“A letter for Master Sheffield,” he said, “and news, great news! The British troops and the minute-men had a running fight from Concord to Lexington and back again. The Americans were too much for the redcoats and the bells are pealing forth the tidings of our first victory. The people yonder in the town are burning the tavern sign of the ‘King’s Arms.’ The war has begun!” With his letter in his hand he vanished into Stephen’s study, the door closing behind him. “So this is the war at last!” thought Clotilde. Her knees began suddenly to shake under her and she sat down upon the step since she could no longer stand. It had begun, and where would it end? Would it bring them liberty or only destruction? Would the death and ruin that were bound to come be kept back, or would the tide rise nearer and nearer, to sweep over dear Master Sheffield and Mother Jeanne, over Miles Atherton and herself? Would it roll its devastating way across Master Simon’s garden blooming so bright and fair in the last glories of the April sunshine? Later she heard fuller tidings, for Miles came up from the town and, sitting on the steps beside her, gave an account of the battle in more glowing and excited words than she had ever thought to hear from his lips. The hero of the day, it seemed, was one Paul Revere, that mild-faced silversmith who had come only last October to set in place the silver knocker upon Stephen Sheffield’s front door. At his warning, as he galloped all night across the countryside, so Miles said, the minute-men had come tumbling out in an excited throng, half dressed but wholly ready for the work in hand. When the sun rose, the British soldiers had found themselves marching down what seemed to be a lane of unseen enemies whom they could not see to resist, so that the march became a run and the run a rout. It was a damp, hot Spring day and the King’s men, oppressed with their heavy, clumsy coats and high padded hats, had been soon spent with heat and fatigue, and had staggered and reeled as they ran finally into the arms of their waiting comrades at Lexington. “Poor men!” was Clotilde’s one thought, which she spoke aloud. “Poor, brave men!” “What?” exclaimed Miles. “Poor men? Why, Clotilde, you are not sorry for them? They were Britishers!” “I do not mean to be sorry for them, but I am,” she answered. “They did their best and it was not really their quarrel.” “And to-morrow,” concluded Miles excitedly, “we are all to turn out, the fighting-men all over New England, and march down to Boston to lay siege to the British Army. Oh, it will be a merry time!” “Merry!” cried out Clotilde, “you call it merry when you may have to slay men and may never, never come back again yourself?” “And if I should never come back,” said Miles, half laughing, half sober, “would you be sorry, Clotilde?”