The convention over, the delegates went to their homes to make ready for the impending conflict. The war spirit was abroad throughout the Old Dominion, and young Allison found Nat unequal to the riding he was required to do and was furnished with another horse. Volunteers, with such arms as they could procure, 174 drilled daily and some among them were eager for the fray to begin; but, when once it was begun, not a few lost much of their ardour.
As Patrick Henry had predicted, the next gale sweeping from the North was to bring to the waiting ears of the Virginians the clash of resounding arms, of the shots fired by the farmers in homespun from behind stone walls and fences, all the way from Lexington to Boston, into the ranks of panic-stricken British soldiers. The day after that event, April 20th, though before the news of Lexington reached Virginia, the minute men of the Old Dominion were to shoulder their guns in defiance of British authority.
CHAPTER XX
RALLYING VIRGINIA’S MINUTE MEN
The evening after Rodney returned to Charlottesville, Angus rode over on a raw-boned steed that evidently had outlived his day for leaping fences and following the hounds.
“What d’ye think of him, Rod?”
“Why, he’s some horse, looks like a blooded one,” replied Rodney, speaking as favourably as he could, for he liked Angus and knew the boy had been a little envious of late. “Where did you get him?”
“He’s one Squire Herndon got down on the Pamunkey. Reckon I made a good trade, fer I found he was blind in one eye an’ the squire took him fer a bad debt an’ already had more hosses than he could feed.”