The night-watchman of the North End of Boston, with overcoat buttoned to the chin and a muffler around his neck, a fur cap drawn down over his ears to exclude the biting frost of midwinter, was going his rounds. He saw no revelers in the streets, nor belated visitors returning to their homes.

If suitors were calling upon their ladies, the visits were ended long before the clock on the Old Brick struck the midnight hour. No voice broke the stillness of the night. The watchman scarcely heard his own footsteps in the newly fallen snow as he slowly made his way along Middle Street,[37] with his lantern and staff. He was not expecting to encounter a burglar, breaking and entering a shop, store, or residence. He heard the clock strike once more, and was just pursing his lips to cry, “Two o’clock, and all’s well,” when he caught a glimpse of a figure in front of Theophilus Lillie’s store.[38] Was it a burglar? The man was standing stock-still, as if scanning the premises. The watchman dodged back behind the building on the corner of the street, hid his lantern, and peered slyly at the thief, who was still looking at the store. What was the meaning of such mysterious inaction? The watchman, instead of waiting to catch the culprit in the act of breaking and entering, stepped softly forward. Grasping his staff with a firm grip, to give a sudden whack, should the villain turn upon him,—“What ye ’bout, sir!” he shouted.

The burglar did not reply, neither turn his head.

“Is the fellow dead, I wonder—frozen stiff, this bitter night, and standing still?” the question that flashed through the watchman’s brain.

“Bless my soul! It’s Mr. Lillie’s head,—his nose, mouth, chin. Looks just like him. And the post is set in the ground. I’ll bet that carving is Abe Duncan’s work. Nobody can carve like him. But what is it here for? Ah! I see. Lillie has gone back on his agreement not to import tea. The Sons of Liberty have rigged it up to guy him. Ha, ha!”

The watchman laughed to himself as he examined the figure.

“Well, that’s a cute job,” he said reflectively. “The ground is frozen stiff a foot deep. They had to break it with a crowbar, but not a sound did I hear. Shall I say anything about it? Will not the selectmen make a fuss if I don’t notify ’em at once? But what’s the use of knocking ’em up at two o’clock in the morning? The thing’s done. ’Taint my business to pull it up. The post won’t run away. I’ll report what time I found it.”

Remembering that he had not cried the hour, he shouted:—

“Two o’clock, all’s well!”

He secreted himself in a doorway awhile, to see if any one would appear, but no one came.

The early risers—the milkmen and bakers’ apprentices going their rounds, shop boys on their way to kindle fires in stores—all stopped to look at the figure. The news quickly spread. People left their breakfast-tables to see the joke played on Mr. Lillie. Ebenezer Richardson, however, could not see the fun of the thing. The schoolboys called him “Poke Nose” because he was ever ready to poke into other people’s affairs.[39] The officers of the Custom House employed him to ferret out goods smuggled ashore by merchants, who, regarding the laws as unjust and oppressive, had no scruples in circumventing the customs officers. Richardson hated the Sons of Liberty, and haunted the Green Dragon to spy out their actions.

“This is their work,” he said to those around the figure. “It’s outrageous. Mr. Lillie has just as good a right to sell tea as anything else, without having everybody pointing their fingers at him. It’s an insult. It’s disgraceful. Whoever did it ought to be trounced.”

“Charcoal! Charcoal! Hard and soft charcoal!”

It was the cry of the charcoal-man, turning from Union into Middle Street.

“I’ll get him to run his sled against it and knock it over,” said Mr. Richardson to himself.

Slowly the charcoal vender advanced.

Seeing the post and the group of people around it, he reined in his old horse and looked at the figure.

“See here,” said Mr. Richardson. “Just gee a little and run the nose of your sled agin it and knock it over, will ye? It’s a tarnal fiendish outrage to set up such a thing in front of a gentleman’s store.”

“Do you own the figger?”

“No.”

“Do you own the store?”

“No.”

“Anybody ax ye to get it knocked down?”

“No; but it’s an outrage which honest citizens ought to resent.”

“Think so, do ye?”

“Yes, I do; and everybody else ought to, instead of laughing and chuckling over it.”

“That may be, mister, but ye see you don’t own it, and may be I’d get myself into trouble if I were to run my sled agin it purposely. Should like to oblige ye, neighbor, but guess I’d better not. Charcoal! Charcoal! Hard and soft charcoal!” he shouted, jerking the reins for the old horse to move on.

“Gee, Buck! Haw, Barry!”

It was a farmer driving his oxen drawing a load of wood, swinging his goad-stick, who shouted it. The team came to a standstill by the figure.

“What’s up?” the farmer inquired.

“The Sons of Liberty have perpetrated a rascally trick, by setting this effigy in front of this gentleman’s store,” said Mr. Richardson.

“What’d they do that for?”

“’Cause he agreed not to sell tea, and then, finding he’d made a bad bargain, backed out of it; and now I’d like to have ye hitch yer oxen to the thing and snake it to Jericho.”

“’Fraid I can’t ’commodate ye; got to go down to widow Jenkins’s with my wood. Gee, Buck! Haw, Barry!” said the farmer, as he started on.

“Rich, why don’t ye pull it up yourself,” said an apprentice.

“Better get an axe and chop it down, if it’s such an eyesore to ye,” said another.

“Get a crowbar and dig it up. A little exercise will be good for ye,” said a third.

“Has Lillie engaged ye to get rid of the thing?” another asked.

“Did the Sons of Liberty smuggle it ashore during the night?”

Tom Brandon asked the question, which nettled Mr. Richardson exceedingly. Possibly the informer could not have said why he was so zealous for the removal of the effigy. He would not have been willing to admit that he was seeking to advance himself in the estimation of Hon. Theodore Newville, commissioner of imposts, and Hon. Nathaniel Coffin, his majesty’s receiver-general. Quite likely he could not have given any very satisfactory reason for his activity in attempting to remove the figure. He knew that the selectmen would be obliged to clear the street of the obstruction, but a display of loyalty to the king might possibly inure to his benefit. Boys on their way to school began to chaff the informer.

“Say, Poke Nose; how much are ye going to get for the job?” shouted one of the boys.

“You mind your own business.”

“That’s what you don’t do.”

“Don’t ye call me names, you little imp,” shouted the informer, shaking his fist at the boy.

“Poke Nose! Poke Nose! Poke Nose!” the chorus of voices.

“Take that, Poke Nose!” said a boy as he threw a snowball.

Losing his temper, the informer threw a brickbat in return. He was but one against fifty lads pelting him with snowballs, which knocked off his hat, struck him in the face, compelling him to flee, the jeering boys following him to his own home.

Tom Brandon accompanied the boys. He saw the informer raise a window. There was a flash, a puff of smoke, the report of a gun, a shriek, and two of the boys were lying upon the ground and their blood spurting upon the snow. He helped carry them into a house, and then ran for Doctor Warren. It was but a few steps. The doctor came in haste.

“Samuel Gore is not much injured, but Christopher Snider is mortally wounded,” he said.

Christ Church bells were ringing. Merchants were closing their stores; blacksmiths leaving their forges; carpenters throwing down their tools,—everybody hastening with buckets and ladders to put out the fire, finding instead the blood-stained snow and wounded schoolboys.

“Hang him! Hang him!” shouted the apprentices and journeymen. But the sheriff had the culprit in his keeping, and the law in its majesty was guarding him from the violence of the angered people.

“Christopher Snider is dead,” said Doctor Warren, as he came from the house into which the boy had been carried by Tom Brandon and those who assisted him.

Thenceforth the widow’s home in Frog Lane would be desolate, for an only child was gone.

An exasperated multitude, among others Tom Brandon and Robert Walden, gathered in Faneuil Hall, Tom as witness, attending the examination of Ebenezer Richardson,[40] charged with the murder of Christopher Snider. Upon the platform sat the justices, John Ruddock, Edmund Quincy, Richard Dana, and Samuel Pemberton, wearing their scarlet cloaks and white wigs. There was a murmuring of voices.

“I hope the spy will swing for it,” Robert heard one citizen say.

“It’s downright murder, this shooting of a boy only nine years old, who hadn’t even been teasing Poke Nose,” said another.

“This is what comes from customs nabobs trying to enforce wicked laws,” said an old man.

“Yes, and keeps two regiments of lobsters here to insult us.”

“That’s so,” responded Peter Bushwick, whom Robert recognized. “If the laws were just the people wouldn’t smuggle. If there was no smuggling there wouldn’t be any spies, and Ebe Richardson, instead of being a sneaking informer, would have been earning an honest living. He wouldn’t have been called Poke Nose; there wouldn’t have been any snowballs nor brickbats nor shooting. Ever since I was a little boy Parliament has been passing laws to cripple us; that’s what’s brought on smuggling; that’s what keeps the troops here. Ebe Richardson is part of the system.”

There was a louder buzzing as the sheriff entered the hall and made his way through the crowd with his prisoner, who stood pale and trembling before the justices while the indictment was read. Witnesses were sworn and examined, and the sheriff ordered to commit the accused to the jail for trial.

“No other incident,” said Mr. John Adams, “has so stirred the people as the shooting of this boy. Nothing has so brought to the consciousness of the community the meaning of the ministerial system. Instinctively they connect the death of Christopher with the attempt to enforce the unrighteous laws. Richardson is in the employ of the government. There is no evidence that Theodore Newville or Nathaniel Coffin or any of the officers of the customs engaged him to remove the effigy; he did it on his own account, and must suffer for it, but the obloquy falls, nevertheless, upon the officers of the crown, and especially upon the soldiers, who are a constant menace. I fear this is but the beginning of trouble.”

Tom had been called upon to testify as a witness in regard to the shooting. He had heard the informer ask the peddler of charcoal and the farmer to run against the effigy with their teams; had seen the snowballs and brickbat fly, the shooting, and had assisted in caring for the wounded and summoning Doctor Warren.

“Have you any idea, Tom, who placed the effigy there?” Mrs. Brandon asked.

“I might have an idea, which might be correct or which might not be. A supposition isn’t testimony. I don’t think I’ll say anything about it,” said Tom.

“Can you guess who carved it?” Berinthia asked earnestly.

“Anybody can guess, Brinth, but the guess might not be worth anything; I’ll not try.”

“You Sons of Liberty don’t let out your secrets,” Berinthia said.

“If we did they wouldn’t be secrets.”

Never had there been such a funeral in the town as that of Christopher Snider. The schools were closed that the scholars might march in procession. Merchants put up the shutters of their stores; joiners, carpenters, ropemakers, blacksmiths, all trades and occupations laid down their tools and made their way to the Liberty-Tree, where the procession was to form. Mothers flocked to the little cottage in Frog Lane to weep with a mother bereft of her only child. Tom Brandon and five other young men were to carry the bier. The newspaper published by Benjamin Edes expressed the hope that none but friends of freedom would join in the procession.

Robert made his way to the Liberty Tree at the hour appointed. A great crowd had assembled. Somebody had nailed a board to the tree, upon which were painted texts from the Bible:—

“Thou shalt take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer. He shall surely be put to death.”

“Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not pass unpunished.”

The clock was striking three when the bearers brought the coffin from the home of the mother in Frog Lane to the Liberty Tree. While the procession was forming Robert had an opportunity to look at the inscriptions upon the black velvet pall. They were in Latin, but a gentleman with a kindly face, Master Lovell, translated them to the people.

“Latet Anguis in Herba.”
“Hoeret Lateris lethalis Armada.”
“Innocentia nusquam in tuta.”
The serpent is lurking in the grass.
The fatal dart is thrown.
Innocence is nowhere safe.