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It was evidently unsafe for them to remain so near the scene of the struggle, and at daylight they were ready to start for the home of the Rev. Mr. Marrett in Woburn. Dorothy and Aunt Lydia were to remain in Lexington, and although they had kept well in the background through all the excitement of the fateful night, Aunt Lydia now went down to the door, not only to see the last of her beloved nephew, but to try to speak to some one who could give her more definite news of the seven hundred British soldiers who had arrived in town and were drawn up in formidable array against the motley company of colonists. The British officers at once commanded the colonists to lay down their arms and disperse. Not a single man obeyed. All stood in silent defiance of the order. Then the British regulars poured into the “minute-men” a fatal volley of shots; and about that time Aunt Lydia descended to the parsonage door, and excited Dorothy threw open her window that she might wave to her lover until he was out of sight. As she drew back, she saw something whiz through the air past her aunt’s head, striking the barn door beyond, and heard her aunt exclaim:

“What was that?”

It was a British bullet, and no mistake! As Dorothy told later: “The next thing I knew, two men were being brought into the house, one, whose head had been grazed by a bullet, insisted that he was dead; but the other, who was shot in the arm, behaved better.”

Dorothy Quincy had seen the first shot fired for independence!

Never was there a more gallant resistance of a large and well-disciplined enemy force than that shown by the minute-men on that day at Lexington, and when at last the British retreated under a hot fire from the provincials at whom they had sneered, they had lost two hundred and seventy-three, killed, wounded, and missing, while the American force had lost only ninety-three.

As soon as the troops were marching on their way to Concord, a messenger brought Dorothy a penciled note from Hancock: “Would she and his aunt come to their hiding-place for dinner, and would they bring with them the fine salmon which was to have been cooked for dinner at the parsonage?” Of course they would–only too eagerly did they make ready and allow the messenger to guide them to the patriot’s place of concealment. There, while the lovers enjoyed a tete-a-tete, Adams and Aunt Lydia made the feast ready, and they were all about to enjoy it, when a man rushed in crying out wildly:

“The British are coming! The British are coming! My wife’s in eternity now.”

This was grim news, and there was no more thought of feasting. Hurriedly Mr. Marrett made ready and took the patriots to a safer hiding-place, in Amos Wyman’s house in Billerica. There, later in the day, they satisfied their appetites as best they could with cold pork and potatoes in place of the princely salmon, while Dorothy and Aunt Lydia, after eating what they had heart to consume of the feast, returned to Parson Clark’s home, where they waited as quietly as possible until the retreat of the British troops. Then Dorothy had the joy of being again clasped in her lover’s arms–and as he looked questioningly into her dear eyes, he could see lines of suffering and of new womanliness carved on her face by the anxiety she had experienced during the last twenty-four hours. Then, at a moment when both were seemingly happiest at being together, came their first lovers’ quarrel.

When she had somewhat recovered from the fear of not seeing Hancock again, Dorothy announced that she was going to Boston on the following day–that she was worried about her father, who had not yet been able to leave the city, that she must see him. Hancock listened with set lips and grim determination: