o had
retreated as before mentioned, and were now advancing, with special
orders not to fire upon the troops unless fired upon. These orders were
so punctually observed that we received the fire of the enemy in three
several and separate discharges of their pieces before it was returned
by our commanding officer; the firing then became general for several
minutes; in which skirmish two were killed on each side, and several of
the enemy wounded. (It may here be observed, by the way, that we were
the more cautious to prevent beginning a rupture with the king's troops,
as we were then uncertain what had happened at Lexington, and knew not
that they had begun the quarrel there by first firing upon our people,
and killing eight men upon the spot.) The three companies of troops soon
quitted their post at the bridge, and retreated in the greatest disorder
and confusion to the main body, who were soon upon their march to meet
them.

"For half an hour the enemy, by their marches and countermarches,
discovered great fickleness and inconstancy of mind,--sometimes
advancing, sometimes returning to their former posts; till at length
they quitted the town and retreated by the way they came. In the
meantime, a party of our men (one hundred and fifty), took the back way
through the Great Fields into the East Quarter, and had placed
themselves to advantage, lying in ambush behind walls, fences, and
buildings, ready to fire upon the enemy on their retreat."[12]

Here ends the important chronicle, the best first-hand account we have
of the battle of Concord. But for this alone the first resident of the
Old Manse deserves our memory and thanks.

Mr. Emerson was succeeded at the Manse by a certain Doctor Ripley, a
venerable scholar who left behind him a reputation for learning and
sanctity which was reproduced in one of the ladies of his family, long
the most learned woman in the little Concord circle which Hawthorne soon
after his marriage came to join.

Few New England villages have retained so much of the charm and
peacefulness of country life as has Concord, and few dwellings in
Concord have to-day so nearly the aspect they presented fifty years ago
as does the Manse, where Hawthorne passed three of the happiest years of
his life.

In the "American Note-Book," there is a charming description of the
pleasure the romancer and his young wife experienced in renovating and
refurnishing the old parsonage which, at the time of their goin