orth Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all."

Long before Paul Revere got across the water in his little boat, the
people on the other side had seen the lanterns in the tower. They knew
the British were coming, and were all astir when Paul Revere got over.
Revere rode on to Lexington and beyond, to alarm the people.

The lines above are from a poem of Longfellow's about this ride. The
poem is very interesting, but it does not tell the story quite
correctly.

Paul Revere's lanterns were used at the beginning of the Revolutionary
War. There is a story of a different sort of telegraph used when the
war was near its end. It is told by a British officer who had not the
best means of knowing whether it was true or not. But it shows what
kind of telegraphs were used in that day. This is the story:--

[Illustration: Old North Church Steeple.]

A British army held New York. Another British army under Cornwallis was
at Yorktown in Virginia. General Washington had marched to Yorktown. He
was trying to capture the army of General Cornwallis. He was afraid
that ships and soldiers would be sent from New York to help Cornwallis.
But there were men in New York who were secretly on Washington's side.
One of these was to let him know when ships should sail to help
Cornwallis.

But Washington was six hundred miles away from New York. How could he
get the news before the English ships should get there? There were no
telegraphs. The fastest horses ridden one after another could hardly
have carried news to him in less than two weeks. But Washington had a
plan. One of the men who sent news to Washington was living in New
York. When the ships set sail, he went up on the top of his house and
hoisted a white flag, or something that looked like a white flag.

On the other side of the Hudson River in a little village a man was
watching this very house. As soon as he saw the white flag flapping, he
took up his gun and fired it. Farther off there was a man waiting to
hear this gun. When he heard it, he fired another gun. Farther on there
was the crack