Ever afterward the Hon. Samuel
Budd called it ``The Gentle and
Joyous Passage of Arms--not of Ashby--
but of the Gap, by-suh!'' The Hon.
Samuel had arranged it as nearly after Sir
Walter as possible. And a sudden leap it
was from the most modern of games to a
game most ancient.

No knights of old ever jousted on a
lovelier field than the green little valley toward
which the Hon. Sam waved one big hand.
It was level, shorn of weeds, elliptical
in shape, and bound in by trees that ran
in a semicircle around the bank of the river,
shut in the southern border, and ran back
to the northern extremity in a primeval
little forest that wood-thrushes, even then,
were making musical--all of it shut in by
a wall of living green, save for one narrow
space through which the knights were to
enter. In front waved Wallens' leafy
ridge and behind rose the Cumberland
Range shouldering itself spur by spur, into
the coming sunset and crashing eastward
into the mighty bulk of Powell's Mountain,
which loomed southward from the
head of the valley--all nodding sunny
plumes of chestnut.