"My plantation grows good tobacco too, James, and I also have a thousand weight of prime leaf which talks back to your thousand weight, and tells it that Cressy is the second best three year old in Virginia, not the best." "Done. Nothing is left but to arrange the time." Both at this moment noticed Robert, who was sitting not far away, and they hailed him with glad voices. He remembered meeting them earlier in the evening. They were young men, Walter Stuart and James Cabell, who had inherited great estates on the James and they shipped their tobacco in their own vessels to London, and detecting in Robert a somewhat kindred spirit they had received him with great friendliness. Already they were old acquaintances in feeling, if not in time. "Lennox, listen to this vain boaster!" exclaimed Cabell. "He has a good horse, I admit, but his spirit has become unduly inflated about it. You know, don't you, Lennox, that my colt, Cressy, has all Virginia beaten in speed?" "You know nothing of the kind, Lennox!" exclaimed Stuart, "but you do know that my three year old Blenheim is the swiftest horse ever bred in the colony. Now, don't you?" "I can't give an affirmative to either of you," laughed Robert, "as I've never seen your horses, but this I do say, I shall be very glad to see the test and let the colts decide it for themselves." "A just decision, O Judge!" said Stuart. "You shall have an honored place as a guest when the match is run. What say you to tomorrow morning at ten, James?" "A fit hour, Walter. You ride Blenheim yourself, of course?" "Truly, and you take the mount on Cressy?" "None other shall ride him. I've black boys cunning with horses, but since it's horse against horse it should also be master against master." "A match well made, and 'twill be a glorious contest. Come, Lennox, you shall be a judge, and so shall be your friend Willet, and so shall that splendid Indian, Tayoga." Robert was delighted. He had thrown himself with his whole soul into the Virginia life, and he was eager to see the race run. So were all the others, and even the grave eyes of Tayoga sparkled when he heard of it. It was broad daylight when he went to bed, but he was up at noon, and in the afternoon he went to the House of Burgesses to hear the governor make a speech to the members on the war and its emergencies. Dinwiddie, like Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, appreciated the extreme gravity of the crisis, and his address was solemn and weighty.