Free Paxton's War by Kerry Newcomb Page B

he finished, and without looking back he turned and stalked away.
    â€œFather is sometimes … blunt to a fault,” Joy awkwardly tried to explain to Peter and Jason. “He means no harm.”
    â€œI’m terribly sorry if I’ve bungled your reunion, old man,” Peter apologized with genuine regret. “Perhaps it would be best if I—”
    â€œIt has nothing to do with you,” Jason consoled his friend. “It’s an old matter between my father and myself.”
    â€œHe’ll feel different tomorrow,” Joy promised. “The excitement of the picnic has everyone overwrought. He’s glad to see you, Jase. I know he is.”
    Shaken by the exchange between father and son, Colleen found herself questioning Jason’s politics. There had been so little time—virtually none—for them to talk. Could his father be right? There was the matter of Peter Tregoning, after all. Was it possible that Jason harbored Tory sentiments or was, God forbid, an out-and-out Tory? The possibility stunned her and left her knees weak, but there was no time to question him because Buckley and a large group of his friends, their mugs raised in fellowship, had begun to sing an altered version of the spirited “Liberty Song,” one of the most popular songs of the day. Their voices were directed at the rebel sympathizers at the picnic who, with Hope and Allan in their midst, stood defiantly and listened.
    Come shake your dull noodles, ye rebels, and bawl,
    And own that you’re fools at fair Liberty’s call;
    No scandalous conduct can add to your fame,
    Condemned to dishonor, inherit the shame.
    In folly you’re born and in folly you’ll live.
    To madness still ready
    And stupidly steady,
    Not as men but as monkeys the token you give.
    The challenge was not to go unanswered. With Ethan—and Colleen, Jason noted with alarm—at his side, Allan lifted his arms and conducted the Patriots in their own original, and louder and lustier, version of the same song:
    Come swallow your ale, ye Tories, and roar
    That sons of fair freedom are hampered once more.
    But know that no cutthroats our spirits can tame,
    Nor a host of oppressors shall smother the flame.
    In freedom we’re born, like the sons of the brave,
    We’ll never surrender
    But swear to defend her,
    And scorn to survive, if unable to save.
    The Tories retorted by repeating their version, only to be drowned out by still another rebel rendering, this time with Colleen’s voice and defiance growing even angrier. At one point, she looked to Jason, who could only shrug as if to say, “I don’t know the words.”
    The rebels gathered to the west of the horseshoe pits and the Tories to the east, splitting the picnic virtually in half. With other members of the community who, for a variety of reasons, were reluctant to commit themselves, Jason, Peter, and Joy stood off to one side. Louder and louder, more a brawl of voices, the words mixed in a grand cacophony of shouting that bore, with flat notes, off key and sour, little relationship to singing.
    â€œBeautiful voices,” Peter said, wincing at one particularly sour note. “A veritable choir of angels.”
    There were hints of violence in the voices, and daring, taunting looks in the eyes of the singers. “You’ll have to admit it’s lively,” Jason quipped, trying to maintain his humor even as he worried that the musical struggle would soon turn physical. All semblance of patience vanished as the warring versions of “Liberty Song” clashed disonantly. Louder and louder, angrier and angrier, until it seemed as if all the sounds of the natural world—children’s cries, chirping birds, whining puppies, croaking frogs—had been drowned out by voices intent on victory until the explosion of a single musket shot broke the spell and turned the heads of the feverish singers.
    There, where the carriages had