his musket.

At no great distance were the barracks and the guard-house, where his comrades were probably telling stories of battle and bloodshed.

Down toward the custom-house, as I told you, came a party of wild young men. When they drew near the sentinel he halted on his post and took his musket from his shoulder, ready to present the bayonet at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1804-1864]

"Who goes there?" he cried, in the gruff, peremptory tones of a soldier's challenge.

The young men, being Boston boys, felt as if they had a right to walk their own streets without being accountable to a British red-coat, even though he challenged them in King George's name. They made some rude answer to the sentinel. There was a dispute, or perhaps a scuffle.

Other soldiers heard the noise, and ran hastily from the barracks to a.s.sist their comrades. At the same time many of the townspeople rushed into King Street by various avenues and gathered in a crowd round about the custom-house. It seemed wonderful how such a mult.i.tude had smarted up all of a sudden.

The wrongs and insults which the people had been suffering for many months now kindled them into a rage. They threw s...o...b..a.l.l.s and lumps of ice at the soldiers. As the tumult grew louder it reached the ears of Captain Preston, the officer of the day. He immediately ordered eight soldiers of the main guard to take their muskets and follow him. They marched across the street, forcing their way roughly through the crowd and p.r.i.c.king the townspeople with their bayonets.

A gentleman (it was Henry Knox, afterward general of the American artillery) caught Captain Preston's arm.

"For Heaven's sake, sir," exclaimed he, "take heed what you do or there will be bloodshed!"

"Stand aside!" answered Captain Preston haughtily. "Do not interfere, sir. Leave me to manage the affair."

Arriving at the sentinel's post, Captain Preston drew up his men in a semicircle with their faces to the crowd and their rear to the custom- house. When the people saw the officer and beheld the threatening att.i.tude with which the soldiers fronted them their rage became almost uncontrollable.

"Fire, you lobster-backs!" bellowed some.

"You dare not fire, you cowardly red-coats!" cried others.

"Rush upon them!" shouted many voices. "Drive the rascals to their barracks! Down with them! Down with them! Let them fire if they dare!"

Amid the uproar the soldiers stood glaring at the people with the fierceness of men whose trade was to shed blood.

Oh, what a crisis had now arrived! Up to this very moment the angry feelings between England and America might have been pacified. England had but to stretch out the hand of reconciliation and acknowledge that she had hitherto mistaken her rights, but would do so no more. Then the ancient bond of brotherhood would again have been knit together as firmly as in old times. The habit of loyalty which had grown as strong as instinct was not utterly overcome. The perils shared, the victories won in the Old French War, when the soldiers of the colonies fought side by side with their comrades from beyond the sea, were unforgotten yet. England was still that beloved country which the colonists called their home. King George, though he had frowned upon America, was still reverenced as a father.

But should the king's soldiers shed one drop of American blood, then it was a quarrel to the death. Never, never would America rest satisfied until she had torn down the royal authority and trampled it in the dust.

"Fire if you dare, villains!" hoa.r.s.ely shouted the people while the muzzles of the muskets were turned upon them. "You dare not fire!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SOLDIERS FIRED]

They appeared ready to rush upon the leveled bayonets. Captain Preston waved his sword and uttered a command which could not be distinctly heard amid the uproar of shouts that issued from a hundred throats. But his soldiers deemed that he had spoken the fatal mandate, "Fire!" The flash of their muskets lighted up the street, and the report rang loudly between the edifices. It was said, too, that the figure of a man with a cloth hanging down over his face was seen to step into the balcony of the custom-house and discharge a musket at the crowd.