CHAPTER III
A FLASH OF STEEL
That night we sat at the long table in the dining-room of the inn. All up and down its great length sat the officers of the Line—country gentlemen from Cecil, Kent, and as far south as Queen Anne, who had ridden thus far to see the mustering and to give it their countenance and their favour. Grave and sedate gentlemen many of them, men of affairs, the leaders of their counties, and delegates to the Convention and to Congress—men of the oldest and bluest blood in the province, of wide estates and famous names, whose families wielded a mighty influence in the cause of the patriots and gave it stability and great strength.
Then there was the parson, a merry old gentleman, stout of form, with a round face and twinkling eyes, who in his youth was a mighty fox-hunter in spite of his cloth; even then, stout as he had grown, when he heard the music of the hounds, it was with difficulty he restrained the inclination to follow, which now, alas! was made impossible by his great weight. We who loved hard riding, hard fighting, and a strong will, admired him, and no man was more popular throughout the three counties than the fox-hunting parson. He knew the people and their ways, and was one of them.
"I hear you are fire-eaters here," he said to a vestryman upon being installed.
"Then we are well matched," came the reply, "for they say you are a pepperbox."
So no gathering throughout the county was a success without the parson, and by the unanimous voice of the Line he was called to be their chaplain.
We sat there in the long dining-room amid the hum of many voices, the glare of many lights, and the click of the glasses, as the wine was going around, when a young man who sat across the table from me rose with his glass poised between his fingers.