156 THE SQUIRE AND HIS YOLUNTEERS. 



souls throbbed witb tbe same national feeling, and 

 wbo were equally ready to respond to a call to 

 maintain tbe sacredness of their homes, or to risk 

 their lives in their defence. Oneyers and Moneyers 

 — men ''whose words upon 'change would go much 

 further than their blows in battle,'' as Falstaff says, 

 came forward, if for nothing else, as examples to 

 others. On both banks of the Severn men looked 

 upon the Squire as a sort of local centre, and as the 

 head of a district, as a leader whom they would 

 follow — as one old tradesman said — to hell, if neces- 

 sary. A general meeting was called at the Guild- 

 hall, Wenlock, and a still more enthusiastic gather- 

 ing took place at "W^illey. Mr. Forester never did 

 things by halves, and what he did he did at once. 

 He was not much at speech-making, but he had 

 that ready wit and happy knack of going to the 

 point and hitting the nail on the head in good 

 round Saxon, that told amazingly with his old fox- 

 hunting friends. 



" Gentlemen," he said, " you know very well 

 that I have retired from the representation of the 

 borough. I did so in the belief that I had dis- 

 charged, as long as need be, those public duties I 

 owe to my neighbours; and in the hope that I 



