The captain was a rough, boisterous sailor, and the other a man with too much manner, and, as I heard later, risen from the ranks. He saluted me with a lively thump on the shoulder, which I did not relish. “Zounds! sir, but you are a stout young Quaker!” “We are most of us Quakers here, captain,” said a quiet gentleman, who saw, I fancy, by my face that this rude greeting was unpleasant to me. “How are you, Hugh?” This was the Master of the Rolls, Mr. John Morris. Then my aunt said, “Go and speak to the ladies--you know them;” and as I turned aside, “I beg pardon, Sir William; this is my nephew, Hugh Wynne.” This was addressed to a high-coloured personage in yellow velvet with gold buttons, and a white flowered waistcoat, and with his queue in a fine hair-net. “This is Sir William Draper, Hugh; he who took Manilla, as you must know.” I did not, nor did I know until later that he was one of the victims of the sharp pen of Junius, with whom, for the sake of the Marquis of Granby, he had rashly ventured to tilt. The famous soldier smiled as I saluted him with my best bow. “Fine food for powder, Mistress Wynne, and already sixteen! I was in service three years earlier. Should he wish for an ensign’s commission, I am at your service.” “Ah, Sir William, that might have been, a year or so ago, but now he may have to fight General Gage.” “The gods forbid! Our poor general!” “Mistress Wynne is a rank Whig,” put in Mrs. Ferguson. “She reads Dickinson’s ‘Farmer’s Letters,’ and all the wicked treason of that man Adams.” “A low demagogue!” cried Mrs. Galloway. “I hear there have been disturbances in Boston, and that because one James Otis has been beaten by our officers, and because our bands play ‘Yankee Doodle’ on Sundays in front of the churches--I beg pardon, the meetings--Mr. Robinson, the king’s collector, has had to pay and apologise. Most shameful it is!” “I should take short measures,” said the sailor. “And I,” cried Etherington. “I have just come from Virginia, but not a recruit could I get. It is like a nest of ants in a turmoil, and the worst of all are the officers who served in the French war. There is, too, a noisy talker, Patrick Henry, and a Mr. Washington.” “I think it was he who saved the wreck of the king’s army under Mr. Braddock,” said my aunt. “I can remember how they all looked. Not a wig among them. The lodges must have been full of them, but their legs saved their scalps.” “Is it for this they call them wigwams?” cries naughty Miss Chew. “Fie! fie!” says her mamma, while my aunt laughed merrily. “A mere Potomac planter,” said Etherington, “‘pon my soul--and with such airs, as if they were gentlemen of the line.” “Perhaps,” said my aunt, “they had not had your opportunities of knowing all grades of the service.” The major flushed. “I have served the king as well as I know how, and I trust, madam, I shall have the pleasure to aid in the punishment of some of these insolent rebels.”