It was Adams who threw light on the whole situation. Half an hour after Revere reached the house, the other express arrived, and the two rebel leaders, being now fully convinced that it was Concord which was the threatened point, hurried the messengers on to the next town, after allowing them barely time to swallow a few mouthfuls of food. Adams did not believe that Gage would send an army merely to take two men prisoners. To him, the true object of the expedition was very clear. Revere, Dawes, and young Doctor Prescott, of Concord, who had joined them, had got over half the distance to the next town, when, at a sudden turning, they came upon the second redcoat patrol. Prescott leaped his horse over the roadside wall, and so escaped across the fields to Concord. Revere and Dawes, at the point of the pistol, gave themselves up. Their business on the road at that hour was demanded by the officer, who was told in return to listen. Then, through the still morning air, the distant booming of the alarm bell's peal on peal was borne to their ears. It was the British who were now uneasy. Ordering the prisoners to follow them, the troop rode off at a gallop toward Lexington, and when they were at the edge of the village, Revere was told to dismount, and was left to shift for himself. He then ran as fast as his legs could carry him across the pastures back to the Clark parsonage, to report his misadventure, while the patrol galloped off toward Boston to announce theirs. But by this time, the Minute Men of Lexington had rallied to oppose the march of the troops. Thanks to the intrepidity of Paul Revere, the North End coppersmith, the redcoats, instead of surprising the rebels in their beds, found them marshalled on Lexington Green, and at Concord Bridge, in front, flank, and rear, armed and ready to dispute their march to the bitter end. "You know the rest. In the books you have read How the British regulars fired and fled-- How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard wall, Chasing the redcoats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load. "So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm---- A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo for evermore! For, borne on the night wind of the past, Through all our history, to the last, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere."[6] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: Drake's "Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex." Little, Brown & Co., publishers.] [Footnote 6: "Paul Revere's Ride:" Longfellow's Poems. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers.] HANCOCK'S DOROTHY Q.