Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times Part 17

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 s...o...b..ll.

Losing his temper, the informer threw a brickbat in return. He was but one against fifty lads pelting him with s...o...b..a.l.l.s, 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 a.s.sisted him.

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

An exasperated mult.i.tude, 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.

[Footnote 40: John Ruddock, Edmund Quincy, Richard Dana, and Samuel Pemberton were the princ.i.p.al magistrates of the town, and unitedly sat as a court. Richardson was committed to jail, tried, and condemned to death. As his crime grew from political troubles, Governor Hutchinson caused his execution to be delayed. He was kept in jail till the outbreak of the war, when he was set at liberty.]

"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 s...o...b..a.l.l.s nor brickbats nor shooting. Ever since I was a little boy Parliament has been pa.s.sing 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 s...o...b..a.l.l.s and brickbat fly, the shooting, and had a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sembled. 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 pa.s.s 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._"

"_h.o.e.ret Lateris lethalis Armada._"

"_Innocentia nusquam in tuta._"

The serpent is lurking in the gra.s.s.

The fatal dart is thrown.

Innocence is nowhere safe.

All the bells were tolling. Mothers and maidens along the street were weeping for the mother following the body of her boy. Old men uncovered their heads, and bared their snow-white locks to the wintry air, as the pall-bearers with slow and measured steps moved past them.

Schoolboys, more than six hundred, two by two, hand in hand; apprentices, journeymen, citizens, three thousand in number; magistrates, ministers, merchants, lawyers, physicians in chaises and carriages,--composed the throng bearing the murdered boy to his burial.

Listen, my Lord Frederick North, to the mournful pealing of the bells of Boston! Listen, King George, to the tramping of the schoolmates of Christopher Snider, laying aside their books for the day to bear witness against your royal policy,--boys now, men ere long,--protesting with tears to-day, with muskets by and by! Listen, ye men who have purchased seats in parliament to satisfy your greed!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord North.]

The a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, the tolling bells, the tramping feet, the emblems of mourning, are the indignant protest of an outraged community against tyranny and oppression,--the enforcement of law by the show of force,--by musket, sword, and bayonet. Listen, and take warning.[41]

[Footnote 41: Historians have made little account of the shooting of Christopher Snider, but there can be no question that it led directly to the collision between the ropemakers and soldiers one week later, resulting in the Ma.s.sacre of March 5, 1770.]

IX.

THE LOBSTERS AND ROPEMAKERS.

Although March had come, the snow was still deep upon the ground.