e next day when Robert reached Cambridge. He had heard
about Harvard College; now he saw the buildings. The students were
having a game of football after dinner. The houses along the streets
were larger than any he had ever seen before,--stately mansions with
porticoes, pillars, pilasters, carved cornices, and verandas. The
gardens were still bright with the flowers of autumn. Reaching
Roxbury, he came across a man slowly making his way along the road
with a cane.

"Let me give you a lift, sir," Robert said.

"Thank you. I have been down with the rheumatiz, and can't skip round
quite as lively as I could once," said the man as he climbed into the
wagon. "'Spect you are from the country and on your way to market,
eh?"

Robert replied that he was from New Hampshire.

"Ever been this way before?"

"No, this is my first trip."

"Well, then, perhaps I can p'int out some things that may interest
ye."

Robert thanked him.

"This little strip of land we are on is the 'Neck.' This water on our
left is Charles River,--this on our right is Gallows Bay. Ye see that
thing out there, don't ye?"

The man pointed with his cane. "Well, that's the gallows, where
pirates and murderers are hung. Lots of 'em have been swung off there,
with thousands of people looking to see 'em have their necks
stretched. 'Tain't a pretty sight, though."

The man took a chew of tobacco, and renewed the conversation.

"My name is Peter Bushwick, and yours may be--?"

"Robert Walden."

"Thank ye, Mr. Walden. So ye took the road through Cambridge instead
of Charlestown."

"I let Jenny pick the road. That through Charlestown would have been
nearer, but I should have to cross the ferry. My father usually comes
this way."[2]

[Footnote 2: No bridge from Charlestown had been constructed across
Charles Rivers (1769), and the only avenue leading into Boston was
from Roxbury.]

"Mighty fine mare, Mr. Walden; ye can see she's a knowing critter.
She's got the right kind of an ear; she knows what she's about."

They were at the narrowest part of the peninsula, and Mr. Bushwick
told about the barricade built by the first settlers at that point to
protect the town from the Indians, and pointed to a large elm-tree
which they could see quite a distance ahead.

"That is the Liberty Tree,"[3] he said.

[Footnote 3: The elm-tree stood at the junction of Orange and Essex
streets and Frog Lane, now Washington, Essex and Boylston streets. In
1766, upon