Captain Lamphrey’s treats were full of unexpected results. One of the loyal, who carried despatches to Hamilton, went to him one early morning with signs of too many glasses already apparent and asked for more. The captain could not refuse, knew the despatch must go, and saw its safety was already endangered. He took H. M.’s special messenger to the cellar and drew a glass of vinegar. “Drink it, man; down with it! down with it!” which was done, and the lately demoralized special messenger was “as sober as a clock.” It was a joke to the Wellington neighbourhood that one company should be headed by a Captain Poore and another by a Captain Rich. A brusque Yorkshireman, William Day, volunteered in Poore’s company. The roads were very bad, food was scarce, and as Day got hungry his loyalty waned. At last he demanded something to eat. This was flat rebellion; Poore called it insubordination, and said that instead of comforts Day should have night guard, and stand upon his feet until the small hours lengthened. “So you won’t give me anything to eat?” “No.” “Then I know where I can get it, and that’s at Guelph. And I’d like to see the man that’d stand between me and that door.” No one offered to do so, and he walked back twenty-six miles, “got his victuals,” and so ended his active military service. Captain Poore had been endeavouring for two or three years to form a volunteer rifle company. There was little time, and less inclination, to play at soldiering; but by ’35, when agitation among the progressive begot anxiety in the less progressive, he succeeded in forming a company sixty strong, which drilled every Saturday in a corner of his own farm. Many of the settlers were not gushing in their loyalty to the powers that were, and, while not allying themselves with Mackenzie, “had the governing party been drowned in the depths of the sea not a solitary cry would have gone up for them.” Even the schoolboys were keen politicians, and regarded those who dwelt in the shadow of the Pact as very poor types of humanity. Those who were of the required age and ordered to meet for drill every two weeks at the cross-roads, but who had not sufficient courage of their convictions to refuse service, performed it in a half-hearted manner. The most regular attendants were the schoolboys. They snowballed the men and snowballed the captain, made game of the execution of the various military movements and of Mr. Hiscock. The latter was the drill-instructor, an old soldier, who dressed partly in military uniform and carried a cane. Pompously he walked back and forth, contemptuous of the roll-call. One little Englishman, when going through the required answers, was asked, “Married or single?” “Single, sir, but under promise,” was the reply.