They were made very lame by the blows, but
they managed to reach their friend's house, where they sprang up the
steps three at a time, before the crowd knew where they were going.
Their host was certainly a brave man, for he took them in at the door,
and then throwing it open, exclaimed, "Whoever comes in here must come
over my dead body." The door was then barricaded, and the crowd rushed
round to the back of the house, thinking that their victims intended
to go out that way; but the travelers waited until it was dark, when
Whittier exchanged his Friend's hat for that of his host, and,
everything else peculiar about his dress being well disguised, the two
managed to pass out unperceived by the crowd, and go on their way to
Plymouth. They stopped one night on their journey at a small inn,
where the landlord asked if they had heard anything of the riot in
Concord. Two men had been there, he said, one an Englishman by the
name of Thompson, who had been making abominable and seditious
speeches, stirring up people about "the niggers;" the other was a
young Quaker by the name of Whittier, who was always making speeches.
He heard him lecture once himself, he said (a base lie, Whittier told
us, because he had never "lectured" in his life), and it was well that
active measures had been taken against them. "We heard him all
through," said Whittier; "and then, just as I had my foot on the step
of the chaise, ready to drive away from the door, I remarked to him,
'Wouldn't you like to see that Thompson of whom you have been
speaking?' I took good care not to use 'plain' language (that is, the
Quaker form).
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