farewells; seen the familiar faces that we hardly knew, now that we felt
them to be heroes; breathed higher breath for their sakes; felt our eyes
moistened; thanked them in our souls for teaching us that nature is yet
capable of heroic moments; felt how a great impulse lifts up a people, and
every cold, passionless, indifferent spectator,--lifts him up into
religion, and makes him join in what becomes an act of devotion, a prayer,
when perhaps he but half approves.

Septimius could not study on a morning like this. He tried to say to
himself that he had nothing to do with this excitement; that his studious
life kept him away from it; that his intended profession was that of
peace; but say what he might to himself, there was a tremor, a bubbling
impulse, a tingling in his ears,--the page that he opened glimmered and
dazzled before him.

"Septimius! Septimius!" cried Aunt Keziah, looking into the room, "in
Heaven's name, are you going to sit here to-day, and the redcoats coming
to burn the house over our heads? Must I sweep you out with the
broomstick? For shame, boy! for shame!"

"Are they coming, then, Aunt Keziah?" asked her nephew. "Well, I am not a
fighting-man."

"Certain they are. They have sacked Lexington, and slain the people, and
burnt the meeting-house. That concerns even the parsons; and you reckon
yourself among them. Go out, go out, I say, and learn the news!"

Whether moved by these exhortations, or by his own stifled curiosity,
Septimius did at length issue from his door, though with that reluctance
which hampers and impedes men whose current of thought and interest runs