Excerpt from Morgan's Run by Colleen McCullough, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I believe," said Dick Morgan, on fruitless tiptoe, "that we would do better to go back to the Cooper's Arms and watch from the penthouse."

So back they went, up the shaky crumbling stairs at the inner end of the counter and thus eventually to the casement windows which leaned perilously far out over Broad Street below. In the back room little William Henry was crying, his mother and grandmother bent over his cot cooing and clucking; the hubbub outside held no interest for Peg or Mag while William Henry displayed such terrible grief. Nor did the hubbub tempt Richard, joining the women.

"Richard, he will not perish in the next few minutes!" snapped Dick from the front room. "Come here and see, damn ye!"

Richard came, but reluctantly, to lean out the gaping window and gasp in amazement. "Yankeys, Father! Christ, what are they doing to the things?"

"Things" they certainly were: two rag effigies stuffed quite professionally with straw, tarred all over with pitch still smoking, and encrusted with feathers. Except for their heads, upon which sat the insignia of colonists -- their abysmally unfashionable but very sensible hats, brim turned down all the way around so that the low round crown sat like the yolk blister in the middle of a fried egg.

"Holloa!" bellowed Jem Thistlethwaite, spying a well-known face belonging to a well-known, expensively suited body, the whole perched upon a geehoe sledge loaded with tall barrels. "Master Harford, what goes?"

"The Steadfast Society saith it hangeth John Hancock and John Adams!" the Quaker plutocrat called back.

"What, because General Gage refused to extend his pardon to them after Concord?"

"I know not, Master Thistlethwaite." Clearly terrified that he too would be lampooned in some highly uncomplimentary way, Joseph Harford descended from his vantage point and melted into the crowd.

"Hypocrite!" said Mr. Thistlethwaite under his breath.

"Samuel Adams, not John Adams," said Richard, his interest now fairly caught. "Surely it would be Samuel Adams?"

"If the richest merchants in Boston are whom the Steadfast Society mean to hang, then yes, it ought to be Samuel. But John writes and speaks more," said Mr. Thistlethwaite.

In a nautically oriented city, the production of two ropes efficiently tied into hangman's knots did not present a difficulty; two such magically appeared, and the stark, bristly, man-sized dolls were hoisted by their necks to the signpost of the American Coffee House, there to turn lazily and smolder sluggishly. Rage spent, the throng of Steadfast Society men vanished through the welcoming, Tory-blue doors of the White Lion Inn.

"Tory pricks!" said Mr. Thistlethwaite, descending the stairs with a nice mug of rum uppermost in his mind.

"Out, Jem!" said Mine Host, bolting the door until he could be sure the disturbance was definitely over.

<* * *

Richard had not followed his father downstairs, though duty said he ought; his name was now joined to Dick's in the official Corporation books. Richard Morgan, victualler, had paid the fine and become an accredited Free Man, a vote-empowered citizen of a city which was in itself a county distinct from Gloucestershire and Somersetshire surrounding it, a citizen of a city which was the second-largest in all of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Of the 50,000 souls jammed within its bounds, only some 7,000 were vote-empowered Free Men.

"Is it taking?" Richard asked his wife, and leaning over the cot; William Henry had quietened, seemed to doze uneasily.

"Yes, my love." Peg's soft brown eyes suddenly filled with tears, her lips trembling. "Now is the time to pray, Richard, that he does not suffer the full pox. Though he does not burn the way Mary did." She gave her husband a gentle push. "Go for a good long walk. You may pray and walk. Go on! Please, Richard. If you stay, Father will growl."

Excerpted from Morgan's Run, copyright (c)2000 Colleen McCullough. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.