Around midnight in Lexington, Paul Revere and William Dawes met Dr. Samuel Prescott of Concord as he was riding home after courting Lydia Mulliken, and Prescott agreed to help spread the alarm that the Regulars were out. The three men soon encountered a patrol of ten mounted British officers posted there to keep news of the British march from reaching Concord. Revere was captured, Dawes escaped back toward Lexington, and Prescott leaped his horse over a stone wall and evaded pursuit. Prescott carried the alarm to Concord and beyond. Revere was questioned, detained for a time, then released after the British officers confiscated his horse, and he walked back to Lexington in time to hear gunfire at dawn on the town Common.