Then followed the inevitable questions that a person like Cousin Deborah would be sure to ask, and Don wriggled under each of them. But after all, Cousin Deborah was good-hearted, and deep within her she knew that she would have done the same as Don’s aunt was doing, if she had been in similar circumstances--though she would not acknowledge it now. “Your aunt always did have a broad streak of will,” she said severely. “Now I want you to spend several days with me, Donald.” “Aunt Martha told me to hurry back.” “That means you can stay to-night and to-morrow night,” Cousin Deborah decided. “I’ll have dinner in a few moments, and then I want you to tell me all the things that have happened in Boston.” In spite of his cousin’s questions, which were many and varied, Don managed to enjoy himself while he was at Concord. On the second day he met a boy of his own age, and the two fished all morning from the North Bridge. In the afternoon they went on a long tramp into the woods along the stream. At night Don was tired out and was glad when his cousin finally snuffed the candles and led the way up-stairs. He was asleep shortly after his head struck the pillow. That night proved to be one of the most eventful in the history of the Colonies. CHAPTER V THE REGULARS COME OUT While Don was asleep, breathing the damp, fragrant air that blew over the rolling hills and fields round Concord, his friend, Paul Revere, was being rowed cautiously from the vicinity of Hudson’s Point toward Charlestown. It was then near half-past ten o’clock. Revere, muffled in a long cloak, sat in the stern of the small boat and glanced now at his two companions--Thomas Richardson and Joshua Bentley--and now at the British man-of-war, _Somerset_, only a few rods off. The tide was at young flood, and the moon was rising. The night seemed all black and silver--black shadows ahead where the town of Charlestown lay, black shadows behind that shrouded the wharfs and shipyards of the North End, and silver shimmering splashes on the uneasy water and on the sleek spars of the _Somerset_. The sound of talking came from the direction of the man-of-war and was followed by a burst of laughter that reverberated musically in the cool night air. Revere blew on his hands to warm them. The little boat drew nearer, nearer to Charlestown; now he could see the vague outlines of wharfs and houses. Several times he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of a solitary yellow light that gleamed in the black-and-silver night high among the shadows on the Boston side,--a light that burned steadily in the belfry of the Old North Meeting-House behind Corps Hill as a signal that the British were on their way by land to attack the Colonists. “Here we are,” said one of the rowers, shipping his muffled oar and partly turning in his seat.