The gentlemen, who were gathered on the broad, bare brow of the one-tree hill, were in all, twelve or thirteen in number, all at first sight men of gentle blood and generous education, although as there ever is, ever must be in every company, whether of men or of inferior animals, there was one to whom every eye, even of the unknown stranger or the ignorant peasant, would have naturally turned as evidently and undoubtedly the superior of the party, both in birth and breeding; he mingled nevertheless with the rest on the most perfect terms not of equality only, but of intimate familiar intercourse and friendship. No terms of ceremonial, no titles of rank or territorial influence, but simple Christian names passed between those gay and joyous youths; nor was there any thing in the habit of the wearers, or the mounting of the riders, to indicate the slightest difference in their positions of social well-being and well-doing. One youth, however, who answered to the name of Gerald, and sometimes to the patrimonial Howard, was so far the handsomer both in form and feature, the statelier in stature, the gracefuller in gesture, the manlier in bearing, the firmer and easier of seat and hand on his hunter, that any one would have been prompt to say almost at a glance, there is the man of all this gentle and generous group, whom, if war wakes its clangor in the land, if external perils threaten its coasts, or internal troubles shake its state, foreign war or domestic strife will alike find the foremost, whether in his seat with the senate, or in his saddle on the field, wielding with equal force and skill the stateman’s, scholar’s, soldier’s eye, tongue, sword—all honored him, indeed, and he deserved that all should honor him. I have omitted, not forgotten or neglected, to mention as first and fairest of that fair company, a bevy of half a dozen fair and graceful girls—not like the gentlemen, all of one caste, but as was evident, not so much from the difference of their grace and beauty—though in these also there was a difference—as from the relative difference of position which they maintained, four remaining somewhat in the rear of the other two, and not mingling unless first addressed in the conversation, and from some distinction in the costliness and material of their attire.