In 1830 the anniversary was held in the St. Thomas Hotel, when “the prettiest girl in the district” led off with the Colonel. She was dressed “in a sky-blue poplin stripe”--a blue satin and a white stripe alternating--“embossed, trimmed with white satin and white blonde,” white flowers and white gloves; her shoes she made herself, getting Hyndman, the bootmaker, to add fine dancing soles to them. Any one to whom the Colonel paid his rare attentions at once became an object of interest and perhaps envy. His complexion won for him several inelegant comparisons, and the pretty girl was twitted about “that old turkey-cock,” and “folks said she would not leave till his health was drunk for the last time.” In the succeeding years, as ’37 troubles loomed and burned and settled into quiet again, the character of this entertainment changed. The regiment stationed in London and St. Thomas contributed to the gathering, and the red-coats only too successfully did by the home-spun as they had done previously by the “black-coated laity.” They even supplanted the original toast with “Here’s to red wine, red coats, _red face_ and right royal memories.” The red face of the Colonel was the only relic of former times left. The peasant and lord of the manor element in the feast changed; the very celebration of it was removed from St. Thomas to London, where it soon died a natural death, the old zest gone, the raison d’être of its being destroyed. * * * * * For warlike times, these western Deborahs had an easy billet. Farther east and on the Niagara frontier the women knew more of what war really meant. There were short periods of anxiety, as in Galt, when the order came to muster, and great was the consternation among the wives. They met in congregation, all crying over the husbands they might see no more. But the husbands were returned to them that same night, whole and sound, and the rejoicing was proportionate. One company told off to make arrests at different points came across an Atalanta, who this time used her powers to save a husband. In the house of one of the suspects an assemblage was found talking over rebellion matters with great zest and with no marked admiration of the loyalist side of it. A private was sent to the barn where it was hoped the host might be found, and another was directed to hold this said wife while others should go over the fields to arrest her husband, who would be unprepared for them. She dodged the volunteer and took to flight, the man in pursuit, down the path-way, over scrub, through fields, through bush, through briar, over park, over pale--and the advantage lay in the fences. She, with skilful management of dress, vaulted the accustomed “snake” like a bird; he came to grief in a mixture of rail, ditchwater and mud. This gave her such a start that by the time he picked himself up she had reached her goal, and man and wife were so safely hidden that no sign of them could be seen.