If the British regarded Charlestown Heights of such importance, why should not the provincials seize them? It must be done. Twilight was still lingering on the western horizon when the troops selected for the expedition paraded on Cambridge Common. Colonel William Prescott was to command them. He had fought at Louisburg, and was cool and brave. With uncovered heads the regiments stood in front of the meetinghouse while Reverend Mr. Langdon, president of the college, offered prayer. Lieutenant Walden, having been upon Bunker Hill, led the way, followed by soldiers from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and two carts loaded with picks and shovels. They marched in silence. Lieutenant Walden conducted them across the Neck and up the slope of the Hill. It was nearly midnight before it was decided just where Colonel Gridley should mark out the contemplated fortifications.[69] Lieutenant Walden conducted Captain Nutting and ten sentinels to the ferry landing. They were but a little distance from the frigate Somerset at anchor in the stream. Farther up, towards Lechmere’s Point, were the Glasgow, Cerberus, and Symetry. Down the river, off Moulton’s Point, lay the Lively and Falcon.

Leaving the sentinels to guard the shore, he rode to the summit of the hill, where the men were hard at work, delving in silence with pick and spade. There were not sufficient implements for all, but when one was out of breath, another took his place, and before the first glimmer of dawn appeared, the trench had been made breast deep.

“Four o’clock and all’s well!” came from the sentinel on the Somerset, but a moment later a sheet of flame and a white cloud burst from the side of the Lively, and the roar of a gun broke the stillness of the morning.

The thunder rolled far away, arousing the British army, the people of Boston, General Gage, and Lord Howe from their slumbers. Berinthia Brandon, from her chamber window, beheld the warship Lively shrouded in smoke. Upon the green hill, where, the day before, the farmers had been swinging their scythes, and where the partially cured hay was lying in windrows, she could see a bank of yellow earth. Again the thunder of the guns jarred her window, but at a signal from the Somerset the firing ceased.

Before sunrise all Boston was astir, moving towards Copp’s Hill, gazing from windows and roofs upon the growing fortifications. Generals Gage and Howe ascended the steeple of Christ Church and looked at the embankment with their telescopes.[70] A little later officers were hurrying along the streets with orders to the several regiments to be ready to march at a moment’s notice. Drums were beating; battalions moving towards Long Wharf, the selected rendezvous, from whence the troops were to be transported in boats to Moulton’s Point, ascend the hill, and send the provincials flying from their chosen position.

Such was the information brought to the Brandon home by Abraham Duncan.

“You will have a splendid chance to see the battle from the housetop,” he said to Captain Brandon.

Cannon carriages were rumbling through the street, passing the Brandon home, wheeling into the burial ground, and coming into position. The gunners loaded the pieces and lighted their port fires, waved their lint-stocks, and touched them to the priming. Flames and smoke belched from the muzzle of the guns with deafening roar, sending the missiles upon the fortification.

While the cannoneers were reloading the guns, Berinthia, upon the housetop with a telescope, saw a man leap up from the intrenchment and stand in full view upon the bank of earth, swinging his hat and shaking his fist.

“Oh father! mother! it is Tom! He’s swinging his hat! Just see him!” she cried.

Again the cannon flamed, but with the flashing Tom leaped back into the trench and was safe from the shot.

“I’m glad he’s there. He’s got the true stuff in him,” said Mr. Brandon.

“I’m afraid he’ll be killed!” exclaimed Mrs. Brandon, manifesting the mother’s solicitude and love.

“I glory in his pluck,” said Berinthia.

People came from other sections of the town to behold the impending battle.

“May we presume to trespass upon your hospitality, Captain Brandon,” asked Mr. Newville, “and, if you have room, see this approaching contest from your housetop?”

“Certainly. We give you and your family hearty welcome. We doubtless shall see it from different political standpoints; you are truly loyal to the king; my sympathies, as you know, are with the provincials, but that shall not diminish our personal friendship or my hospitality,” Captain Brandon replied, escorting Mr. and Mrs. Newville and Miss Newville to the top of the house and providing them seats.

The forenoon wore away; Mrs. Brandon was busy preparing a lunch, and Chloe soon had the table elaborately supplied with ham, tongue, the whitest bread, appetizing cheese, doughnuts, and crumpets. The company partook of the collation, drank each a glass of wine, and then ascended to the roof again.

Berinthia informed Ruth that Tom was in the redoubt. She had seen him through the telescope, standing on the embankment and waving his hat.

Lieutenant Robert Walden, at the moment, was five miles away, in Medford town, delivering a message to Colonel John Stark to hasten with his regiment to Bunker Hill.

The meetinghouse bell was ringing the hour of noon when the drummer beat the long roll for the parading of the regiment. The men filed past the quarter-master’s tent and each received a gill of powder in his horn. And then with quickened step they crossed the Mystic and hastened along the road.

With the shot from the Symetry screeching around them, tossing the gravel in their faces, the men from New Hampshire crossed the neck of land, ascended the hill, and came into position by a low stone wall surmounted by rails. Lieutenant Walden’s company was nearest the Mystic River. Captain Daniel Moore’s came next in line. The regiment with Colonel Reed’s New Hampshire regiment extended to the foot of the hill, in the direction of the redoubt.

“You will inform Colonel Prescott that I have arrived with my regiment and am in position,” said Colonel Stark.

Riding towards the redoubt, Robert saluted General Putnam, who, mounted on a white horse, was going along the lines, telling the men to keep cool, save their powder, and aim at the cross-belts of the British.

It was a pleasure once more to meet Doctor Warren, who had been appointed general, but who had come as a volunteer to take part in the battle.

Colonel Prescott thanked Lieutenant Walden for the information sent by Colonel Stark. He did not doubt the men from New Hampshire would be as true as they were in the battles of Louisburg and Ticonderoga.[71]

Dismounting from his horse and giving it in charge of a soldier, Lieutenant Walden walked along the trench, looked over the embankment upon the British troops landing at Moulton’s Point and forming in two columns, one of which, he concluded, was intending to march along the Mystic to gain the rear of the redoubt and cut off the retreat of those within it. If such were the contemplated movement it would be mainly against the regiments of Stark and Reed. The other body of troops seemed to be forming to advance directly upon the redoubt.

While he was thus gazing, a hand clasped his arm; turning, he beheld Tom Brandon.

“I’ve been wondering if you wouldn’t be round here somewhere,” said Tom.

“And I have been wondering where you would be,” Robert replied.

“And so you are a lieutenant?” queried Tom, looking at the epaulet on his shoulder. “I congratulate you.

“The whole family are on the roof to see the battle,” he continued.

“Perhaps you can bring them a little nearer with my telescope,” said Robert, handing him the instrument.

Tom rested it on the embankment and looked towards the house.

“There’s a crowd of ’em on the roof,” he said, “father, mother, and Berinthia. There’s a man with a white wig,—Mr. Newville, I guess; and there’s a girl talking with Berinthia—Ruth Newville.”

With quickened pulse Robert adjusted the glass to his vision. Others than those mentioned by Tom were upon the roof, but one figure alone engaged his attention. Oh, if he could but know how she regarded the impending battle! Possibly since the events on Lexington Green and at Concord bridge her sympathies had been with the king. No, he could not think it. The instincts of one so noble, good, and large-hearted must ever be opposed to tyranny and oppression. Whether favoring or opposing the course of the Colonies, what matter to him? What probability of their ever meeting again? If meeting, would she ever be other than an old acquaintance? Never had he opened his heart to her; never by word or deed informed her that she was all the world to him. To her he would be only a friend of other days.

He could see a tall man in a general’s uniform walking along the British lines. He halted, took off his cocked hat, stood erect, and said something to the soldiers. He concluded it was General Howe, telling them they were a noble body of men, and he did not doubt they would show themselves valiant soldiers. He should not ask them to go any farther than he himself was willing to go. Robert and Tom could hear the cheer which the soldiers gave him.

The columns began to march,—that commanded by General Howe along the bank of the Mystic; that by General Pigot straight up the hill towards the redoubt.

Robert ran to the spot where he had left his horse, but it was not there. He hastened down the slope, past the Connecticut troops under Colonel Knowlton, and reported to Colonel Stark, who was directing his soldiers to take up a rail fence in front of his line and reset it by the low stone wall, and fill the space between the fences with hay from the windrows.

“It will serve as a screen,” he said.

Stepping in front a short distance, he drove a stake in the ground.

“Don’t fire till the redcoats are up to it,” was his order.

The sun was shining from a cloudless sky. They upon the roof of the Brandon home saw the scarlet columns of the British moving along the Mystic and towards the redoubt, the sunlight gleaming from their muskets and bayonets, the flags waving above them, the men keeping step to the drumbeat; the great guns of the fleet and those on Copp’s Hill flaming and thundering; white powder-clouds floating away and dissolving in thin air. They saw puffs of smoke burst from the heads of the advancing columns and heard the rattle of muskets. Cannon-shot plowed the ground and tossed up the gravel around the redoubt. Only the six cannon of the provincials were replying. Nearer moved the scarlet line. Again a rattling volley, with no answering musket shot from fence or embankment. What the meaning of such silence? Suddenly a line of light streamed from the river to the foot of the hill, and like the lightning’s flash ran along the embankment and round the redoubt. A rattle and roar like the waves of the sea upon a rocky shore came to their ears across the shining waters. Men were reeling to the ground, whole ranks going down before the pitiless storm. The front ranks had melted away. For a few moments there was a rattling like scattered raindrops, and then another lightning flash, and the British were fleeing in confusion.

Mr. Newville clenched his hands.

“I fear the king’s troops are discomfited,” he said.

Mrs. Newville with a long-drawn sigh covered her face with her handkerchief as if to shut out the unwelcome spectacle.

“The redcoats are beaten!” Berinthia exclaimed.

“It is too soon to say that, daughter. The battle is not yet over; the king’s troops would be cowardly were they to give up with only one attempt.”

Like a statue, her hands tightly grasping the balustrade, her bosom heaving with suppressed emotion, Ruth gazed upon the spectacle, uttering no exclamation. Taking the telescope, she turned it upon the scene, beholding the prostrate forms dotting the newly mown fields. It was not difficult to distinguish Lord Howe, the centre of a group of officers. He was evidently issuing orders to re-form the broken lines. Colonels, majors, and captains were rallying the disheartened men. In the intervals of the cannonade from the fleet a confused hum of voices could be heard, officers shouting their orders. Beyond the prostrate forms, behind the low stone wall and screen of hay were the provincials, biding their time. Officers were walking to and fro,—one middle-aged, with a colonel’s epaulets, evidently commanding the troops nearest the Mystic River. A subordinate officer of manly form was receiving orders and transmitting them to others. Where had she seen one like him? Long she gazed with unwonted bloom upon her cheeks.

Again the scarlet lines advanced,—the foremost platoons halting, firing, filing right and left, that those in the rear might reach the front. Unmindful of the bullets pattering around him, the young officer walked composedly along the provincial line, from which came no answering shot. Seemingly he was telling the men to wait. Suddenly, as before, the screen of hay became a sheet of flame, and the scarlet ranks again dissolved like a straw in a candle’s flame, whole ranks reeling and falling, or fleeing to the place of landing.

Mr. Newville groaned aloud. Again Mrs. Newville covered her face. Captain Brandon, Mrs. Brandon, and Berinthia, out of respect to their guests, gave no sign of exultation; but from windows, roofs, doorways, and steeples, like the voice of many waters, came the joyful murmur of the multitude, revealing to General Gage, up in the tower of Christ Church, the sympathy of the people with the provincials.

No exclamation of satisfaction or disappointment fell from the lips of Ruth, still looking with the telescope towards the provincial line by the Mystic, and the manly figure of the officer receiving instructions from his superior.

There was a commotion among the troops in the burial ground before them.

“Fall in! Fall in!” General Clinton shouted. They hastily formed in column and marched down the steep descent to the ferry landing. From the tower of Christ Church, together with General Gage, Clinton had seen the discomfiture of Lord Howe and General Pigot, and, with three hundred men, was hastening to reinforce them, stepping into boats and crossing the river.

The people on the housetops needed no telescopes to see what was going on across the stream. Slowly the lines re-formed, the men reluctantly taking their places. They who had fought at Ticonderoga, who had won the victory on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec, never had faced so pitiless a storm.

“It is downright murder,” said the men.

They upon the housetops could see the British officers flourishing their swords, gesticulating, and even striking the disheartened soldiers, compelling them to stand once more in the ranks. Twice they had advanced, encumbered with their knapsacks, in accordance with strict military rule; now they were laying them aside. There were fewer men in the ranks than at the beginning of the battle, but the honor of England was at stake. The rabble of undisciplined country bumpkins must be driven from their position, or the troops of England would be forever disgraced. General Howe had learned wisdom. He had thought to sweep aside the line of provincials behind the low stone wall, gain the rear, cut off the retreat of those in the redoubt, capture them, and win a notable victory. He had not expected such resistance, such a destructive fire as had greeted the light infantry along the banks of the stream. In the two attempts, he had discovered the weak place in the provincial line,—the space between the redoubt and the low stone wall. In planning the third movement, he resolved to make a feint of advancing once more towards the wall, but would concentrate his attack upon the redoubt, and especially upon that portion of the line least defended.

The summer sun, shining from a cloudless sky, was declining towards the western horizon. It was past four o’clock before the lines were ready. Once more the guns of the fleet hurled solid shot and shells upon the redoubt. Captain Brandon, looking from his housetop down upon the guns almost beneath him, saw a gunner ramming an inflammable shell into the cannon. The shell, with smoking torch, screamed across the river, aimed not at the bank of yellow earth on Bunker Hill, but at the houses in Charlestown.

“They intend to burn the village,” he said.

Soon flames were bursting from window, doorway, and roof. The wind, blowing from the south, carried sparks and cinders to the adjoining houses, glowing in the summer heat. A wail of horror from the people rent the air.

“That is mean, cruel, wicked, dastardly!” exclaimed Ruth, with flashing eyes. “It’s inhuman. I shall hate the man who has ordered it.”[72]

Through the previous stages of the conflict no word of approval or disapproval had escaped her lips.

“Ruth! Ruth! Don’t say that!” Mr. Newville cried, astonished by such an outburst of indignation.

“If General Gage were here I would say it to his face. What have those people done that their homes should be destroyed? They are not fighting the battle. Does he think that by burning the town he will frighten those men in the redoubt into submission? Were I one of them, I would die before I would surrender.”

Her eyes were flashing. In her earnestness she had removed her hat. The gentle breeze was fanning her heated brow. She stood erect, a queen in her dignity and beauty. Never had Mr. and Mrs. Newville dreamed that there was such pent-up fire in her soul, such energy, fearlessness, and instinctive comprehension of justice and right. Captain and Mrs. Brandon, Berinthia, and all around gazed upon her wonderingly and with admiration.

The fire was sweeping on,—leaping from building to building, licking up houses, stables, and workshop, reaching the meetinghouse, kindling the shingles on its roof, the clapboards upon its walls, bursting from doors and windows, climbing the spire to the gilded vane, burning till beams and timbers gave way; then came the crash,—a single stroke of the bell tolling as it were a requiem.

Under the cloud from the burning town the scarlet lines once more advanced,—not towards the screen of hay, but in the direction of the redoubt. With the glass Ruth saw the manly figure she had seen before, seemingly receiving instructions from his superior officer, and running towards the threatened point of attack. The scarlet lines were mounting the breastwork. Men were firing in each other’s faces; thrusting with the bayonet. She could see a stalwart provincial in his shirt-sleeves beat out the brains of a Britisher with the butt of his musket, and the next moment go down with a bayonet through his heart. The manly figure was in the thick of the mÊlÉe,—a half dozen redcoats rushing upon him. His sword was flashing in the sunlight as he parried their bayonets, keeping them at bay. Guns flashed, and the white powder-cloud shut out the scene. When it cleared, he had gone down, and the redcoats were swinging their hats. Their shout of victory came across the waters. Those around saw Ruth clasp her hand upon her heart.

“They are beaten, and he is shot!” she cried, sinking into Berinthia’s arms.

“Who’s shot?” her mother asked. There was no answer from the quivering lips.

“The excitement is too much for her,” said Mrs. Newville, as they bore her to Berinthia’s chamber.