" Many ludicrous instances of the intensity of the terror might
be related. One man got his family into a boat to go to Ram Island for
safety. He imagined he was pursued by the enemy through the dusk of the
evening, and was annoyed by the crying of an infant in the after part of
the boat. "Do throw that squalling brat overboard," he called to his
wife, "or we shall be all discovered and killed!" A poor woman ran four
or five miles up the river, and stopped to take breath and nurse her
child, when she found to her great horror that she had brought off the
cat instead of the baby!
All through that memorable night the terror swept onward towards the
north with a speed which seems almost miraculous, producing everywhere
the same results. At midnight a horseman, clad only in shirt and
breeches, dashed by our grandfather's door, in Haverhill, twenty miles up
the river. "Turn out! Get a musket! Turn out!" he shouted; "the
regulars are landing on Plum Island!" "I'm glad of it," responded the
old gentleman from his chamber window; "I wish they were all there, and
obliged to stay there.
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