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The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps.
Let us take it for granted that we have seen enough of the miseries of warfare to last us for a while, and keep us contented with militia musters and sham-fights.
"For having set in the Hotel des Tournelles six panes of white glass in the place where the iron cage is, thirteen sols; for having made and delivered by command of the king, on the day of the musters, four shields with the escutcheons of the said seigneur, encircled with garlands of roses all about, six livres; for two new sleeves to the king's old doublet, twenty sols; for a box of grease to grease the boots of the king, fifteen deniers; a stable newly made to lodge the king's black pigs, thirty livres parisis; many partitions, planks, and trap-doors, for the safekeeping of the lions at Saint-Paul, twenty-two livres."
When the musters had been made, and duly reported, the young men, as was usual, were to mix in various sports, of which the chief was to shoot at the popinjay, an ancient game formerly practised with archery, but at this period with fire-arms. The Festival of the Popinjay is still, I believe, practised at Maybole, in Ayrshire.
My father was an honest burgher of Perth, and could use his needle as well as I can. Did there come war to the gates of our fair burgh, down went needles, thread, and shamoy leather, and out came the good head piece and target from the dark nook, and the long lance from above the chimney. Show me a day that either he or I was absent when the provost made his musters!
If anything could have added to the gayety of the fire, such an outburst would. In after years I sailed under the command of this speechmaker. At monthly musters he reserved to himself the prerogative of reading the Articles, probably thinking that he did it more effectively than the first lieutenant; in which he was quite right.
He has made five or six turns round the room; but each time he has turned on his heels to begin his walk all over again, the little invalid has made a slight movement of her eyebrows in a vain attempt to remind him that the slightest noise fatigues her. At last he musters all his courage and utters a protest against her pretended malady, in the bold phrase: "And have you really a headache?"
Let us take it for granted that we have seen enough of the miseries of warfare to last us for a while, and keep us contented with militia musters and sham-fights.
'All right, says father, and he sat down on a log, and began to tell us how there was any quantity of cattle running at the back where they were camped a good lot strayed and mixed up, from the last dry season, and had never been mustered for years. The stockmen hardly ever came out till the autumn musters. One of the chaps that was in it knew all this side and had told them.
Excepting Jamestown, this was the largest fleet in the Colony although the Eastern Shore was close with its five. There were fifty-four separate musters or groups in Elizabeth City with the largest of them being that of Capt. William Tucker including his wife and daughter, "borne in Virginia in August," and eighteen others.
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