r, and, while they were
drinking, heard a loyalist tell what one Parker, leader of the
Lexington rebels, said to his men on Lexington Common, on the morning
of April 19th, when the King's troops came in sight.

"'Stand your ground,' says he. 'Don't fire till you're fired on, but
if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!'"

"And it began there!" said Harry.

The English officers stared at him, and laughed.

"Ay, 'twas the Yankee idea of war," said one of them. "Run for a stone
wall, and, when the enemy's back is turned, blaze away. I'd like to
see a million of the clodhoppers compelled to stand up and face a line
of grenadiers."

"Ay, gimme ten companies of grenadiers," cried one, who had doubtless
heard of General Gage's celebrated boast, "and I'll go from one end of
the damned country to the other, and drive 'em to their holes like
foxes. Only 'tis better sport chasing handsome foxes in England than
ill-dressed poltroons in Bumpkin-land."

"They're not all poltroons," said Harry, repressing his feelings the
more easily through long practice. "Some of them fought in the French
war. There's Putnam, and Pomeroy, and Ward. I heard Lieutenant-Colonel
Abercrombie, of the Twenty-second, say yesterday that Putnam--"

"Cowards every one of 'em," broke in another. "Cowards and louts. A
lady told me t'other day there ain't in all America a man whose coat
sets in close at the back, except he's of the loyal party. Cowards and
louts!"

"Look here, damn you!" cried Peyton. "I want you to know I'm American
born, and my people are American, and I don't know whether they are of
the loyal party or not!"

"Oh, now, that's the worst of you Americans,--always will get
personal! Of course, there are exceptions."

"Then there are exceptions enough to make a rule themselves," said
Harry. "I'm tired hearing you call these people cowards before you've
had a chance to see what they are. And you needn't wait for that, for
I can tell you now they're not!"

"Well, well, perhaps not,--to you. Doubtless they're very dreadful,--to
you. You don't seem to relish facing 'em, that's a fact! You'll be
resigning your commission one o' these days, I dare say, if it comes to
blows with these terrible heroes!"

Harry saw everybody in the room looking at him with a grin.

"By the Lord," said he, "maybe I shall!" and stalked hotly out of the
place.

His wrath increased as he walked. He noticed now, more than before,
the confident, arrogant