San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-06-29
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PROCESSION.

$500
Before He"ter Prynne could call to.
gether her thoughts and consider what
was practicable to be done in this new
and startling aspect of affairs. the sound
of military music was heard approach.
ing along a contiguous street. 1t de.
noted the advance of the procession OF
magistrates and citizens ON its way to
ward the meeting house, where. in com
pliance with a custom thus early estab
lished and ever since observed, the Rev.
erend Mr.. Dimmesdale was to deliver
an election sermon.
Soon the head of the procession showed
itself, with a slow and stately march,
turning a corner and making its way
across the market place. First CANT
the music. 1t comprised a variety OF
instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapt
ed to one another, and played with nc
great skill, but yet attaining the great
object for which the harmony of drum
and clarion addresses itself to the multi.
tude-that of %imparting a higher and
more heroic air to the scene of life that
passes before the eye.
Little Pearl at first clapped her hands,
but then lost for an instant the restless
agitation that had kept her in a contin.
ual effervescence throughout the morn.
ing. She gazed silently and seemed to
be borne upward, like a floating sea bird
on the long heaves and swells of sound.
But she vas brought back to her former
mood by the simmer of the sunshine on
the weapons and bright m of the
military company which followed after
the music and formed the honorary es.
cort of the procession. This body OF
soldiery, which still sustains a corporate
existence and marches down from past
ages with an ancient and honorable
fame, was composed of no mercenary
materials. Its ranks were filed with gen.
tlemen who felt the STRINGS of martial
impulse and sought to establish a kind
of college of arms, where, as in an asso,
citation Of Knights Templar, they might
learn the science, and. so far as peaceful
exercise would teach them, the practices
of war.
The high estimation then placed upop
the military character might be seen in
the lofty port of each individual mem.
Der of the company. Some of them, in.
deed, by their services in the low coun.
tries and on other fields of European
warfare, had fairly won their title to
assume the name and pomp of soldier.
ship. The entire array, moreover, clad
in FURNISHED steel and with plumage
nodding over their bright morions, had
a brilliancy of effect which no modern
display can aspire to equal.
And yet the men of civil eminence,
who came in mediately behind the mill
tary escort, were better worth a thought
full observer eye. Even in outward de-
meanor they showed a stamp of majesty
that made the warriors naughty stride
look vulgar, if not absurd. y
So far as a demeanor of natural au-
thority was concerned, the mother couI-
try need not have been ashamed to see
these foremost men of an actual democ-
racy adopted into the house of peers OF
made the privy council of the sovereign.
Next in order to the magistrates came
the young and eminently distinguish
divine, from whose lips the religious dis
cours Of the anniversary was expected
His was the profession at that era in
which intellectual ability displayed it
self far more than in political life: for
leaving q higher motive out of the ques
To Be Continued.