“It’s pretty hard for them,” remarked the other, “having all their trade cut off and having a lot of their liberties taken from them.” “Hard!” exclaimed the first speaker. “It’s meant to be hard. Everything is done purposely to vex them. They talk of liberty; we’ll show ’em what liberty means. Maybe when they feel the pinch of starvation they’ll come to understand. Maybe they’ll need powder and ball to make them behave, but they’ll behave in the end!” Don turned away, and from that moment he hoped that a time would come when the people of the Colonies would rise and drive the hated soldiers from the town. If he were only a little older! If he could only do something! That evening when he returned to Pudding Lane he found the table set for only two persons. “Why, Aunt Martha,” he said, “where are Uncle Dave and Glen?” “They’ve gone on a trip southward. They won’t return for perhaps a week or two.” “Oh,” said Don, “did they go to see about the consignment of goods in the cellar?” “They could see about that,” Aunt Martha replied slowly. As a matter of fact, the two men had gone on a special trip to New York. For some time they, together with such men as Paul Revere, a silversmith in the North End, William Dawes and others had been meeting in secret at the Green Dragon Tavern; they were part of the Committee of Correspondence, and their object was to watch the British, learn all they could about them--where they kept their guns and powder, how many there were of them at various points--and to convey the information to the other Colonies. Uncle David had ceased work at the rope yard, and if Aunt Martha had known all the details of his doings at the Green Dragon she might have worried even more than she did. His mission now was, among other matters, to inform the Committee of Correspondence at New York of the arrival of a fresh regiment of Redcoats. CHAPTER III A REDCOAT GETS WET In the absence of Glen Drake, Don had formed the habit of going down to the wharves and watching the great ships that lay in forced idleness. The boys that he knew were divided sharply between Whigs and Tories, though most of them were Whigs like himself. So far he had found no one with whom he could be as intimate as he had been with Tom Bullard; so he spent much of his time alone. On the first day of September, Don was on his way to the water-front when he observed an excited group of sailors and townsmen on the opposite side of the street; they were talking loudly and making violent gestures with their hands. He crossed just in time to hear one of the sailors say: “I was down at Long Wharf and saw them go early this morning--more than two hundred Redcoats in thirteen boats!”