A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [479]
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.”
“Well, that’s not too bad,” he said judiciously. “I like the bit about the Somerset. Rather a painterly description.”
“Shut up.” She kicked him, though without real violence. “It goes on about his friend, who wanders and watches, with eager ears—” Roger snorted, and she kicked him again. “Till in the silence around him he hears/The muster of men at the barrack door/The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet/And the measured tread of the grenadiers/Marching down to their boats on the shore.”
He had visited her in Boston in the spring. In mid-April, the trees would have no more than a haze of green, their branches still mostly bare against pale skies. The nights were still frigid, but the cold was somehow touched with life, a freshness moving through the icy air.
“Then there’s a boring part about the friend climbing the stairs of the church tower, but I like the next verse.” Her voice, already soft, dropped a little, whispering.
“Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, ‘All is well!’
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.”
“Then there’s a lot of stuff with old Paul killing time waiting for the signal,” she said, abandoning the dramatic whisper for a more normal tone of voice. “But it finally shows up, and then . . .
“A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.”
“That’s actually pretty good.” His hand curved over her thigh, just above the knee, in case she might kick him again, but she didn’t. “Do you remember the rest?”
“So he goes along by the Mystic River,” Brianna said, ignoring him, “and then there are three verses, as he passes through the townships:
“It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
“And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
“It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
“It was two by the village clock—and yes, I hear the clock chiming in the first lines, be quiet!” He had in fact drawn breath, but not to interrupt, only because he’d suddenly realized he’d been holding it. “It was two by the village clock,” she repeated,
“When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
“You know the rest.” She stopped abruptly, her hand tight on his.
From one moment to the next, the character of the night had changed. The stillness of