Ben Comee Part 27

I returned home, and found Amos telling Davy of our adventures. For a time Davy had little to say about his hunting stories.

I went back to No. 4, opened a blacksmith's shop, and in the fall married Ruth. We have lived here ever since, and have prospered. Much of my success is due to my wife's clear head and wonderful common sense.

Folks regard Colonel Comee as a very shrewd and able business man. But my friends laugh, and say:--

"Colonel Ben's just a figure-head. He never takes an important step without talking it over with Aunt Ruth."

John Stark and I have always remained close friends. When he was a colonel at Bunker's Hill, I was a lieutenant in his regiment, and served under him throughout the Revolution. He became a general, and showed the ability that we recognized in the French War.

By the end of the Revolution I had risen to the rank of colonel. Hardly a year has pa.s.sed since that time that one of us has not made the other a visit of a few days. He has always retained a great admiration and tender affection for Lord Howe.

After the French War was over, Rogers was appointed to the command of the post at Michilimackinac. His accounts did not come out right. He always had that failing, and he went to England to explain matters.

While over there, he was riding one night in a stage-coach over Hounslow Heath, when a masked highwayman stopped the coach, and thrusting his pistols in at the window, told the pa.s.sengers to hand over their money and watches. They were doing so, when Rogers, who was wonderfully strong, quickly reached out, grabbed the highwayman by the collar of his coat, pulled him into the coach, sat on him, took away his pistols, tied him up, and delivered him over to the authorities. He was an old offender, for whose apprehension a reward of 50 had been offered, which Rogers claimed and received.

[Sidenote: A SURPRISED HIGHWAYMAN]

Rogers remained in England till the Revolution, and then came over here, and after a while offered his services to Washington. He came to Stark's headquarters at Medford, and John and I had a long talk with him.

Stark believed he would be true to us, and so did I. But he had been on such close terms of intimacy with the British that Washington distrusted him and would not give him a command.

Soon after he received a commission from the British, and raised the Queen's Rangers, who were badly defeated in a fight in Connecticut.

Rogers then returned to England, and led a rather shady life; and I believe was finally killed while fighting in Algiers. He was a curious compound. If he had only been a man of honour, he would have become a great man. But his tricky, unscrupulous nature was his ruin.

Edmund Munro served again at Crown Point in 1762-63, as a lieutenant, and as adjutant of the four provincial regiments stationed there.

I met him often in the Revolution. He was captain of the Lexington company. Poor fellow, he was killed by a cannon ball at Monmouth, at the head of his company. He died poor, and his widow had a hard time till the little ones grew up.

Of our old playmate, John Hanc.o.c.k, you have all heard, how he inherited the wealth of his Uncle Thomas, and in his turn was the richest man in Boston, and lived in the stone house on Beacon Hill.

You remember how he risked his great fortune and his head, and sided with his countrymen. His bold signature heads the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Riches and honours came to him. Year after year he was chosen governor of Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Sidenote: GOVERNOR HANc.o.c.k]

I did not meet him from the time I went to the French War till some ten years after the Revolution.

I called on him in Boston, and he was glad to see me, and had me up to his house to dinner and to spend the night.

Everything was magnificent. John was kind, but condescending--something like a great mogul receiving an inferior.

I had no favour to ask of him. I saw no reason why I should look up to and revere him. I had played my own part in life well and boldly and stood firm on my feet. When John found I was not in awe of his rank and magnificence, he gave up his grand airs and was again the bright, lively fellow I knew as a boy.

Hector and Donald Munro remained in this country. After the French War was over, they visited their kinsmen in Lexington, and then went to Rehoboth, where there is another branch of the family, and settled in that town.

My old wrestling-master, Jonas Parker, was killed on the common at Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1775. He had said in his grim way, "Some may run from the British, but I won't budge a foot."

He was in the front rank of the minutemen. He laid his hat on the ground before him, and in it placed his powder-horn and bullets.

When the British fired, he was wounded, and fell to his knees. He returned their fire, and was reloading, when the regulars ran forward and killed him with their bayonets.

Amos and Davy were in the Revolution, too. They never got over their love for fox-hunting and pigeon-shooting.

As I finish this record, sixty years have pa.s.sed since we had the pigeon shoot on Bull Meadow Hill. Those of us who survive are old, but some of us are still hale and hearty.

[Sidenote: AMOS HAS A STORY, TOO]

I received a letter the other day from a friend in Lexington, in which he says:--

"About a week ago I saw your old friend, Amos Locke, ploughing in a field which joins on to my farm. I walked over to the wall. When he saw me, he left his plough, came to the wall, and said,--

"'Morning! M-mighty good day to go after p-pigeons. P-Puts me in mind of the d-day I was with Weaver David and B-Ben Comee, up on Bull Meadow Hill, and shot fifty-two p-pigeons at one shot. One for every week in the year. I'll t-tell you about it.'"