The Yankee Champion — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 THE YANKEE CHAMPION. ‘Hire, fellow soldiers! fire!’’? vehemently shouted Major Buttrick, as he saw the gallant Davis fall. Beneath the first fire of the Americans one British soldier bit the dust in death, and Walter Nixon knew ’twas his bullet that did the deed. The enemy fled before the onset of the provincials, and joined the main body of the regulars in the center of the town; and ere long afterward the whole royal de- tachment had commenced their disastrous and never-to-be-forgotten retreat toward Boston. Old Nathan Nixon heard the rattling of the mus- kets at the bridge, and it was with difficulty that the doctor could keep him down on his bed. The old patriot’s muscles swelled and worked like the sinews of a trip-hammer, and his bright eye Cee more brightly than ever. ‘“Doctor,’’ he said, ‘‘I would to God I were in the place of those men who fell this morning at Lexing- ton. They told me that poor Jonathan Harrington fell with a British bullet in his breast, and that he ‘died while attempting to crawl up to his own door- stone.”’ ‘““Yes,’’ returned the doctor, as he dashed a tear from his eye, ‘‘his was a cruel fate. His wife sat at her window and saw him when he fell—then saw him start up, and she saw the blood streaming from his breast. She rushed out to meet him, but she was ~ only in time to see him die!’’ The old ‘man closed his eyes, and for several mo- ments he remained silent. ‘‘Doctor,’’ he said at length, ‘“‘these eight men who fell at Lexington this morning are the seeds from whence shall spring a glorious republican harvest. I know that the great provincial heart will afford it a rich soil in which to grow, England has made her comicboo cS r. 7 a bea - * a 2 > * ~iegs WO t ** (fms - ; tr 4 3 Ss a4 % a Fal