"And couldn't he stop them, Papa?" asked Gracie.
"He succeeded with some few," replied her father, "joined them to a detachment which had not reached the spot till the fighting was over, and with them took possession of Prospect Hill, where he encamped for the night."
"Oh, Papa, what did they do with all those Americans and British who had been killed?" asked Gracie.
"There must have been many a sad funeral," the Captain said in reply, "many a widow and fatherless child to weep over the slain. Ah, let us thank our heavenly Father for the liberty and security bought for us at so fearful a price."
"Yes," responded Grandma Elsie; "and let us keep them for ourselves and our children by the eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty.'"
To the great delight of the young people on board the "Dolphin" the sun shone in a clear sky the next morning.
Soon after breakfast they were all on deck, as usual in pleasant weather, enjoying the breeze, the sight of passing vessels, and a distant view of the land.
The Captain and Violet sat near together with the two little ones playing about them, while Grandma Elsie, in a reclining chair, at no great distance, seemed absorbed in a book.
"Mamma is reading something sad, I know by the look on her face," said Walter, hurrying toward her, the others following. "What is it you are reading, Mamma, that makes you look so sorry?" he asked, putting an arm about her neck, and giving her a kiss. "Oh, that's Bancroft's History!"
"Yes," she said, "I was just looking over his account of the battles of Lexington and Concord, and some things he tells do make me sad though they happened more than a hundred years ago."
"Oh, please read them to us!" pleaded several young voices, all speaking at once.
"I will give you some passages," she said; "not the whole, because you have already been over that ground. It is what he tells of Isaac Davis that particularly interests me," and she began reading.
"At daybreak the minute-men of Acton crowded, at the drum-beat, to the house of Isaac Davis, their captain, who 'made haste to be ready.' Just thirty years old, the father of four little ones, stately in his person, a man of few words, earnest even to solemnity, he parted from his wife, saying, 'Take good care of the children;' and while she gazed after him with resignation, he led off his company.