Volunteer Contingent at
Pembroke Rectory.
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HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVER-
NOR AND HIS LORDSHIP
THE BISHOP PRESENT.
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Men Present Smart Appearance.
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The weather was favourable on Tuesday afternoon and the pretty grounds of Pembroke Rectory looked their best when Mrs. Davidson and the Venerable Archdeacon Davidson received the Volunteer Contingent.
Quite a number of guests were present when the volunteers marched up the road and into the Rectory field.
His Excellency having made a brief inspection the contingent �dressed and stood at ease� and after being regaled with iced drinks enjoyed an excellent tea which was spread on tables dotted about the lawn.
The Volunteers were assidiously waited on by various young ladies who seem to have become a valuable asset to the kindly entertainers of the Contingent and who are becoming quite proficient in supplying their wants in the way of cakes, sandwiches, etc.
The Right Rev. The Bishop moved from table to table, conversing with the young men and evidently most keenly interested in their progress.
Amongst the ladies present were Mrs. Davidson, Mrs. Musson Wainwright, Mrs. Groves, Mrs. G. C. Masters, Mrs. E. Tucker, Mrs. Richard Tucker, Mrs. and Miss Mitchell and Mrs. Appleby.
Private Stuckberry who came up from Dominica to join in the defence of the Mother Country is an Englishman, born in Maidenhead, Surrey. He is almost, if not quite the tallest man in the Contingent.
A most picturesque view was obtained in looking down from the terrace above the lawn. The blue grey shirts of the Volunteers the white linen on the tables, against a background of red acalipha made up a scene truly of Bermuda and yet with that new tone of unrest and seperation which tinges everything to-day and which was once so foreign to our peaceful life.
And yet no new element, however disturbing and in itself regretable, can be wholly a misfortune when it can draw the bonds which bind our little island to the great Motherland so closely as to rouse such feelings of patriotism and self sacrifice that a Volunteer Contingent like ours can spring into being.
Who could have told, a year ago how much or how little the birthright of a Britisher was worth to any of our young men who were sharing in Bermuda�s pleasantly monotonous life?
We know now. We know that to all those who are going, if necessary, to the Front, to all those who are learning to be efficient Home Guards, to all those who are giving their leisure, their comfort, and their work, the name of �a Britisher� means something --something worth fighting for, worth dying for. To the long roll of men who in every age have been honoured as defenders of our Empire, Bermuda�s little band, though small in numbers, may in all truth be added. They are animated by as fine a spirit and have as noble a cause as any this great world has ever seen.
And, indeed, they looked a fine upstanding body of young men, browned by Bermuda�s good air, as they marched out of the Rectory grounds in good order to the accompaniment of ringing cheers for the Archdeacon and Mrs. Davidson, their kind entertainers.
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